I'm reading Miki Berenyi's autobiography (amazing!) and asked Gemini's help in getting a reading list grounded in #DreamPop, #Shoegaze and indie/alternative rock. Here's what it came up with. Super excited there's a Mazzy Star bio coming this March! Any other suggestions for "must reads"?

For some reason my Apple Watch 11 thinks I am underwater. That isn't my physical state. Is it trying to tell me my psychological state?

The last thing I wanted to see in my Discover feed was a video from James Comey pleading his case. Plus with comments disabled because he doesn’t want to hear what anyone has to say. it’s hard to get past how he screwed up the 2016 election. So it’s block and mute for him.

Have been looking for a list like this. And here it is!

A 4-pack of 120 Ziploc gallon bags is $25.08 today on Amazon. It was $19.99 in November 2024. It this 25% inflation? Tariffs? Or just corporate greed?

What Bernie Sanders says about medical science is so obvious you think it doesn’t need to be said. And yet it does.

For some reason standard AI is priced at $20/month and premium AI is priced at $200/month. Why? Is this price based on rigorous consumer research, or was it pulled out of a random butthole?

Why does Google insist on showing its bad AI search results front and center? Today it's telling me that Sonoma (version 14) is the latest MacOS. Of course we are on Sequoia 15.5 Putting bad AI search result at the top of the search page hurts the credibility of everything that comes after.

“So, how successful has the Norwegian EV strategy been? Last year, according to the EV Association, 88.9 per cent of all new passenger cars sold in the country were fully electric.” Meanwhile in the USA we’re burning gas and coal. apple.news/Ae5beNXnQTqG...

The war on science has expanded to include a war on statistics. stocks.apple.com/Ae3B2qZINTPa...

This has a little bit of a mid-century vibe. The new design looks way better to me than the hideous Cracker Barrel stores I associate with highway rest stops decades ago. apple.news/A14CPow5PRJS...

If Musk had gone with liberals and the climate-concerned, every other car on the road would have been a Tesla. Can someone please explain the concept of product-market fit to him? apple.news/A3UCouAzhSu6...

Just another day in Oceanside!

If the universe is a computer simulation, this would go a long way toward explaining why things are so screwed up in the US. We’ve arrived at a very dark and annoying level of the simulation game. Maybe the next level will be better? www.sciencealert.com/the-universe...

A day that begins with Deary’s vinyl EP arriving in the mail from the UK is a good day!

Aloy in NYC in the style of Horizon Forbidden West, courtesy of Gemini Veo 2.

ChatGPT o3 deep research predicts new Deary LP in 2025. "Based on Deary’s release history and the typical progression of a new band, we can expect news on a debut LP or at least new singles in the coming months." #deary #dreampop #shoegaze Full analysis: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gbaff...

Using ChatGPT o3 for $20/month. After flailing around with deep research, not quite getting what I'm looking for, it tells me I'm almost out of deep research for the month. So sign up for the $200/month service. I feel like I'm in the Black Mirror "Common People" episode w/ the Rivermind service.

The one thing alumni are looking at today as they think about their future contributions is how their school is responding to the assault on higher education. My undergrad school, Oberlin College, signed the AACU statement. My grad institution, UNC, did not. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Wet Leg is back! Finally! pitchfork.com/news/wet-leg...

Error of the day from Social Security. "Bad"?

Here's the Social Security Website today.

Oh dear. Always heard that my town, Leucadia, was named in the 1870s by free thinking English spiritualists escaping persecution. But this article says it was named in a marketing campaign by 1880's land developers, one a con man. Talk about bursting my bubble. scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=e...

America is becoming a land of educated liberal women and uneducated conservative men. “That creates a mismatch, because people prefer to date in terms of comparable education or income.”  One woman said,...“If I need companionship, I volunteer at the dog shelter.”  apple.news/APi_gmIjOR8G...

Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West are good sources for non-mainstream names for girls and boys.

Now H5N1 is in sheep. "risk to general public is very low" Where have we heard that phrase before? www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

So now we know where the design of the Tesla truck was “borrowed” from.

LOL. Good luck with that!

Here is Perplexity’s analysis of the impact of the forced NSF staff cuts. We shouldn’t need AI to state the obvious. But here we are.

There are 813 billionaires in the US with a combined wealth of $6.72 trillion. So... AOC 2028 + a 100% tax on wealth over $1 billion. Job done? inequality.org/article/2024...

OMG I didn’t know this existed until now! open.spotify.com/album/0wMkc2...

More lamps should be rabbit based.

I've tried apps like Calm and Headspace but find them overly gamified, too engagement focused, and confusingly organized. I wind up anything but calm. Instead, I prefer building my own playlists from the UCSD Center for Mindfulness SoundCloud tracks. Plus it's free. soundcloud.com/ucsdmindfuln...

Plan of action to get me through the rough times: 1) Play Zero Dawn on PS5 (done) 2) Play Forbidden West on PS5 (almost done) 3) Play Zero Dawn Remastered on PS5 4) Buy PS5 Pro 5) Play Zero Dawn Remastered on PS5 Pro 6) Play Forbidden West on PS5 Pro 7) Play Horizon 3

Today I learned that my health care plan is not a PPO plan, but is a POS plan (Point of Service). Of course, we all know what comes to mind when you hear something is a POS. This is Marketing 101. How did this health care acronym happen? Are we teaching our students nothing?

Sign me up! I’ll take my chances with the Danes. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

The only useful function I’ve found for AI phone support is to get it to find me a person to talk to.

After a walk on Moonlight Beach, a visit to Dave's Rock Garden is just a block away.

I do know that today is the Super Bowl. But I have no idea who is playing. I feel that I am in the minority about this. But these days, I feel like I am in the minority about pretty much everything going on in this country.

Since eggs are so hard to get and expensive these days, it is starting to make sense to take 32 minutes to cook them to get the perfect egg! Where can I buy a machine that will automatically cook eggs this way? www.npr.org/2025/02/08/g...

Bluesky is looking exponential, better buckle up!

Why is it so difficult to manufacture a tissue box where only one tissue comes out each and every time? Is it really an unsolvable engineering challenge, or is it intentional waste by design?

A local muralist magically painted windows and shutters on two blank walls our shed. It’s ready for Hansel and Gretel to move in!

It’s a California tradition to stand and watch the sun as it sets.

This German bread slicer has jumped to the top of the list of my favorite kitchen items!

Some back of the envelope calculations on cognitive load. Assume Elon Musk's IQ is 200 (I'm being extremely generous). Assume Musk is only involved in running Tesla, X, SpaceX, and now DOGE (conservative assumption). That's 50 IQ points for each. Explains a lot.

Small… large… what is the dividing line?

Reflexology path at the local park.

Going to an elementary school with an ocean view has got to be a positive influence on the childhood brain.

I'm playing with the 70 billion parameter version of deepseek-r1 using ollama on my MacBook Pro M2. So far so good! It's comparable to ChatGPT o1 except that: 1) it's free, and 2) it runs locally so none of my interactions go to the cloud. Which is a very good thing. ollama.com/library/deep...