To put this in scale, Elon Musk's salary from Tesla alone could fund the SNAP program for the entire country into 2034.

Hey it’s a really cool lesson in typeface semiotics!

Neighbor dropped off a battered cabinet in need of refinishing and painting into a little free pantry, so I have spent this evening in a garage woodshop covered in caulk and wood putty, unable to check my phone, finding peace, in the natural progression of a senior developer.

AMERICA: A LIFTED LAMP BESIDE THE GOLDEN DOOR; ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES

Gael Gomez and his family are all but certain to leave the country this week, upending the lives they’ve built in D.C. But Mount Pleasant's 19-year-old sidewalk astronomer wants people to keep looking up — at the sky and in life. @samdelgado.bsky.social reports:

If you know anything about DC restaurants, you know how much love and money federal workers have poured into Chef Andrés' establishments for years, in no small part to indirectly support World Central Kitchen. WCK paying it back directly right now is so many kinds of heartwarming and awful.

Unpaid government workers are being fed by World Central Kitchen…let that sink in just how dire things are.

Sprites at Cylburn Arboretum by Aaron Smith, from reclaimed materials from Baltimore's Camp Small, a city-run wood reclamation project. There are 18 of them to find, and you are encouraged to move them. www.instagram.com/idle.handstu...

🎃 Some lessons from Hallowe’en: 👻 Little kids should be able to walk in the streets, even at night, without worrying about cars. People who are well-off are expected to give out more candy. Candy is for anyone who asks — no means-testing. Whatever else we are, we are each other’s neighbors.

Ahead of the 1st shutdown of US food aid to hungry Americans in 60 years, some of the 200,000 Little Free Library locations are converting into food pantries. Thanks @littlefreelibrary.bsky.social

I did a non-trivial amount of work on the use of facial recognition in Login.gov while in leadership at GSA, and at Treasury. The short version: it's racist. (And that was for 1-to-1 matching, which is much simpler than 1-to-many.) The error rate on this must be horrifying.

Participants decorate themselves in lights and make puppets or floats that are illuminated. baltimorebeat.com/photostory-g...

With a lot of people already hungry, and many more about to lose SNAP benefits, here's a timely piece from @baltimoremagazine.com on Baltimore's growing network of community fridges, including the one we host inside our store: www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/comm...

From a crewmember on yesterday's Teal 74 mission into now-Category 5 Hurricane #Melissa. As clear of an eye as you will see in the Atlantic basin.

important reminder: food banks usually prefer money to direct food donations because they can buy at discounted rates check with your local food bank to be sure but now is the time to help out

If you have it please donate cash to the food banks. $10 in their hands will feed more people than the $10 worth of canned goods you can buy for retail prices. Also check on your elders. Many of them will not admit they rely on these programs so grocery gift cards or a surprise bag of staples

Baltimore Symphony offering free tickets for federal workers my.bsomusic.org/events?k=FED...

Muddy Creek Falls, Swallow Falls Gorge Trail, western Maryland, 2025.

If you are a furloughed federal worker, you can get a free meal at great restaurant in Baltimore. Bring your ID. ekibenbaltimore.com

For DC, this combined with federal workers who are furloughed now needing to access the local food banks, will be devastating

Canceling Spotify and immediately starting an equal ongoing donation to local food bank before many people's benefits cut off at the end of the month. (why not both?)

This is who is paying for the destruction of the White House East Wing, per @wsj.com Altria Group Inc. Amazon Apple Inc. Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. Caterpillar Inc. Coinbase Global Comcast Corp. Hard Rock International Google HP Inc. Lockheed Martin Corp. Meta Platforms Inc. 1/3

Read to the bottom, there is a cookbook!

LOUDER. ALWAYS LOUDER:

the forced self-censorship gibberish we all have to do on social media now is having a devastating effect on the way people communicate with each other. nobody in a healthy society is saying "unalived"

Government workers 👇🏾

“Free knitting classes for furloughed feds have been a regular offer at the Fibre Space yarn shop in Alexandria, Virginia, since 2013, when the government shut down for 16 days. Fibre Space staff and volunteers held the classes again during the 34-day shutdown of 2018.” 🎁🔗

Mikael Thalen's video explainer is the best, simplest explanation that I've ever seen of how these somewhat obscure devices work. Well worth your 2 min. 24 secs.

Honoring Ancient Technology and Sacred Land baltimorebeat.com/honoring-anc...

the most delightful version of logging on to see what news you've missed

“… the data out of Montgomery County, Maryland makes one thing unmistakably clear: this crusade is not a mass movement. It’s the obsession of a vanishingly small minority …”

someone in a podcast I listened to today said like "all the developers that worked on legendary games in the 90s would never be able to get into the industry today" and I think that might be entirely accurate

The moon

Went to a party hosted by an absolute icon

Memorizing this

Go to the dinner, to the card game, to the Museum visit, to the concert, to the BBQ, to the walking tour, to wherever others are gathering...

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important

Worth a read for folks who don't have lines into NASA. It is truly heartbreaking.

Lately I’ve been thinking that life is a collection of truly unbearable weeks, and the best we can hope for is that our unbearable weeks are relatively few in number, spread out over time, and interrupted with love and connection and care, from art and from the people around us.

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.

my takeaway from climate week nyc is that "climate storytelling" is a little too much "we must reimagine our deepest souls in relationship to mother nature and the moral abyss of the polycrisis into which we must now stare" and not enough "ok but get a heat pump"

These guys think we have to use the platform. Meanwhile half my tiktok algorithm is people discussing how to drastically slash device usage and go back to analog tech. You've got gen z buying portable CD players

I learned so much from @fullstorybaltimore.tours about the very checkered history of Confederate support in #Baltimore during and after the Civil War. If you’re looking for a different way to spend time in the city, highly recommend!

Let this be a reminder that the next time there’s a big online controversy and you think “Really? People actually care about this?” it’s possible that nearly no human person does

Watkins Glen NY State Park Gorge Trail immediately after overnight rain certainly is a thing. #waterfalls

Video on the world's largest glass pumpkin! It's like 8 feet wide. Watch prototypes implode: whatson.cmog.org/seasonal/wor...

This begs the question of who but the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York is even in the running for largest glass pumpkin, but it's still an impressive feat.

Ithaca: so far I have only taken Mr WorstGoth the philosophy grad to Moosewood and a Red Emma's sister bookstore and he is talking about living here. *We haven't even seen any gorges yet.*