When you become a parent, you meet your child. And then you meet your child again. And again, every day after that. You will never stop meeting your child. That is one reason to become a parent: To have a child is to fall in love with a thousand beautiful strangers.
Derek Thompson puts into words a feeling I have felt over and over with my children. I would only add that was my second kid, it only multiplies. I had to throw out everything I knew about parenting and start from scratch all over with him. It’s a feeling like nothing else.
Spite. A music player that is local first, but still shareable. I’m still using Museeks but this is one to keep an eye on.
Fuck it. I am the initiator.
Edgar wright makes 80s action, which does successfully repackage Cold War era paranoia into our modern AI-laced, commoditized tech dystopia. Which makes you think that this film would be really good. But it’s mostly just ok.
Hal… play our song and light the fire.
The Roses is a love story, as its title would lead you to believe. Just not the one you’d expect. More of a tortuous, farcical love that hands us an opportunity to see two incredible performances bounce off each other for an hour and a half.
Nothing is of its own explanation. Is there a better description of a cube than its own construction?
The decay of the American dream told in a profound, lyrical, winding epic. Like the buildings at the center of the film there is no way to understand it than to watch it. The rise and fall of compassion, and a revelation at the end that grounds the entire narrative.
A tough watch at times to be sure, but beautifully constructed.
In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Roy Bland captures a cynical, post-ideological, corrupt English society: “You scratch my conscience; I’ll drive your Jag.” You could say the same of today’s Silicon Valley. It used to believe it could change the world. Now it just hopes the world won’t change its stock price.
Think Different? Not anymore.
Om captures the lost soul of Silicon Valley. Where do we go from here?
Stuart Robson may have solved the problem of refactoring legacy CSS. Though I have to be honest, the web history buff in me just wants to use this to do some genuine digital archaeology on some long-running codebases.
Look how cool this is:
What I wouldn’t have asked, though, was “Is John getting paid?” As hard as it may be to believe, back in 2004, the default was that people made new standards for open technologies like Markdown, and just shared them freely for the good of the internet, and the world, and then went on about their lives.
Buried in Anil Dash’s brisk, but comprehensive history of markdown is a thesis of the souls of the internet self. Through asides and parenthetical, Dash is actually painting a parallel timeline of the web, one that is open and free and easily accessible. Markdown stands as proof that that version of the internet already exists. It’s not some imagined future. It’s there, if you look for it. And we can all keep working on it, even as the powers that be try to centralize and commoditize the internets largest corners.
TIL lobsters aren’t immortal, but they are weirdly close to it. If they live to be a certain size, they reach the top of the food chain. At that point, they continue shedding their exoskeleton until it takes too much energy to do so, at which point they more or less die of exhaustion. Jellyfish really are immortal though.
Trying food from every country in the world, only in New York City in the most open-hearted and curious way. Seeing something like this, in the midst of everything else, is really something.
This is a good Wikipedia 25th anniversary post.
It’s the positivity mixed with the personal accountability of Mamdani that is so unique and hopeful to me. I want to see more of it.
I never want to hear any moral grandstanding from these boys ever again. The next time Tim Cook says “privacy is a human right,” the only possible response is to laugh in his face.
Elizabeth Lopatto brings the truth over on the Verge.
For as long as I can remember, my country has been at war. We have never called it war, of course. That would be obscene. Counter-terrorism, perhaps. International law enforcement is a new one.
They have been wars though. And the effects have been as dramatic as any other war that has come before it. Each time we create a power vacuum, something horrible and unpredictable fils the void. We become enraptured by short-term, marginal wins, and then we move on. Who cares what comes next?
I expect in the next few months, accusations of drug crimes will become increasingly weaponized. They will be used to justify unspeakable international crimes. The next Patriot Act will have the same agenda, but modify the language to swap in narcotics for terrorism. We will hear calls about protecting democracy and bringing freedom abroad. The ends justify the means. America knows best. A moral imperative.
But we will be at war nonetheless. And I will continue to ask, when will they stop?
But perhaps the death of search is good for the future of the web. Perhaps websites can be free of dumb rankings and junky ads that are designed to make fractions of a penny at a time. Perhaps the web needs to be released from the burden of this business model.
So Many Websites, by Robin Randle. Pairs well with Dave Winer’s recent post, Of the Web.
There’s a web underneath the commodification of everything that still very much exists. And I think, even after all this time, blogs are still the best way to bring it out.
This makes me think about the free web.
One Battle After Another (2025): “Sixteen years later, the world had hardly changed.” A film as uncanny and precise as any Pynchon novel, complimented by performances, cinematography and a soundtrack that fully flesh it out. I could watch this movie 10 more times and never get bored.
Pluribus continues to just bring it each and every week. Hitchcock level drama.
via Oliver Burkeman, and clipped from John Stilgoe’s Outside Lies Magic
Links
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
We call this quality resonance. It’s the experience of encountering something that speaks to our deeper values. It’s a spark of recognition, a sense that we’re being invited to lean in, to participate.
This is a really impressive, and concise manifesto. Can sometimes feel like a faraway pipe dream, but maybe that’s the point.
How to get through cold, wet, dreary days
Reading provided me with proof that other ways of living were possible. Reading provided me with proof that people could love each other.
Same. Just same.
Watched
Superman: I know I’m late to the party, okay. Cheesy in mostly the right ways. Good reminder that Superman does good.
Emily the Criminal: There’s wrong turns everywhere. What’s there to do when we’ve created a world that always pushes you towards one? There’s a really devastating cycle at the heart of this one.
Other
/ Might try this chicken harvest sweetgreen dupe/ A privacy first newsletter platform with no stats which maybe I should consider moving to/ This tweet is really good
Some really impressive names put this together and it speaks, I think, to a movement that has always been there under the surface.
We call this quality resonance. It’s the experience of encountering something that speaks to our deeper values. It’s a spark of recognition, a sense that we’re being invited to lean in, to participate. Unlike the digital junk food of the day, the more we engage with what resonates, the more we’re left feeling nourished, grateful, alive. As individuals, following the breadcrumbs of resonance helps us build meaningful lives. As communities, companies, and societies, cultivating shared resonance helps us break away from perverse incentives, and play positive-sum infinite games together
This movie’s trailer makes it seem like it’s going to be a classic love triangle. It’s much more complex than that. It’s the first honest confrontation of modern dating that I’ve seen, and a recognition of the intangibility of love. Celine Song delivers her message beautifully and directly, wrapped up in an elegant rom-com with all the right notes.
Paul Ford on why blogging is the canary in the coal mine for when a technology becomes boring and normal.
People sometimes talk about the golden age of blogging but less about why people blogged: No one had money, and nothing is cheaper than putting words online. When the money flies to money heaven, and the startups become enddowns, the conference budgets are often the first thing to go. Nerds still want to talk their nerd talk, though. That’s when they start posting—it’s the only way to figure out who you are. Eventually, AI’s C/B ratio will start to tip blogward
I hope AI becomes boring pretty soon too Paul.