Really hate United Healthcare, really dislike getting these dumb letters looking for somebody to sue over medical coverage they provided me. Tonight's letter was for a surgery I got a bit over a year ago, and they want me to respond by today. It's either urgent or it's not.

Really don't like going into stores during Christmas Music season

If you need to refill your weirdness meter after all that wholesome stuff we've all been seeing recently, I recommend some Damon Zex: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNRG...

I think any platform will be a more pleasant experience for people sharing the predominant biases of the platform's crowd. Any platform also has its weirdos, and each of us is at the center of a net of our own weaving - people we regularly read and interact with.

It's really frustrating that through a combination of things, despite gigantic improvements in internet latency and speed over the last two decades, the internet is still often slow. There really isn't a lot of good reason for why webpage loads are not essentially instant for most people.

It's deeply disturbing that Bari Weiss, appointed to be a censor for CBS because the government had the ability to demand random things of them for a corporate maneuver, is bending the content of journalism in a pro-admin way.

Decided to do First Night this year in Boston. Love that city, love First Night celebrations.

I would rather people not compare things that are incomparable or which they haven't thought on a comparison, than to have them say meaningless words for drama or because they feel they need to respond to questions on this stuff.

Just rode on one of the newer C train cars; like it. I generally like most of the MTA subway cars in one way or another and it's nice to see that the newer ones are still likable

In my commitment to be the "well, actually" person replying to someone who probably sees things not that different than me... It's not actually treason. That's not what treason means. It's frustrating as hell, it's bad policy, it damages us internationally, it's many other things, but not treason.

Problem with activism aimed at ethical reforms in a field with depth is that the movements to push for such reforms actually need to be: A) Capable of reaching agreement on alternatives, and B) Show up to do the actual work that's not related to those ethical reforms Both hard, whatever the content

There's quite a lot of variance, in my view, on how well cultures do their regular meals. Less variance in how well they do desserts; most parts of the world have some exceptionally lovely sweets, no matter what I think of their day-to-day.

Was recently delighted to find out that a lot of my family are also fans of Sara Bareilles (we don't often talk about music to each other, but I've been chatting about upcoming life changes to them and in chatter afterwards I've been recommending they give her stuff a try - they already knew of her)

Seeing the term "pig iron" here led me down a brief rabbit-hole learning about the etymology of the term. Apparently "sows" are also part of the metaphor. Love this weird stuff, and I can't help suspect that nobody would name them these things today.

It is definitely now Lapsang Souchong weather.

In a better world, Trump's insane rant on recently-murdered Reiner, on Truth Social, would end his presidency. But then, so would boatmurder, threatening to invade Denmark, siding with fascist parties in Europe, insurrection, and a lot of other things.

Some big life changes ahead are now becoming pretty clear. Both terrified and excited. I won't say equal parts because that's cliche and I have no way of measuring that, but it will be interesting and challenging, and I will miss a lot of my life-of-today.

this is one of the most psychotic things Trump has ever posted

First snow this year that's actually sticking in NYC

I wonder if Patron's cut is the reason creators leave the platform. It's a weird experience for orgs I've funded for years, like @lawfaremedia.org , to leave Patron for some platform I've never heard of before (always something different) and which I definitely won't follow them to.

One of the most gripping moments I've ever seen in a congressional hearing.

I often wish the word "cardinality" were not so frequently right on the boundary of words I remember and words I don't. Partly because I see it, perhaps weirdly, as a very enjoyable concept.

I will never be mayor of NYC. For a lot of good reasons. But if I were to, one of the things I'd try to organise is revive the Staten Island Tunnel project. It's not something a mayor can just do on their own, but they have a lot of push local politics in a direction.

Sara Bareilles is among my favourite musicians to finish waking up to.

Feels a little weird to see politicians set some good long-useful policy very late in their stay in office; good policy often requires a steady hand in implementation to work out and if there's no time, a good idea can flop. abc7ny.com/post/mayor-e...

This is very important. Write to your representatives.

Part of the reason Unix has a lorekeeping culture is to pass along interesting information on where given technology came from. Today at lunch I talked about Solaris Zones and how they laid groundwork for a lot of containerization of apps (on Linux done with cgroups at a low level)

Today's NASA-APOD is stunningly pretty and something you shouldn't miss: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25120...

