From what I'm hearing it sounds like Justin Bieber's avant garde production of "Krapp's Last Tape" was controversial?

You can never feel bad about misplacing your keys again. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/u...

Tons of stuff in here -- as well as Neil Innes there's also Ray Davies, Tav Falco's Panther Burns, the Bangles, the Sugarcubes, TMBG, Jonathan Richman, the Replacements, Kirsty MacColl, Nick Cave, Continental Drifters, Mojo Nixon, Alex Chilton, Jad Fair, Roky Erickson, Robyn Hitchcock...

no please NYT, tell me more of this ancient discovery your digital archeologists have unearthed (source: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/b...)

A knock-on effect US commercial giants providing key services to American national security agencies—like Amazon’s cloud storage contract with CIA—is that US adversaries are more likely to consider them fair game.

did we cross a line where we now say that a company with $ X revenue is "an $ X company"? Or that it's "worth $ X"? Sure, getting to $1.8B in revenue with two people is kinda nuts, but you haven't created $1.8B in value. NYT oughta know this, right? www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/t...

It kills me that we now have 35+ years of experience designing online interaction and we still screw it up, so when someone like Derek who has been studying and writing about this for nearly that whole time weighs in, I pay close attention.

When something as utterly weird as skibidi toilet becomes just another hunk of "Valuable IP" aftermath.site/skibidi-toil...

Rest of World is seeking our next ambitious Editor-in-Chief to reimagine our publication for this new era of tech volatility. We’re looking for a visionary leader to take the reins of our world-class newsroom. Join us: https://restofworld.org/about/hiring/editor-in-chief/?utm_campaign=row-social

Very cool use of internet time. 💯

You must picture Sam Altman holding a knife to Tim Berner-Lee's throat. We are in a truly existential level of danger when it comes to the survival of the open web, across every front. This year is when it all comes to a head. www.anildash.com/2026/03/27/e...

"Just trying to keep the lights on." New album "The Former Site Of" from the New Pornographers and @acnewman.bsky.social out today... can't wait to hear it all. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-U0...

This is a phenomenally great podcast that I highly recommend (and I am not even interested in sports!) and very sad that it is so relevant again

RIP Tracy Kidder, a great writer who knew how to tell human stories. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/b... "Soul" was totally my inspiration for "Dreaming in Code." I thought "OK, he did an incredible job with hardware, what about software?"

The NYT is writing about Bojangles fried chicken landing in NYC www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/d... but we've been here before, my old friend @billmckibben.bsky.social was covering this exact same story back in 1982! www.newyorker.com/magazine/198...

Exactly right from @slhamlet.bsky.social: This is so much the heart of it -- willful ignorance about history, previous experience, prior art. It's always year zero in the Valley. Too often, a giant cycle of ignorance. From www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/t...

mill's dedication: this is a jointly authored work a century & a half of male editors: mill exaggerated out of a sentimental fondness for his wife mill's letters: no, really, most of "my" work was partly by her, i really could not be clearer on this

Seen on the web: "Every time I complain that vibe coding produces slop, people tell me I can get better results by writing more specific instructions. Good idea! But I think we need a catchier name for the concept of writing specific instructions for a machine to follow."

The Grammarly "famous editor bots" fiasco that @caseynewton.bsky.social wrote about is hilarious, but the thing that gets me is that they filched the names/reps of all these high-profile writers & journalists when most of them would agree that the best editors are largely unknown and work in shadow

Jack liked the bsky idea because he thought by turning Twitter into a protocol he would be excused from having to do the messy community work that’s the actual hard part of social media - an ethos that almost destroyed bsky in the beginning and still lies at the root of all their bad decisions.

Big fan here of DeLong's substitution for "artificial superintelligence" of "Anthology superintelligence"--"humanity’s collective mind present and past stored in and as our information technology capital stock." LLMs? A new interface to All That. With real opportunities and big pitfalls.

A key challenge, and a huge source of the disconnect between Silicon Valley and the other creative industries is that, for coders, AI eliminates the drudgery so they can focus on the creative/expressive part. In every other creative discipline, it has the exact opposite effect.

This is a great piece on why and how we keep making culture -- looping the thread of "I want to make this" through the needle of careerism, financial needs, self-doubt and The Times We Live In. newsletter.bijanstephen.blog/what-does-it...

For those of you keeping score at home, the actual cut to the Post newsroom was 45%, not the widely reported one third. Remaining journalists are a bit over 400, down from around 1100 four years ago and 580 when Bezos bought the place.

This is a really interesting discussion, but I feel like it's missing a key point. "Good writing" is hard to quantify because, beyond the more tactical aspects (coherence, concision, suspense, descriptive skill, etc.), what makes writing resonate in the moment is utterly subjective.

This is why domestic "shuffle" flights between ICE detention centers have skyrocketed, much moreso than ICE deportation flights. When you are moved to a different jurisdiction, you have to refile your habeas petition all over again. They want to wear people down so they'll give up on their cases.

