Mitch Wagner

A guide for visiting journalists on how to write a San Francisco “doom loop” story:

You’re here to write the millionth story about the San Francisco doom loop, the much publicized (including at least 100 times by the Chronicle) and hotly debated theory that a city that endured proudly through the 1906 earthquake and fire, AIDS crisis, Zodiac killer, one tech boom-and-bust and the band Starship will be completely undone by … high commercial vacancy rates.”

I would not say I have “sensory processing issues” (autism, PTSD—I probably do have ADHD) but yesterday I was at the supermarket and the ambient music was annoying. Also, I hate that waiting rooms now have TVs playing at all times. So Walmart’s sensory-friendly hours sound good to me.

I just did a rough tally of our monthly streaming video and cable bill.

Minnie wants you to know you’re awesome and she hopes you’re as comfortable as she is.

Food insecurity on the rise. 10% of California households can’t afford to buy enough food for everybody. Nationwide, that number is 11%. That’s unacceptable.

I have seen no policy or legislative proposals from No Labels. It’s all a bunch of handwaving about centrism and bipartisanship.

The timelessness of the Meg Ryan rom-com era. Meg Ryan’s latest film, “What Happens Later,” “recalls the Nora Ephron classics that defined the genre.”

New Meg Ryan romcom co-starring David Duchovny? Sure, why not?

How do I stop the “Start your day?” notifications every morning on Apple Watch? They are annoying.

Jason Parham at Wired: “The internet promised us access, but I didn’t realize the totality of what that meant. It meant always being plugged in, available, in the know and up to date on what’s trending. That is a requirement of time that I no longer wish to give over.”

“… a bunch of predominately white, upper-middle-class Londoners fall in love while being self-deprecating and swearing inventively.…“ Love Actually at 20: Richard Curtis’s imperfect yet irresistible Christmas romcom

While walking with the dog this morning, I saw these. Seeing an El Camino first thing in the morning is lucky—everybody knows that.

I have seen this sign often while walking on Del Cerro Blvd. I have no idea what the story is. Hohokam Stadium is in Mesa, Arizona, more than 360 miles away, and what does it have to do with the (presumably, Chicago) Cubs?

Time’s 200 Best Inventions of 2023 includes Sightful, an AR laptop with a 100-inch virtual screen. Also: Shift Robotics Moonwalkers are “battery-­powered wheeled shoes [that] allow you to walk normally (not skate), just faster and more easily. The Moonwalkers use AI to sense when you’re speeding up or slowing down and adjust themselves accordingly, and the wheels lock when you’re taking the stairs.” Using Moonwalkers, you can walk 2.5x faster than your normal gait. The price is $1,400.

Also: Ryse Recon is a personal helicopter, the TransAstra FlyTrap is an orbital bag to pick up space debris and the Italian Institute of Technology is developing an edible battery.

I hope I love anything as much as my grandma hated ‘The Sound of Music’. A sweet and loving tribute by Alexandra Petri.

Daylight Saving Time as Americans know it was instituted by corporate lobbies, not farmers

I love Dave Winer’s vision of textcasting—write anywhere you want, using any tools, and read anywhere you want, using any tools.

Today, I take advantage of micro.blog’s great cross-posting tools and ActivityPub support, but that doesn’t get me everywhere I need to be. I have to cut-and-paste to post on Facebook, for example.

Here, blogger Tim Carmody responds to some of Dave’s ideas.

… Dave’s right: this worked for podcasts (the phrase “anywhere you get your podcasts!” is a great advertisement for interoperability breaking any single platform’s dominance), it worked for blogs, and it can work for this strange multimodal thing we’ve created called social media. It worked for the world wide web! And I will be ride or die for the open web until my life comes to an end.

One reason to seek out alternatives to silos like Facebook and X is because when we use those platforms, we’re volunteering our labor to further enrich billionaires. I need the money more than they do. And much as I like Tumblr, the same goes for them. I’m happy to do volunteer work, but not for the enrichment of people who already have far more money than me.

A starfish is a “disembodied head walking about the sea floor on its lips,” according to recent research.

I did not plan to have nightmares about starfish this weekend but here we are.