“All my childhood “Rivers” are Highways - a New York Story”

The first sports broadcast where you can mute the announcers and just listen to the crowd should be an international holiday

I know it feels like small potatoes amidst everything else, but this is my drum, so I will keep beating it in the face of everything else: I try to give companies the benefit of the doubt, but then they demonstrate their utter disdain and contempt for consumers.

So just found out that Audible have silently removed six audiobooks from my library. Because I noticed, and complained, they gave six credits to buy them back again. They did this because the publishers updated the books and Audible just deleted the old versions.

Look, maintaining support for discontinued hardware in the era of weekly/bi-weekly OTA updates for... everything, is a massive drag on capacity and resources. But just bricking functional hardware is rude. This is better tech stewardship/citizenship: arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026...

You should sign up for this one

My instinct is this fits into a larger story about Congressional dysfunction and how legislation doesn't move the way School House Rocks teaches. (Gonna need new stanzas on regular order, vote-a-rama, christmas tree, appropriations and [cr]omnibus bills, floor and agenda control, etc.)

Civ 2. AOE 2. Panzer General. Red Baron. Fields of Glory (which is somehow available on Steam?!) Railroad Tycoon II...

Found some ancient RAM sticks in the attic (probably from a laptop upgrade eons ago). Gonna get these appraised antique roadshow style. “Excellent condition, vintage memory modules. Based on current demand, these are worth up to… eleventy thousand dollars.” “Wow.”

300+ page printed manual with extensive reference sections. This is what they took from us.

Insurance phone rep once told me exclusion language in one policy contract excluded my e-bike, but exact same language in another policy contract did not not. I asked for them to provide that explanation in writing. They declined. lol.

Nobody under 40 remembers a bad economy that was distinct from a World Historic Catastrophe and it really messes with people’s brains imo.

This frustrates me so much. There were teams across government trying to do just this! I’ve worked with them! I’m married to one of them! Yes it was slow but it was happening! But it was literally the first work stopped by DOGE and it’ll take ages to bring it back online.

Artists! The US Copyright Office has changed the rules, starting in Feb. we can register up to 20 published 2D works of art in a single application, making it way more affordable! Important as registration is needed to fight theft in court or the CCB. #art #artists www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/g...

Fun twist to folk copyright practice of mailing yourself a sealed copy of a work to establish… priority? registration? authorship? One of those. @mrose.ink @design-law.bsky.social @lexlanham.bsky.social

So, if I'm reading this correctly, recent USPS reforms are making it logistically impossible for the agency to postmark all letters on the date received, and services that rely on postmarks to prove deadline adherence shouldn't do so anymore.

The old “what if we invest in our employees but then they leave?” Penny wise -> Yes but what if we don’t, and they stay?” pound foolish business aphorism.

Similarly the outcry of “Firm X will never recover from the recruiting hit of mass layoffs/slashed bonuses/etc” never quite seemed to last that long in BigLaw at least? the sun comes up and the world still spins. Would love to hear what others think.

Interesting thread - but curious how this can be distinguished from the (common, or at least frequently complained of?) client services industry challenge of “clients don’t want to pay for entry level analysts/associates to learn on the job” / “partners loathe employing staff that can’t be billed”

Can congress include a liquidated damages clause for missing a deadline in legislation? Just curious.

It’s the Triboro, the Tappan Zee, and the Queensboro (or 59th St) bridges, and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

you say "i asked chatgpt" i hear "i asked [an improv comedy group]" an improv group wrote this report instead of a therapist i use an improv comedy group

If we are banning cell phones for kids we need to be talking about banning chatbots for boomers www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...

res ipsa loquitur, I suppose.

And guess what? The FCC immediately changed the website to state that the agency is not independent right after Carr's comments!

Can I get an 'Amen' for FCC Commissioner @agomezfcc.bsky.social? 'We're spending billions to extend connectivity to the hardest to reach Americans, but don't have any programs to make those connections affordable'

You can hate Ken Paxton and still want to see him win this lawsuit. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Glad it's not just me. So, so many people telling me that I'm just a couple of pieces of paperwork shy of that $64,000 loan that I in no way inquired about or applied for. It's way worse than the extended car warranty calls from a few years ago. bsky.app/profile/nasb...

As a consumer, I hate paying recurring subscription fees for a product. But at this point, any time I see a company selling a product without an obvious method for generating recurring revenue I worry that either a) they're selling my data somehow or b) they're going to go out of business. sigh.

One reason all your favorite podcasts are in YouTube now is that every other discovery algo on the internet is broken. And with social media’s collapse it’s the last way to find new audience out there.

Dusted off my wii for the kids. Came across the instructions for Nintendo's wildly idiosyncratic methodolgy for playing Mario Kart against friends online. I don't think there was even audio? Maybe they were on to something.

look, I think we should let whoever promises to spare no effort in releasing the Batgirl movie have WB. (I was going to say the Coyote movie, but TIL that's apparently being released in 2026?)

In 2015 @kurtopsahl.bsky.social made "Spell Wassenaar" a question in the inaugural (?) Tech Law and Trivia contest.

the new yeoman farmer of jefferson's idyllic agrarian republic

🤦

Public Domain Day 2026 is almost here. On January 1, works from 1930—including Miss Marple, Animal Crackers, and The Little Engine That Could—enter the U.S. public domain. Expect celebration, confusion, and at least one Betty Boop slasher film. Sorry in advance. copyrightlately.com/public-domai...

If the conservative legal movement's position is that Scalia dissents are now binding law, someone let the communications industry know that broadband is a common carriage telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act again 😂

This remains my go to litmus test for “is this a Real City” Is there anywhere other than NYC this is reliably true?

So I guess this settles the whole "Netflix is trying to become HBO before HBO can become Netflix" thing, huh?

Honestly, Chamberlain does not get nearly enough hate for awful, consumer hostile, tech practices.

Has anybody put together a list of best practices for openness in government software beyond open licensing? Like public uptime tracking, a public backlog, and a public release history? I have a loose collection of these things in my head, but I bet somebody's done better work on this.

Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

"Metacognitive processes are necessary to comply with Rule 11" is a phrase I expect litigators to start using as a diss on opposing counsel immediately

Speaker Johnson shut the House down for 54 days — and he could do it again, ceding yet more power to an out-of-control president. With a party revolt brewing & tough calls looming on appropriations, war crimes, and more, we interviewed Max Spitzer, a former House parliamentarian, on what to do.

Once again calling for some kind of government office, a commission even, to address unfair, (or deceptive?) business practices. Just a thought.

[TOMORROW] Tune in live for an episode of the Fiber Broadband Association's Fiber for Breakfast featuring @jessicadine.bsky.social! She'll speak about what should be done to address America's lack of a national standard for defining and measuring #digital skills. fiberbroadband.org/event/ffb-we...

Being a consumer in the digital era is so infuriating sometimes. Ex A:

Wait, wait. Netflix is going to take on massive debt to purchase Warner Bros? Like did you not see AOL, AT&T and Discovery all step on that exact same rake or were you just not paying attention?

It’s the year 2000. A court is considering whether ISPs can be liable for copyright infringement committed by their users. It’s 2005. A court is considering whether ISPs can be liable for copyright infringement committed by their users. It’s 2010. It’s 2013. It’s 2025.