Those good people at @404media.co bought a Super Bowl ad www.404media.co/email/f65911...

Every time tech stocks retreat, part of my psyche that bears the scars of 2000-2001 feels the twinge. As with a big Northern California earthquake, we are overdue. This one could be another minor correction. But all it takes is a lineup of random factors to kick off a self-reinforcing rout.

With the awful WaPo layoffs and the state of journalism more broadly, if it's useful for any writers and reporters considering going indy, @molly.wiki, @xoxogossipgita.bsky.social of Aftermath, @jasonkoebler.bsky.social of 404 Media, @edzitron.com and me will do a little workshop next week.

Most of the Washington Post’s tech reporters were laid off today, including me. I have loved my time at the paper, which is where I wanted to work from age 15. I take some consolation in not being among the survivors who will have to work harder with less for fewer readers. On to better things.

This is such a classic instance of what happens when a startup with a community of devoted fans gets acquired by a megacorp and then put on life support. www.wired.com/story/metas-...

Since the start of the genAI craze I have been arguing that OpenAI could well turn out to be, not the next Google/Facebook, but rather the next Netscape. Here is one analysis predicting that outcome: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/o...

When you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?

via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon

Thank you! This is truly annoying, suggesting an inability on the user's part to distinguish between the thing itself ("conspiracy") and the fancifully mistaken belief that the thing is real ("theory") -- furthering the very confusion that conspiracy theorists depend on to spread their conjectures

Anyway w/r/t to that thread on The Pitt, I think the show (which I love!) is a flashpoint for a broader argument in TV: Should the medium's new business & technologicial structure be constrained to preserve narrative formats and customs that only exist because of a previous business/tech structure

Ars Technica is hiring a Tech Reporter We're seeking an expert in one or more of these fields: software development, DIY tech, cybersecurity, free and open-source software (FOSS). Come join the team! condenast.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/CondeC...

A suitably soberer "Cluetrain Manifesto" for a more beleaguered time resonantcomputing.org the key will be insuring that those who work by such principles can protect them from long-term contact with the VC system and its incentives

The interesting, sophisticated thing about games is not whether they can tell stories as well as books or movies (they can’t) or float shocking themes as well as fine art (honestly, who cares). It’s the manipulation of systems, the play of contingency, the brokenness of machines.

Some of that proverbial personal news, since I realize I hadn't posted yet about it: I retired from Axios last month after 7+ years. Time for me to step off the news cycle, which is both addicting and exhausting. Grateful to my wonderful colleagues at Axios—their admirable work is worth following.

This morning, took a trip on a boat to an island via "Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan," the new album from @themountaingoats.bsky.social. It's a musical-of-sorts, about three shipwreck survivors who find themselves stranded and starving on some faraway beach....

Talking to the youths in 2025: did you know that "podcast" comes from a pun on "broadcast" plus the Apple iPod, a precursor to the iPhone that only played music Talking to the youths in 2045: did you know that "tweet" comes from a pun on Twitter, a precursor to various shortform social media

Waiting for Godot: The Hunt for Godot is the recently announced newest installment of the Godotverse. The long awaited sidequel follows Godot's adventures during the events of the original play.

There are so many *different* ways AI is going to usher in utopia, and AI leaders have kept very busy over the last three years predicting future paradises. Here's my brief guide to the AI manifesto literature, in Axios today www.axios.com/2025/09/23/a...

if "grandpa with fox on in the background" made you sad, wait until you meet "grandpa who watches 2000 daily reels of slop algorithmically targeted at his worst impulses and fears"

I'm looking for stories about how AI is killing creative work, and I'd love to hear from you—artists, writers, illustrators, actors, designers, editors, voice actors and narrators—if your job or practice has been hit. This is going to be a big one. [email protected]

Having covered mass shootings for almost 20 years now, the things that so many have in common—and how we can prevent them absent, you know, sane gun laws—are best explained in this piece by @markfollman.bsky.social : www.motherjones.com/criminal-jus...

How's the mass rollout of AI going? My new 2-parter in Axios. Part 1: bot-vs-bot dynamics will bring new kinds of friction and over-optimization that, paradoxically, will make sharing ideas and buying goods online *less* efficient. www.axios.com/2025/08/22/a...

Can folks do me a favor? I was on Bluesky early & it was great. Mostly. I hit the eject button in January. I came back, many colleagues are here, but still don’t know I am. I co-created Halt and Catch Fire. I write TV & comics. Here’s two favorite set photos. Repost? I am in the wilderness.

Smart thoughts from Suleyman about how problematic it is to project consciousness onto the computer programs we call AIs; "seemingly conscious AI" is a useful phrase. BUT has he read Weizenbaum? If not, why? If so, why not mention? mustafa-suleyman.ai/seemingly-co...