For the last few years I’ve grown garlic over the winters in my community garden plot. I plant it after I give up on the tomatoes and peppers in October, and I harvest the first weekend in July. Here’s the plot this morning, pre harvest. 1/?

Who did this?

I remember when automatic cash machines (ATMs) were introduced. At the time, the banks said that they would make banking more convenient and also cheaper. That second bit? That was a lie. This thread is about AI. 1/?

A correct understanding of the business of medicine in the US starts with the realization that patients are not the customers and doctors are not the merchants / tradespeople. 1/?

Ride along the Alewife Brook and Mystic River, a MassTrails 10 featured route

Watching my spouse, flat on her back with a slipped or herniated or ruptured disc, work with her incredibly helpful doctor to try to get in for an MRI sometime this fucking month … and thinking that reforming medical care in this country is absolutely part of the much needed revolution.

I ride my bike a lot, and I have Seen Some Shit … but the sheer -commitment- required to just keep driving on what is obviously a bike trail blows my mind. Everybody makes mistakes but like … reverse? Abort?

I have memotioned in the past, maybe once or twice, that gutting our ability to inspect the food supply (USDA) would basically guarantee poop on the food and all the misery that comes with poop on the food? There’s poop on the food now. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/02/w...

/ NEW BOSTON RECORD / HOTTEST JULY 2ND / IN RECORDED HISTORY / 101° / "NOW THATS HOT" / WEATHER IS HAPPENING

Fine, I’ll play. Post a random picture for luck in the new fiscal year.

Liars: We’re gonna make ‘Murca healthy again. Sensible people: How, exactly? Liars: We’re gonna do away with the center for preventing disease and the institute of health. Sensible people: wait what? Liars: Also, you’re allowed to lick a cow’s asshole again.

There is a fly in my office but there is no chance that I’m gonna open the window until that killing blast furnace in the sky has gone, so I guess we’re roomies now.

Acme Ice on Kirkland was a featured video in the New York Times article on the heatwave!

It took me way too long to get comfortable with the fact that microblogging, live threading and such are journalism - which makes me a journalist. I’m an amateur, for sure, but it’s what I’m doing.

Here’s a thread about practical things you can do today to improve your personal information security posture. I wrote this when it became clear that Trump was giving Musk the keys to the digital kingdom … and it’s all still valid.

I really cannot overemphasize how important it is to assume that all electronic communications channels are either currently compromised, or else will be retroactively compromised in the future. If you want to keep a secret, don’t put it online. 1/?

While riding home today, I saw a Ben and Jerry’s and was like ‘pah! chain ice cream!’ And I was okay with that. Then I saw a JP licks and I was like ‘pah!’ And then I was like ‘oh god, I’m really that much of a snob?’ And my brain was like ‘we haven’t been to Jamie’s on Kirkland yet, they’re new.’

Aeronaut didn’t stutter.

I'm hearing that people are upset about the fact that and the way in which the police cleared Broadway last night after a fight, and possibly a "stampede" broke out. One concrete action you can take is to file a complaint - either at the police station or with the human rights commission. 1/?

Fuck yeah Allston! Fuck yeah USA!

Hard to believe, seeing this, that it used to be a highway.

Remember how Trump couldn’t pay the fines after brung convicted of fraud, and that almost maybe could have blocked him from being president, maybe? Guess that won’t be a problem anymore, on two fronts. 1/? www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/u...

Oh good, another post broke containment and now I am awash in, as one memorable bio says, ‘real [people] with real opinions, which [they] often share here.’

It seems timely to remind everybody that the Republican platform, without a word of exaggeration, is to undo every shred of liberal and humanist progress this country has made since the emancipation proclamation. That’s the goal, and every single Republican elected is complicit in it.

I think often about how lucky I was to grow up just as everybody was getting on the internet. In the early 90's it got way harder for bullies, parents, churches, and coaches to isolate kids, calling them weird and saying there was nobody else out there like them. It changed my life, for sure. 1/?

Somerville’s budget (2026 edition): Wrapping up a season with symbolic resolutions and symbolic ‘no’ votes

New strings make all the old repertoire sound new.

Super pissed off at myself for falling for a scam travel website. ‘Thrive Travel’ offered a low fare, but immediately emailed saying ‘blah blah, pricing error, maybe we can find a -different- trip that fits your budget’ Calling my credit card company now to report the fraud because fuck scammers.

I'm finding it helpful to ask whether a particular use of technology refines or dilutes information. Blowing out a two sentence prompt into a two page press release is dilutive. Everybody can see that there's no value added. I think that's a major part of the objection to "AI slop." 1/?

Why thö

Bad pedestrian crossing, or the worst pedestrian crossing?

This is a long-ish and somewhat rambly read, but overall it's a great and helpful framing. "All that “free thinking” and defiance of incumbents always seems to end up as revenue for the largest companies in the world." www.wheresyoured.at/cargo-culture/

Here’s a thread of decent, though generic advice on how to be happier. Advice 1: Decline all optional fights (and way more of them are optional than you think). 1/?

Any Democrat who takes Palantir money is as dead to me as the victims of Palantir’s automated kill solution.

Still life, with cat.

One not-incorrect understanding of the AI revolution is that the gaslighting has now been fully automated.

I can tell that a food is going to be pretty odd when I do a sanity check web search on a recipe and the top hits are forager / survivalist blogs rather than foodie blogs. This post brought to you by me, with an abundance of mint, wondering ‘can I ferment this?’

This is the sweetest, gentlest post.

Find friends who, when you give them homemade preserves, return the jars you gave them filled with preserves of their own.

Here’s why I posted this: Every year for the last at least four years, a nontrivial fraction of budget season was taken up with an always-just-around-the-corner, will-she-or-won’t-she tease about composting. This year? It’s nowhere in the conversation. I can only assume it died.

RIP citywide curbside composting, I suppose.

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. 1/?

Corporations are made up entities and we should be entirely comfortable changing and even discarding them when they cease to be useful or become harmful.

Folks, it's been a day and I have decided to take tonight's (hopefully) final meeting of the city council prior to their recess from the comfort of my home. BUT IT'S THE END OF BUDGET SEASON LET'S GO! somervillema.legistar.com/MeetingDetai... 1/?

If you hear somebody described as ‘tireless’ you should be aware that they are actually very tired.

‘For the Sotos, this “material support” included owning a “printing press” used to print anarchist zines and being part of a leftist book club, the federal government argued.’ Literal freedom of the literal printing press. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

I think we overuse the word ‘crisis.’ Housing, homelessness (which is distinct from housing), affordability, public health, addiction, climate, racism, antisemitism, wars, other wars, not enough babies, no jobs, … All are important, but we can’t treat all of them as crises simultaneously. 1/?

The tech that the HVAC company dispatched to work on my heating and cooling system was named "Kelvin" and I think that's just absolutely perfect.

Readers of #BookSky Announcing The Porter Square Review of Books! Starting RIGHT NOW, the PSRB will publish one review, written by a PSB libromancer or a Writer in Residence every week or so...

Civics doesn’t need an app. The problem is not the lack of an app. An app is not what is missing in our civics. Please do not turn the core mechanism of enshittification loose on my local journalism.