The abrupt cancellation of the final step of naturalisation the Trump admin has done to nationals of 19 countries is unpredictable and dickish. Sometimes law has hard edges. It must. But it should not be designed with that as a goal, and law/administration should not be unpredictable.

This long after I'm still unsure if it was the right thing to move from a Fitbit Charge to a Google Watch. It is nice to get a quick summary of texts, responses on social media, and emails from my watch, but it's not like my phone was ever distant. I still resent needing to charge my watch daily.

Opinion 1: Just because something has a cost does not mean it's not worthwhile. Opinion 2: Just because something is worthwhile does not mean it does not have a cost.

Recently I've been enjoying learning about the digestive quirks and habits of sled dogs. There's a lot to learn about; also cool that they're the one other mammal (from humans) that has long-distance running as one of their main tricks.

The last few months, I’ve been working on a major project: analyzing the Trump admin’s hostile treatment of the First Amendment. That has led to today’s release of our @freepress.bsky.social report “Chokehold.” @brianstelter.bsky.social @cnn.com details our findings: www.cnn.com/2025/12/08/m...

Presently deeply irritated to have just seen someone shoplift quite a lot of things from my local Duane Reade and to have seen her just stroll right out (store employees yelling at her) without anyone detaining her until police arrived.

There are things in life that are both a remarkable technical achievement and a really bad idea. If you are an engineer, be prepared to tame your instincts/excitement around these and to watch out for them. Same, by analogy, with things other than technical and other groups than engineers.

Applying for a job (in Europe) where I'd be entering engineering leadership, at a company that has a lot of ideas what that actually means, and preparing for an interview on the topic this coming Monday actually has me both scared and really judging myself in an all new way.

Got the yearly Youtube offer to do a "year in review" for 2025, and why yes those are videos I watched a lot. Not sure why I expected anything different. About 80% of them I had already put into a playlist that I keep automatically downloaded onto my tablet.

My faith in the Supreme Court has been in sharp decline based on how precedent has bent to conservative activism over the last decade, but FFS if the SC somehow manages to talk itself into supporting Trump's declaration on birthright citizenship despite clear Constitutional text, I will lose my shit

One message from the Trump era, and various other societies in a time of crisis, is that the public finds it far easier to respond appropriately to criminals that show shame and cover their acts than to criminals who do their acts proudly, in full daylight, with a victory dance afterwards.

Now wondering if a POTUS could recall any retired military personnel in congress into active services in order to effectively force them to vacate their seat.

What I think our legislators and news orgs are getting wrong is the focus on the second-strike, and not on the boatmurder. Blowing up civilian boats on the ocean should be seen as the scandal. That's what we need to stop. That's what breaks critical norms. The second-strike is not the red line.

Tiers of things I care about in terms of the US government having gone feral: A) Free speech B) Foreign policy, international norms C) Rule of law, political pluralism, civics D) Actual normal value-driven policy

A quick comment on why political liberalism might include an instinct not to be maximalist or even bold in all cases: substack.com/profile/9890...

Sometimes weird to see the halfway-in-character bows for fantasy of various sort, where characters that are truly horrible (in fictional behaviour) join the more decent characters on stage, all in costume and maybe even talking in character.

I think we may practically agree on this, but I would focus on judging from a virtue ethics perspective - the results are important, but the way you get good results is show good character & competence character is easier to judge than being zoomed in on particular results (where chance has a role).

It's a pity that "Strangely Unenthusiastic Backup Dancer" is a bit of a mouthful, because it'd be a good band name.

Wishing I found it easier to enjoy the company of others without some whiskey in me. Chances are if I'm invited to a party without whiskey I'll stand in a corner and not talk to anyone, but with some whiskey I'll have a number of good 1:1 conversations and spend no time alone.

Hoping someday I have a chance to see an in-person talk by Tilly Lockey talk about her life with robotic arms. She's a great spokesperson for the ability of technology to fix defects in and improve upon the basic human form.

If, for some reason, you ever need to backup a large amount of stuff on Slack, and you find slackdump to not do the job (maybe because some security setting logs you out whenever you try to auth), this is one (unpleasant) way to get it done: