"The average family will pay $1,800 more for groceries, clothing, and other necessities thanks to the Trump administration’s trade policies in 2025." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

Sharing for awareness. Government funding has to come from somewhere. Better taxpayers than most other sources. One more organization under fire: the IRS donmoynihan.substack.com/p/five-quest...

I keep deferring MacOS "upgrade" to Tahoe (26.1) because (a) not excited about liquid glass UI and (b) not clear about any other benefits. Am I missing anything? Usually in favor of staying current, but unconvinced, so far.

Election Day

Not surprising, but still chilling and worth paying attention to the individual cases.

Sign of the times: as a pedestrian at a crosswalk, I trust a Waymo to stop more than a human driver.

TIL: Federal Universal Service Charge (or Fee) DRAMATICALLY increases your wireless bill for international calls. Quarterly rate set by FCC for FUSF: www.fcc.gov/general/cont... (Q4 2025 is 38.1%) Carrier contributions "may be recovered from customers." Narrator: they are!

A pragmatic view on AI, looking over a longer horizon, from @rmhrisk.bsky.social Whether AI is as disruptive as the printing press or the internet itself, TBD. That's a stretch, for me. But I've heard similar from thoughtful people who are often my canaries about technical (r)evolution.

As intended, @anildash.com wrote a clear piece about opinions about AI that are more nuanced than general attention. www.anildash.com/2025/10/17/t...

"Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves." Topical, despite original publication date of 1954 for The Two Towers, with Gandalf commenting on the Palantir... thank you, J.R.R. Tolkien.

frankchimero.com/blog/2025/se... "What makes the Market for Lemons concept so appealing (and what differentiates it in my mind from enshittification) is that everyone can be acting reasonably, pursuing their own interests, and things still get worse for everyone."

surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/10/08/t... "But you neglect at your peril the engineers who are working nine-to-five days at boring companies."

I'm not exactly sure Elon is the guy I'd want to take advice from regarding "the war on drugs" in San Francisco.

"The reason I spend so much time writing it down is that I don’t want to explain it to you face-to-face." randsinrepose.com/archives/one...

Nuanced proposal on how to reduce costs over time for public transit buses in the US. Rich with data, acknowledges reality (political and otherwise), but still offers ideas for improvement. (PDF) www.brookings.edu/wp-content/u...

Another excellent exhibition at SFO. #GiveMeARing @sfomuseum.bsky.social

FDA approved the abortion pill mifepristone 25 years ago. So why is RFK Jr. raising questions about it now? He's trying to roll back abortion access nationwide. I'll keep fighting against attempts to restrict access—because medication abortion is safe and effective. Period.

Watched this in snippets over the past few weeks. Enjoyed it! www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfH4...

When humans celebrate their competition: heartening youtu.be/0xvHfXD2FcA?... (Oh, and watch the world record be broken, again.)

randsinrepose.com/archives/che... "I find great comfort in the written word. It gives me satisfaction to translate the mess in my head into occasional helpful words and phrases." Amen. Unfortunately, not everyone wants to read, or receives the same message from identical words.

Let's say it again: 1) Harvard said "No," and Trump has backed off. 2) Chicago (and Illinois) said "No," and Trump has backed off. It's day by day. But those who said "OK, sure," have gained nothing at all. Except shame.

Science isn't stopping, fortunately. I can imagine negative uses of this tech but the positives are immense for health monitoring. news.ucsc.edu/2025/09/puls... Via @davepell.bsky.social

I know little about making music, but exploring any song from The Police gets me. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Another possible explanation: millions of dumb, selfish people were deliberately lied to by a billionaire-funded right-wing propaganda apparatus with the explicit goal of enraging them & hurting the Dem administration. Dumb, selfish people believed lies. Doesn't that ring a little more true?

I debated writing this. It can feel tempting, upon encountering yet another instance of this administration’s racism, to let it be. How many ways can you say the same thing over and over again? And yet we have to write it down, if for nothing else, so those who come after us know we were against it.

This is very, very powerful. Please read. Link here: dbarkhuff.substack.com/p/i-should-b...

"As a leader, I am surprised to find that improving my core skills in communication, setting expectations, and planning benefits both the robots and the humans." randsinrepose.com/archives/eve... another one linked by @rianvdm.com (thank you), written by @rands.bsky.social

"You stop talking to be right and start talking to be useful." theproductleaderinsider.substack.com/p/the-game-y... via @rianvdm.com

Thread worth reading. (Meta-point: Why oh why oh WHY do our leading media outlets frame these issues as if they were just another chapter in a political-tactics almanac.)

Was it William Gibson (Neuromancer) or Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash) who reminded readers that their seminal cyberpunk novels were NOT manuals? @pkrugman.bsky.social and @himself.bsky.social mention the power and (mis)direction of those fantastic stories. paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-wi...

Music isn't my primary language, but this works today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH0-... (h/t @paulkrugman.substack.com.web.brid.gy)

Channeling John McEnroe when I got this email today "You can't be serious!?!?"

Trump promised not to cut Medicaid and his signature legislation cuts Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion.

www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-death-... courtesy of @davepell.bsky.social “If you want to know what you think about a topic, write about it. Writing has a way of ruthlessly exposing unclear thoughts and imprecision.”

Walking from Dolores Park to Civic Center. So many people in San Francisco. #nokings

Glad to be part of the people this morning. #nokings

Evening in San Francisco. For your moment of Zen. #commute

Proud parent here. natgoldc.substack.com/p/research

Haven't read the newsletter but appreciate collected wisdom. www.construction-physics.com/p/50-things-...

NYC cold but lovely this evening

Canada picked a guy with a PhD in economics from Oxford. Mexico chose a woman with a degree in physics and a PhD in energy engineering. The U.S. handed the job to a carnival-barking senior citizen, with multiple felonies and six bankruptcies under his belt.

Insane clown posse, indeed open.substack.com/pub/fallows/...

Just evacuated from Imperial War Museum. Wondering what the cause was. Searching online doesn't turn anything up...yet.

Went down the font rabbit hole here aresluna.org/the-hardest-... courtesy of @gruber.foo

Kevin Kelly travel tips, including "Laser out, meander back" kk.org/thetechnium/...

Curiouscrolling wikitok.vercel.app via arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...

"I think talking to the 1% is worthwhile. The fascist leaders are rich, but not all of the rich are fascist. Some retain much of their humanity. And presumably some are smart enough to hear an argument that on this economic path lie tumbrils and guillotines." www.tbray.org/ongoing/When...

"And if you ask me, one important factor in the quality of life is not being dead." paulkrugman.substack.com/p/rfk-jr-and...

Enjoyed andrewsmithauthor.com/books/devil-... even if most wasn't new or news. Certainly timely.

How does this happen? www.reuters.com/world/us/mus...