We watched “The Thin Man” Saturday night. Second time for me, but I had nearly forgotten it. It was delightful.
I think I’m only going to watch movies made in the 1930s from now on.
Advantage to working from home: When you’re completely stuck creatively, you can clean the massive amount of dog shit that you got on your favorite casual shoes.
Disadvantage to working from home: If you work in a proper office building, you’re not as likely to get massive amounts of dog shit on your favorite casual shoes.
I used a stiff brush, a worn-out toothbrush, and a thin stick. Wet down the brush with warm water, scrub with dish soap, put on the shoes and walk around in the grass for a bit, then take off the shoes and repeat. Use the toothbrush and thin stick to dig in the treads. It’s not magic; it takes a while.
According to the Internet, WD-40 works instead of dish soap, but we don’t know where the WD-40 is.
Important note: When doing the “walking around in the grass” part, don’t step in more dog shit!
Researchers at Columbia University are working on building a conscious robot.
If they succeed, it will end badly. They’re either building a race of artificial slaves that hate us, or building a race of artificial slaves that are brainwashed to love us.
‘Consciousness’ in Robots Was Once Taboo. Now It’s the Last Word. [NYTimes/Oliver Whang]
Insomnia is not so bad if you have something to do to pass the time. When I have trouble sleeping, I like to imagine every possible awful thing that might happen to me or Julie.
Things I saw while walking the dog 📸
This yard decoration. Clever and patriotic!
These pretty, painted rocks
This house with a cozy looking sitting area on the roof.
This school. “Geckos” does not seem like an inspiring team name.
This nice garden.
This Lambo parked in front of a house. It doesn’t look like the kind of house that would have a Lambo in front.
These cars. WTF do these bumper stickers mean?
This tree.
These cars. Two different cars, not parked close together. I wonder whether the owners are friends.
Dead Santa hanging from the house with the “itty bitty titty committee” sign in front.
This flag. I thought it said “one nation under Gog.” Who’s “Gog?” I said.
San Diego Union-Tribune: ‘It’s cold, wet, exhausting.’ Homeless people have few options when it rains.
San Diego homeless shelters are overwhelmed, leaving many people risking cold rain, flooding, and temperatures falling to the 40s. Staying dry is difficult—and essential to staying alive.
By Gary Warth.
Why the [expletive] can’t we travel back in time? [Ars Technica/Paul Sutter]
No known law of physics forbids time travel to the past.
Either time travel to the past is possible, or there’s some fundamental, basic physics we still don’t understand.
Either possibility is exciting.
“It’s obvious that the Universe is telling us something important… we just don’t know what it’s saying.”
Coolio talked about ancient aliens, and making big investments in the metaverse and crypto, in an impromptu podcast interview before his death. [Billboard/Gil Kaufman]
The Coolio interview was bonkers—and poignant. The rapper said he expected he’d be long dead before climate change became a concern. Then he died a month later.
I expect climate change to be a concern long before I’m dead, and I’m only a year older than Coolio. It’s already a concern.
I’ve googled for more about the hidden continent occult belief that Coolio discusses. I haven’t found anything.
The podcast series, Crypto Island, was excellent. Sadly for the host/creator, PJ Vogt, most of the work on the series seems to have been done before the FTX debacle, so series is now obsolete.
Apparently you can re-use 2017 calendars this year, which is funny to me because I have a 2017 calendar hanging up on the wall next to my bed. I stopped turning pages April of that year, and it’s been April, 2017 in the vicinity of my bed ever since.
The book Shift Happens tells the 150-year history of keyboards, from primitive typewriters to smartphones. Glenn Fleishmann @GlennF raved about this book on John Gruber’s @gruber@mastodon.social’s The Talk Show podcast—sounds interesting.
My car keys got hidden in a fold in the pocket of my rain jacket after I was done walking the dog this afternoon. I spent 15 minutes looking for them—on the ground, peering into the car window to see if I’d locked them in, patting my pockets over and over.
It was past dusk, so I was losing the light fast. I didn’t have a proper flashlight, just my phone. And it was raining. And I still had the dog with me, of course.
Also, as a middle aged man, I can’t go more than two hours without peeing, and I was past my limit.
And that’s Jan. 1. The year is going to get better, right?
I saw this house flying a Starfleet flag. I was tempted to ring the doorbell to express my approval.
Portland Startup to Mine Artisanal Bitcoin Using Only Slide Rules and Graph Paper
“… powered 100 percent by avocado toast, ethically sourced kombucha and acai bowls.”
By the time New Year’s comes around, I have holiday exhaustion. New Year’s needs to be in March. Not a lot of holidays between January and May.
Quintessence is a “barebone Nuzzel clone” for Mastodon, in open beta.
It’s pretty simple: if you follow the @quintsns@mastodon.uno bot account, each day at 23:00UTC it will send you a direct message containing 10 links that have been shared in the past 24 hours by the people you follow, ordered by the number of different people you follow that have tooted/boosted the link.
Brilliant! I’ve signed up.