An observation. Learned about this directory of independent journalists, and notice that newsletter - Substack is the top platform, Instagram is second. Website is fifth with 87. Can’t help but notice that what appears to me to be newer sites usually do not have RSS feeds. Most sites do have a Subscribe button that is for an email newsletter.
In this video on YouTube, Kitt Betts-Masters shows the technology behind Wacom’s EMR pens. I currently primarily use felt nibs in the EMR pens I use with my Viwoods AI Paper Mini and Boox Note Air 3C, but I am curious about how the ceramic nibs feel. My concern has been with the effect of using ceramic nibs, even the ones provided by Viwoods, on the life of the screen.
The Guardian, Forget Maga. Welcome to Mega: Make Empire Great Again
Fresh from toppling the president of Venezuela and taking control of the world’s largest oil reserves, the Trump administration’s top diplomat arrived at the Munich security conference on Saturday with a rather new and very disturbing message for European governments. Empire is great. Empire is back. Empire is American.
Oceans Rise, Empires Fall
Title inspiration: You’ll Be Back
Joan Westernberg uses the failure of empires as a metaphor for why current predictions about AI are likely not to be completely realized. She equates empires with corporations and says this:
We haven’t seen the first great AI collapse. We haven’t seen a foundation model company make the BlackBerry mistake or the Nokia mistake, or the Roman mistake, or the Ottoman mistake or reach their Bunker-in-Berlin mistake. But we will, and we’ll see it multiple times, because these mistakes = features of power concentration. The hubris that makes a company or an empire dominant in one era is frequently the quality that blinds it to the next one. If you could ask Lazaridis in 2006, or a British colonial administrator in 1900, whether their model of the world was permanent, each would’ve given you a very convincing explanation for why it in fact was.
The interesting thing is that while she is applying the fall of empires to AI, she could actually be describing what is happening right now in the United States. We are living in a period of time in which the fall of the U.S. empire is accelerating. I think AI is a contributor to the fall of the U.S. empire because employment is a pillar of the empire that has been built using economic might.
Those of us who have been raised on the privileges of the U.S. empire are being told that the source of our pain is the “other,” however that is defined (race, nationality, gender) by each one of us. The purpose is self preservation for the people in power who created and maintained the U.S. empire for their personal benefit, but as Joan points out history shows they too will ultimately fail.
That anxiety you are feeling is being caused by the stones of the U.S. empire starting to fall around you. All you have known is the life the empire has provided to you and you know your life is going to change. We know this in our bones because change is a cosmic truth.
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I wish that the micro.blog editor had a “source code” mode. Yesterday I uploaded a screenshot from my phone and after viewing in in a desktop web browser I wanted to reduce the size by half. I went to edit the post but found no way to actually see the img html tag to change the width and height. I had to remove the picture, go in to Uploads, copy the HTML, then go back to the post and add the HTML and then change the width and height.
It is absolutely gorgeous outside right now. Have a great day!
I spent the afternoon working on and testing Scott Hanson’s dockerized version of Feedland. I’ve written notes but I don’t have the time now to edit and post them, which I will do this weekend. The net is that like the other time I installed Feedland in my home lab, I could not get browser access via HTTP to work. The web browser just simply refuses to load the site and displays an SSL error message. The good news is that I did get access to work via my Nginx and duckdns.org configuration in the same manner as I have done with other apps hosted in my home network.
I have moved some equipment around in the home office so that I can use the adjustable/standing desk while standing. This is the first time I have experienced moving my Macbook between external monitor configurations and I am impressed by the fact that it remembers the different configurations.
I really hate how streamers create horrible user experience for the sake of commercials. I am watching the Olympics on Peacock and using the “Top Events” multi-view mode to watch a hockey game, when the period ends I want to check in on the other events but cannot switch because Peacock disables navigation during commercials. How do they think people use multi-view?
Tigers and Justin Verlander agree to one-year contract for 2026 season
Really glad to see Verlander return to where it all started for him. Who knows how much can contribute but he does have experience to pass along.