Every time I reinstate this policy my free-floating anxiety goes down, I have more mental energy in general, and I'm actually better informed, do with it what you will: 1. Set a timer *before* opening any social media, log out when it's done. 2. No social media on my phone #CriticalIgnoring

Every country needs to be following Finland's lead here. Media literary skills are going to be crucially important in the age of AI, where knowing what's real and what's not is going to be increasingly difficult apnews.com/article/fake...

Even if you think the odds of this happening have risen from 1% to say 20%, this is *insane* on a level that's hard to process.

Update from the teens: Jan 1 was supposed to be “the great meme reset.” 6 7 is over. The meme slate has been wiped clean. 2026 will be the year of fresh brainrot.

Wrote about an obvious and yet profoundly underappreciated aspect of the AI boom: its total narrative capture by Elon Musk's X nymag.com/intelligence...

“the new organizational chart contains the clearest evidence yet that the Trump administration has seized control of an agency that has historically been mostly free of White House interference.”

claude code is fucking insane i know literally NOTHING about Hegel. ZERO. and it just built me a complete system of German idealism

Casey did basic due diligence here, and it's depressing (and not even a little surprising) how many people wrote takes/stories on the post without doing that.

friend was clearing out his record collection, almost can't believe this haul

greetings from hell

I have discovered -- belatedly and somewhat accidentally -- that the best thing about Bluesky is the way it lets me customize my experience, beyond choosing who to follow. I do wish that finding and managing lists wasn't quite as buried in the interface as it is.

Wrote this before yesterday but it gets at what undergirds that (and lots of other things in politics). "The internet universalized subjectivity instead of objectivity. … We have reverted from acting on what we *know* to acting on what we *think*."

“[F]racked gas companies are fully backed by the Trump administration, with its ideological dedication to fossil fuels and its cozy relationship with billionaire oil and gas donors. For its part, Big Tech is going along, largely sidelining its purported commitments to renewable energy."

🧪 A fascinating discussion of the disjunct between biological systems and digital computation, that really emphasises the vast gulf between the neurons in our brains and the nodes in a computer-hosted neural network.

Polymarket really has become the ultimate place to engage in insider trading on privileged information. I'm not sure we're prepared for what happens when any outcome -- including violent ones -- can be wagered on.

"A newly created account appeared to invest $30,000 Friday in Maduro's exit. After Maduro went into custody Saturday morning, that same investor netted $436,759." www.axios.com/2026/01/03/m...

“The “CAPE” compares the past decade of corporate earnings to current stock market prices. When the ratio is high, it’s often a sign that stocks are overvalued. Right now it’s over 39, the highest level it’s been since the dotcom bubble”

This excellent film may start a little slow, but stick with it. It's a powerful short documentary about neo-colonial exploitation in the digital economy.

So if this is accurate reporting (originally from October) then it makes the current talk of investment and “transition” governments much clearer. It seems Maduro was exploring possible negotiated settlements but Rubio drew a hard line at his remaining in power. www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-...

So in all the Discourse™ this morning I'm not seeing any mention of the obvious historical precedent here -- the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. This feels eerily similar. Are there historians comparing the two, yet? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...

I love this trend of the return of buttons. I wrote about its earliest days way back in September 2024. I wish I could find new angles on it besides cars. Anyone else noticing a return of buttons elsewhere in tech / tools?

I'm only halfway through this video but it is already one of the best pieces of science communication I have ever witnessed. Truly amazing even if you are only peripherally interested in microchips -- just from a physics / chemistry / engineering perspective.

I love this feed for science. Is there a similar one for what I can only call "the science of tech"? As in, the kind of engineering / deep research stuff that might appear in IEEE spectrum but could also, on a good day, show up in WIRED?

My #1 resolution for 2026 is to practice what I preach: CRITICAL IGNORING is in my opinion *the* phrase to know, understand and internalize going forward. The more I practice it, the more ways I find to apply it. It's low-key life-changing when adopted whole-heartedly.

NEW: People are using Elon Musk's chatbot, Grok, to alter images to depict real women being sexually abused, humiliated, hurt, and even killed. futurism.com/future-socie...

My #1 resolution for 2026 is to practice what I preach: CRITICAL IGNORING is in my opinion *the* phrase to know, understand and internalize going forward. The more I practice it, the more ways I find to apply it. It's low-key life-changing when adopted whole-heartedly.

One thing I wrote about here is how technology has made buses *way* more convenient while techno-futurists were obsessed with flying taxis and self-driving cars.

“…grandparents belong to a generation that experimented with sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. As they reach older age, they are not giving up their old habits.”

“It almost goes without saying that Americans are the world’s leading refund seekers; consumers in Japan seldom return anything.“

Ocean heating defies all earlier projections. We are on the worst possible track. Yet this has completely vanished as a topic of conversation in America.

The economic disruption/sabotage of deporting millions of workers at time of near full employment is only just beginning to be felt. “Construction can’t continue”: South Texas builders say ICE arrests have upended industry www.texastribune.org/2025/12/24/s...

The bollard hasn’t moved a single inch. Total domination. #WorldBollardAssociation

if you're a collector of tales about how the Great AI Stock Market Mega-bubble is gonna pop, Michael Burry (of the Big Short) on Michael Lewis's podcast is quite good: (Burry never gives interviews, so this is rare) www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/aga...

you joke about having a large son and then one day you wake up and the kid that just yesterday was practically swimming in a plane seat next to you is six feet tall and taking up all the armrests and it's like, dude

every time I'm using WiFi on a plane I'm like ... so the signal goes ... to space ... and back to a ground station near the Arctic circle ... and from there to the internet ... through the oceans? shit is wild, man

I refuse to learn who will stencil is

Context you rarely hear: global stocks are up about 30% over the past year. U.S. stocks? Around 18%. That means American investors underperformed the world by about 12 percentage points, even while headlines called it a “fantastic year.”

my book comes out in precisely a month! it's a practical guide to how to use AI for those who hate the way it's being shoved down everyone's throats but who also know that, every once in a while, it's handy

some good climate/energy news: * 96% of new US power capacity was carbon-free in 2024 (56 gigawatts!) * 2025 included the first month ever when 51% of power on the U.S. grid was carbon-free * The golbal trend is overwhelming: The world is now investing more $ in clean energy than fossil fuels

as a person who makes stuff for a living some of my favorite stories are about the endless rejections creators of famous works had to endure, and the ways that great art almost didn't happen even after it got a green light almost anything you feel an attachment to, it has a crazy backstory

blessed are those who send emails over the holidays, for their messages can be safely ignored

Muppet Christmas Carol is so good, man. Everyone involved just taking it to 100.

It's funny how us parochial Americans generally seem to perceive that the EV revolution is stalling or reversing when in fact it's accelerating rapidly worldwide. 25% of cars sold globally in 2025 were EVs! It's mostly just the US that's being left behind

AI ran into a brick wall trying to control smart home devices this year, which feels like the canary in the coal mine for a lot of things. Excellent @jp2e.bsky.social dive into why and what comes next www.theverge.com/tech/845958/...

"this could have been slop, but it's not" is rapidly becoming a surefire signifier of premium-ness

“.. More than 42 million Americans hold student loans.” @cnbc.com www.cnbc.com/2025/12/23/s...

everyone I've ever esteemed who posts a lot has at least one post where it's like "ok grandpa..." and that is OK. everyone is trying to make sense of a polluted media environment, no one is immune to emotional reasoning, brains are weird, all posting is preliminary and reasoning iterative

so very true

Well deserved. Also one of my all-time favorite newsletters ever, on health and wellness but also about, like, ~everything~

read CHIPWRECKED here www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...