Mitchellaneous CXLIV. Ten things I saw on the internet
The Walt Whitman Mall, Long Island, NY, near where I grew up, 1962. I spent a lot of time there as a teen and in my very early 20s. It was a good place to walk around, hit the bookstore, get some food.
Vintage postcards of mid-20th century American motel and hotel bedrooms
The Internet’s Tollbooth Operators.. Tim Wu’s ‘The Age of Extraction’ chronicles the way Big Tech platforms have turned against their users.
We Are the Bad Guys. “The swaggering threat to global stability is us.” — Hamilton Nolan
Mitchellaneous CXLIII. Eight things I saw on the internet
‘28 Birkenholz - Kugelhaus (Dresden)
the myth of merit in the managerial class. Merit doesn’t get you hired or promoted for professional and managerial jobs.
Venezuela
The U.S. invasion of Venezuela is going to be a disaster from which we may never recover. Venezuela may prove to be the downfall of the U.S., the way Afghanistan was for the U.S.S.R. (and could have been for the US — having dodged a bullet on that one, just barely, we have now put the barrel of the gun in our mouths and pulled the trigger again).
The only winners of this war will be Trump and his kleptocracy.
Russia will take Ukraine, China will take Taiwan, and Trump will just wave them through.
Congress needs to act to stop this illegal war and impeach Trump. But Congress will do nothing. Congress is as impotent as the Roman Senate under the Caesars.
Trump’s Risky War in Venezuela.. By going around Congress, the president is showing contempt for the will of the public.
Trump’s Cuts Are About to Make Health Care Even Worse. Medicaid cuts will make all of America look more like Mississippi, with a shorter life expectancy than Bangladesh.
She seems nice
The words “trust” and “Meta” don’t belong in the same sentence unless that sentence also includes the word “don’t.”
I don’t mean to brag but I just read one page of tvtropes.org for about a minute, and now I’m just going to walk away from the computer.
RIP Isah Whitlock — Senator Clay Davis on "The Wire." Sheeeeit!
RIP Isiah Whitlock, Jr., 71, a prolific and talented character actor whose roles include ultra-corrupt State Sen. Clay Davis on “The Wire.” Davis’s catchphrase was a unique interpretation of the word “shit” — “sheeeeeeeit”
Here’s a YouTube supercut of Whitlock dialogue on “The Wire."
One of my favorite roles of his was a supporting character in the 2011 dark comedy “Cedar Rapids,” which starred Ed Helms. Davis played a nerdy midwestern insurance agent who’s obsessed with “The Wire.”
Mitchellaneous CXL. Twelve things I saw on the internet
19-½. I think I stretched out on a waterbed for a few minutes to try it out, but did not sleep or engage in carnal activities. Or maybe I did do both of those things (with a partner, wiseass), but the experience was so ordinary, despite a lot of hype that waterbeds were getting at that time, that I’ve forgotten it.
elevator button sample case
Spicy Stories, December, 1924.
Polar bear on board a Soviet icebreaker, 1970.
How to read Patrick O'Brian
I’m re-reading the first volume of the Aubrey-Maturin series, “Master and Commander.” I think I read the first three volumes 25-30 years ago, and then stopped for some reason. I barely remember any of it.
I’m enjoying the book but I also find it overwhelming. The author, Patrick O’Brian, throws out a lot of nautical terms and rarely explains any of it.
So I did a web search on “how to read Patrick O’Brian,” and saw this advice:
First read-through just enjoy the ride and feel the ambience. You can enjoy the story without understanding all details. Looking up everything just makes reading too slow for a first pass.
Next circumnavigation you can start looking up things and understand the subtle jokes. After the tenth round there are still some that you missed.
And that’s what I’m doing.
I don’t know whether I’ll read the series again — let alone ten times!
Manton Reece makes observations and prescriptions for the future of open social networks and the fediverse, which I wholeheartedly agree with. We need to break out of silos. Sure, Facebook and Instagram are silos, but so are Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, other ActivityPub platforms and Tumblr.
The Truth Physics Can No Longer Ignore
Physics operates on the reductionist principle that the universe can be entirely explained by the interactions of particles and forces. But that principle breaks down for living things, writes Adam Frank at The Atlantic:
Give me a simple cell from the early days of Earth’s history, and I could never predict that some 4 billion years later it would evolve into a giant rabbit that can punch you in the face. Kangaroos—like humans—are an unpredictable, emergent consequence of life’s evolution.
This is an interesting article, but I fear it might also be junk science.
Why A.I. Didn’t Transform Our Lives in 2025. By Cal Newport.