“At the very least, we want an Off switch. But studies show that opting _out_ doesn’t work as well as opting _into_ something. So I think the default has to change.”

they should fill a different arena with people and fake knicks players and have secret service take him there and he would literally never know the difference

Good subhed at @thebaffler.com: "Silicon Valley looks for Lebensraum in the Bible Belt." thebaffler.com/salvos/the-t...

I think Silicon Valley is going to love my new chatbot, Shamm_AI — the only LLM that tells you that your question is terrible and you should go figure it out yourself

Eddie Muller fans, it’s our moment. In addition to his regular Noir Alley gig, Muller will host TCM’s Summer of Darkness series—two months’ worth of Friday-evening triple bills culled from his all-time Top 25 list. #TCMParty. He kicks things off tonight with a few obscure ones:

every time I say this, someone didn't know: you can get the NYRB, the New Yorker, the LRB, Paris Review, The Spectator (weirdly not New Statesman), The Week, both French & Italian Vogue & New Scientist among many many other magazines FREE via the Libby app from your local library?

Whither fact-checking? As everyone in S.F. knows, Burning Man takes place over Labor Day weekend (September), not Memorial Day (May). Eckersley died on September 2, 2022; Labor Day was September 5. @vanityfair.com

New post: Strange messages from our tech overlords. fritinancy.substack.com/p/i-wish-id-...

You'd think someone as narcissistic as Trump would get the concept of "reflecting pool."

“we need a name for our sugar free gluten free dairy free low carb brownies. it needs to convey yumminess! wait I’ve got it, yummy + brownies, how about… YUMKIES” “that sounds kind of like…yummy but also yucky. yum-cky.” “what?! no, you’re crazy, no one will think that. also there’s an umlaut.”

“How can Patagonia, the brand, own the name of a geographical region?” Interesting read from @emorwee.bsky.social , citing @lexlanham.bsky.social & others. (n.b.: It's not a © it's a ™.)

"There’s a phenomenon called the rhyme-as-reason effect that says people are more likely to believe something is true if it rhymes." ironicsans.ghost.io/the-best-thi... - by @ironicsans.com

Is this guy allowed to cross the street by himself?

"Kettling" is in the news again, in coverage of the Delaney Hall protests. I wrote about the word in 2011, when it made its first U.S. appearance during the Occupy movement. fritinancyblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/w...

If you wish to examine a granfalloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon. — Bokonon

The latest from me: Kurt Vonnegut meets Silicon Valley and "The Audacity." fritinancy.substack.com/p/word-of-th...

Every detail resonates.

"This was a period of great permissiveness in matters of language, so even the President was saying shit and fuck and so on, without anybody’s feeling threatened or taking offense. It was perfectly OK. He called the Space Fuck a Space Fuck and so did everybody else." - Kurt Vonnegut 1/2

“You can mog absolutely anything.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/s... (gift link)

BREAKING: President Trump's name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center and must be removed, a judge orders.

Like, sorry, but you can't still stuff like this, try to"file a trademark application in September to use the brand Pattie Gonia to sell clothing and promote environmental activism," and expect the clothing and environmental activism company to be like, "That's cool."

California governor candidates. There's no shortage of zanies, but Grundmann is the only one who merited the disclaimer. Also on the ballot: LivingForGod AndCountry DeMott (NPP) Barack Denzel Obama Shaw (D) Thunder Parley (D)

At least it’s not suffering anymore.

Such a good exhibition at @famsf.bsky.social. Those "Etruscan smiles." The extraordinary gold jewelry. The lovely tombs. That whole equal-social-status-for women thing. Beautiful and remarkably relatable, 2,000+ years later. www.famsf.org/exhibitions/...

This reminds me a bit of Honorary White status in apartheid South Africa (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorar...), where people were re-classified so that they could travel freely www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026... (via @fritinancy.bsky.social 's May Linkstack)

Writing tip: "nuptial" is an adjective (= "relating to marriage"). The noun (= "wedding") is always "nuptials," plural. In either form, the word is related to "nubile."

May links! Typos, typefaces, misspellings, Halupedia, name changes, and more. Credits: @fuggirls.bsky.social @erikhansson.bsky.social @clivethompson.bsky.social @kottke.org @grantbarrett.com @laughingsquid.com @nameberry.bsky.social @babynames.bsky.social fritinancy.substack.com/p/may-linkst...

Counter display at The Iliad Bookshop, North Hollywood.

As a kid, half the fun of reading old books was getting glimpses of how things once were and building a (sometimes spectacularly mistaken) model of the past, like reconstructing an entire dinosaur from a fossilized tooth. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/b...

FOOTGUN is a good example of how compound words seem straightforward (only 2 parts, how weird could it be!) but there's so much unspoken intuition as the glue. When compounds take many non-linear steps to exist, yet were created spontaneously, they stick with me... www.wordnik.com/lists/morpho...

This is a gut-wrenching read.

I've always regarded yoga with suspicion.

I finally saw "The Christophers" (at the Elmwood, Berkeley's last surviving cinema), and here is my review: Art. Greed. Fame. Fakery. Ian McKellen. Micaela Coel. Steven Soderbergh. Terrific writing. Some nice twists. Thoroughly satisfying. See it.

Fun etymological fact:* "Don" is literally just a contraction of "do on". To don a piece of clothing is to do it on. And on the flip side, to doff a piece of clothing is to do it off. *All etymological facts are fun.

You can't be "donned in" anything, because "to don" means "to put on [clothing].* Try "attired," or "clad," or "wearing."

Masters of the universe (but not of their domain).

Want to prove you've had zero exposure to the military? Say "Happy Memorial Day." See also: Happy Good Friday. Happy Yom Kippur.

"A dart gun shoots darts; a shotgun fires shot (small bullets). A footgun does not fire feet (unless you have my warped sense of humor)." New from me, with a nod to @e-briannica.bsky.social: fritinancy.substack.com/p/word-of-th...

faking an assassination attempt so you don't have to go to a wedding sounds like a curb your enthusiasm episode

Hah -- the first three results in a Google image search for "AI ads San Francisco" are from my newsletter. Yes, I'm a little obsessed. www.google.com/search?q=ai+...

Not enough people are talking about this. A Florida airport was renamed after Donald Trump. He walked away with the trademark, the licensing rights, and a deal that lets him profit off every piece of merchandise sold there. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

You come to me, on the day of my son's wedding, which I am not attending

Highlights from the members' opening of Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976–86. The exhibition is at @skirball.bsky.social through September 6.

Always love it when I can get a portmanteau into a New York Times alert

Can your AI do *this*? I THINK NOT.

I passed a billboard on northbound I-5 today, somewhere near Bakersfield, for a GOP gubernatorial candidate I hadn't heard of, Randeep Dhillon. His slogan is the truly deplorable “MACA: Make Affordable California Again.”I

“Far from being a fringe belief system, masculinism has become the single most important force uniting the American right, bringing together an unlikely constellation of pastors, posters, senators, preachers, influencers, podcasters, and fanboys.” www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

One of my grad students accurately summarizing the value proposition of AI assistants: “Give me access to everything and I might be able to help with something.”

terrible. 20 years ago, the internet was full of hobbyist blogs and forums. over time, these have been replaced by paywalled substacks and private discord channels, each a walled garden. google's decision to prioritize AI just makes it less likely people will create free, public info

Gemini says I write a "well-loved linguistic newsletter," so naturally I am all in on AI now.