TIL the CIA killed off its invaluable World Factbook...with a press release dated today?? WTF, is this yet more Trump fuckery? www.cia.gov/stories/stor...

Re-read “Ur-Fascism” by Umberto Eco, which is another big picture view of the time and movement we are now in. He even provides a checklist one can use to assess a fascist moment, and we check all the boxes. theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umbe...

Fiber-laying ship, Cork, Sept 2025

The solstice officially passed here half an hour ago. The Oak King has slain the Holly King and we return to the light. Merry Soltice to you all ☀️ 💛

My best little buddy is no longer in pain; but I am going to miss him so much.

Still Life with Basket and Six Oranges - 1888 https://botfrens.com/collections/46/contents/14428

Our nation is being run by Putin's chew toy.

After seeing HoD I listened to Annie Jacobsen narrate her book “Nuclear War” and now I am concerned.

Went to the United States Post Office to send a letter overseas to Europe. The international stamp was $1.70, and I paid in coin. But the USPS refused the Sacagawea $1 coin -US money - because it was inconvenient. It was rather disappointing.

Got an automated email notification that my Microsoft Office 365 subscription is to renew in 1 month - at 30% increase. And they haven't provided updates for Catalina in about 2 years. But *somebody* has to pay for those new hyperAI data centers, amirite? Q: do I get to visit the data center?

Prine wrote “Angel” — the story of a middle-aged woman stuck in a sad domestic purgatory — when he was in his early 20s. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/a...

Movie mini-review: "Auction", a French film (subtitled in English) about an Egon Schiele painting lost in 1939 that ends up with a young working class French man who wants nothing to do with it. Goes to the heirs, upper class New Yorkers, who want him to get a share. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeqB...

"House of Dynamite", high tension from beginning to end, see it in a theater if you can. Do not take the kids.

Starting Monday LinkedIn will begin using data from your profiles/posts to train AI. If you live in EU/EEA/Switzerland/Canada/Hong Kong your data is subject to being used this way, but you can opt out. Go to Settings/Privacy/Data for Generative AI Improvement and toggle the switch to off

Might be a good night to watch “Margin Call”…

Security firm Synthient has launched a free-to-use and searchable online database of known proxy IPs synthient.com/blog/synthie...

If I were the democratic leadership, or their donors, I would be setting up shadow everything. Shadow congress. Shadow CDC. The overwhelming message being: here is where you come for facts. Here is what science really says. Here is what polling really says. Why aren’t they doing this?

In an Italian restaurant with Eddie Merckx on the wall and Filipino wait staff speaking English and Italian so I must be in… Dublin!

24 hours and wheels up, from blue skies and sun to wind and rain

The Authors Guild has launched a certification program for asserting that a book has been human authored authorsguild.org/human-authored

Norway's paradox: Call for Russian war fighters to be banned from the Schengen-Europe, but maintains visa-freedom agreement with one of Russia's most militarised regions. www.thebarentsobserver.com/news/soldier...

Check out the new Groundwater News page at Maven's Notebook! #cawater #groundwater mavensnotebook.com/category/new...

I have been thinking that “all the power in the world and someone still acts like a mobbed-up councilman from the outer boroughs”. Who is eventually going to chicken out.

Mozilla has added a new security system to the Firefox add-on portal that detects extensions with malicious code designed to empty crypto wallets blog.mozilla.org/addons/2025/...

All in sweet geological time.

And those of us that gain a little insight from the social sciences and historians thank you for it.

Today: Covid vax Hep A vax Pneumococcal vax TDAP vax #StickItToTheMan

If only there were some kind of trans Pacific partnership in place to help persuade those countries to work together.

Thread from the high northern border.

Special extended edition of #StrongMessageHere is now up on all reputable pod outlets. Helen and I talk all things Trump with the US’s very own Jon Stewart. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

Record pace of snowmelt in US West threatens another drought #cawater www.mercurynews.com/2025/05/21/r...

@gilduran.com In case you need this for the book, early years in the origin story shortly after spinning out of Stanford, Thiel held these conferences Singularity Summit, 2009 in SF (Palace of Fine Arts) and 2010 NYC (92Y). Now at archive.org. archive.org/details/Sing...

And such a great soundtrack!

Saturday night throwback night: watching Grosse Pointe Blank. This movie is so fun! Joan Cusack, Dan Ackroyd are so hilarious!

TGIF

Interesting piece which reveals a lot of the tech bro ignorance of government: DOGEr comes in, expects to find lots of inefficiency, is at least willing to acknowledge he was wrong unlike the hard core ideologues.

Just a reminder…

There have been multiple 🇺🇦 drone attacks (3 or 4) on Murmansk region this weekend, Russia’s war ministry informs on Telegram.

I think I will proclaim June 14 to be L’etat C’est Moi Day. They should hold a parade.

Thinking a lot lately about the future Simspons episode where a British guy tells an American, “oh yeah? Well we saved your ass in WWIII!”

Juvenile salmon roam between salt and fresh water while exploring miles of coast and rivers, new research finds #cawater mavensnotebook.com/2025/05/01/n...