Coronado residents are protesting the Hotel Del agreeing to host a service by the Awaken Church, a toxic MAGA organization whose leaders espouse vile LGBTQ-phobic beliefs. The head pastor “shares violent messaging and images, argues for the ‘public hanging’ and ‘torture’ of people he disagrees with and encourages the violent overthrow of the government.”
What’s behind the tech industry’s mass layoffs in 2024?.
There is a herding effect in tech…. The layoffs seem to be helping their stock prices, so these companies see no reason to stop.
Layoffs “are contagious…. when one major tech company downsizes staff, the board of a competing company may start to question why their executives are not doing the same.”
Israeli officials presented details to back up their claims that UN relief workers helped Hamas in the October raid. “One is accused of kidnapping a woman. Another is said to have handed out ammunition. A third was described as taking part in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people died.”
German-born photographer Evelyn Hofer captured beautiful photos of Dublin in 1965-66. “Hofer took her time composing each shot, whether it captured a pair of housekeepers in brief repose or James Joyce’s death mask.”
I had a Zoom meeting yesterday and I put it on my calendar but instead of “Zoom” I mistakenly wrote “Zoomies” and so instead of my meeting I went out in the backyard and ran around in circles as hard as I could for a while and then I collapsed and had a nap.
Only 90s Web Developers Remember This. The halfway point of this essay is where my Web development skills end.
How Cory Doctorow uses browser tabs for productivity superpowers
Cory defends lifehacking, which “is in pretty bad odor these days, and with good reason: a once-useful catch-all for describing how to make things easier has become a pit of productivity porn, grifter hustling, and anodyne advice wreathed in superlatives and transformed into SEO-compliant listicles.” But at its core, lifehacking is just a collection of little tricks that help people be more productive.
Your Local Epidemiologist: How to (and not to) boost your immune system
Works: “A balanced, nutrient-dense diet,” sleep and hydration.
Doesn’t work: Getting re-infected; dietary supplements (for most people) including Vitamin C, Vitamin D and probiotics; cold plunges; nasal breathing; saunas.
How Cory Doctorow cured his writer’s block:
… the key turned out to be the realization that while there were days when (in retrospect) I wrote well and days when I wrote poorly, and days when I _felt _like I was writing well and days when I felt like I was writing poorly, they weren’t the same days. I could write great material even when I felt like I was writing shit. I could write shit when I felt like I was doing the best writing of my life.
Helpful for any kind of skilled work.
On the futility of blocking spammers on social media
“Brand New Key” is actually a song about sex! Holy shit!
The word of the day is “pharmacovigilance.”
Penn Jillette Wants to Talk It All Out
I was going to move to France with my girlfriend and be a beatnik existential writer — she broke up with me, I was very upset, I said, “Fuck you,” and went to Clown College.
On the importance of agreeing on consensus reality:
We can argue forever about gun control — whether that’s a good idea or a bad idea, including what the framers thought — but if we can’t agree that the shootings happened, then we can’t talk.
Also:
As a good friend of mine said, “I don’t mind being called an asshole — I don’t want to be an asshole.”
He talks about renouncing libertarianism; Bob Dylan; the Smothers Brothers; the risk of monetizing hate, aggression and outrage; Jewish identity; why he doesn’t speak out about Israel and Hamas (pretty much the same reason I don’t); the Three Stooges; fame; ambition; Donald Trump; and why, despite numerous problems, the world is better off today than it has been.
Downworthy: A browser plugin to turn hyperbolic viral headlines into what they really mean:
- “Literally” becomes “Figuratively”
- “Will Blow Your Mind” becomes “Might Perhaps Mildly Entertain You For a Moment”
- “One Weird Trick” becomes “One Piece of Completely Anecdotal Horseshit”
- “Go Viral” becomes “Be Overused So Much That You’ll Silently Pray for the Sweet Release of Death to Make it Stop”
- “Can’t Even Handle” becomes “Can Totally Handle Without Any Significant Issue”
- “Incredible” becomes “Painfully Ordinary”
- “You Won’t Believe” becomes “In All Likelihood, You’ll Believe”
The lost ancient practice of communal sleep. “Until the mid-19th Century, it was completely normal to share a bed with friends, colleagues and even total strangers. How did people cope? And why did we stop?”
Powerful and disturbing: My grandpa was a Nazi, by Bastian Allgeier.
I canceled my ChatGPT subscription. I’m just not using it enough to justify the $20/mo.
I had in mind creating my own GPT—my own individual AI assistant—but I haven’t prioritized doing so, and I don’t see that changing in the near future.
I thought that ChatGPT might make a good writing assistant. But ChatGPT’s first drafts are hopeless. It’s easier and faster for me to write from scratch.
This is not a forever decision. I expect I’ll give it another try soon enough.