The Techno-Utopian Seasteaders Who Want to Colonize the Ocean. By Mark Yarm at the New York Times.
AI assisted search-based research actually works now. Simon Willison:
I’ve been throwing all kinds of questions at ChatGPT (in o3 or o4-mini mode) and getting back genuinely useful answers grounded in search results. I haven’t spotted a hallucination yet, and unlike prior systems I rarely find myself shouting “no, don’t search for that!" at the screen when I see what they’re doing.
Here's someone I saw while walking the dog
I’m trying out a new stealth photography trick, where I just hold my phone at my hip with the camera open and shoot a lot of images in burst mode, without bothering to aim precisely. Then I review the photos to see if any are good.
I like the way this one came out.
I’m not sure I feel right about posting a photo of a stranger publicly without their permission, but I’m doing it today.
Trump DOJ goon threatens Wikipedia — Latest in a trend of the right going after Wikipedia. Targeting Wikipedia is one of Project 2025’s explicit goals.
Trump pardons Nevada politician who paid for cosmetic surgery with funds to honor a slain officer
Trump pardoned Michele Fiore, a Nevada Republican who raised money to build a statue to honor a police officer killed in the line of duty, and used some of that money to pay personal costs, including plastic surgery.
Trump also pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who tried to murder police.
I hope the police remember these incidents when deciding whether to continue to support Republicans.
The theory and history of time travel — I’ll remind myself tomorrow to read this yesterday.
Shot from the hip! A street level view of 1970s New York – in pictures — Inspires me to take a lot more random, sloppy street photos and sort them out later.
Trump and his Repubican supporters are openly taking bribes, arresting judges whose actions they don’t like, building registries of Jews and autistic people, threatening to deport American citizens, some born here, putting people in concentration camps, dismantling America’s scientific and economic leadership, rewriting American history to erase Black contributions, and that’s just some damage done in their first three months. Gosh, I can’t wait to see what they get up to in May!