Finished reading：Surface Detail by Iain M．Banks 💙📚My 2nd or 3rd Culture book．Interesting 2025 parallels．Lots of ships／AIs to keep track of．🔥Hell🔥 plays a big role．A gripping read w／v．grim backstory；I would not start here if toe dipping into Culture series

An occasional reminder: Detroit -vs- Everybody t-shirts＆the whole bullshit concept is totally fucking stupid＆self defeating．It says the city doesn’t need anyone; outsiders aren’t welcome．Cut it out already＆let it the fuck go；stop mythologizing．Embrace what makes Detroit great for all

via Laura Olin:

“There are only three possible explanations as to why Americans voted for this man: they wanted what he promised; they didn’t believe what he promised; or they didn’t understand what he promised. Pick whichever rationale you want, because it doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason was, it exposed half of the electorate—the 77 million people who voted for Trump—as either fundamentally unserious, decadent, or weak. And no empire can survive the degeneration of its people.”

if i had one piece of advice for everyone, but that i need to take myself, it’s “you can acknowledge your weaknesses while also being kind to yourself”.

— Live Laugh Blog

She exhales. “That natural human proclivity to say, ‘Hmm, that doesn’t feel right’ – he doesn’t have it. Trump doesn’t have it. They’re spending no time in shame, and shame is a righteous emotion. It’s not an emotion you want to live in, but it’s an emotion you want as a motivator sometimes. And where is it? Where’s the shame?”

— Abigail Disney via John Harris via The Guardian

Periodic reminder that it is at least a million times harder to build something valuable than it is to destroy it.

– A Learning A Day

And social media … has gone from a wellspring of deeply reported storytelling to what feels like a video-infested wasteland devoid of clear thinking, curiosity or compassion.

— Sunday Long Read

What is the opposite of fascism? Living freely, colorfully, openly. Humanizing. Connecting with others. Gathering. Hoping. Following your dreams. Communing. Nurturing. Refusing despair. Laughing loudly.

– via Kottke

🔗

Keep it Weird

Fuck it man. Just put on some Grateful Dead. Put on some Aretha. Print some kind of zine. Paint a sign. Start a band. Write a manifesto. Bootleg a t-shirt. Hand out stickers. Throw a party. Keep it weird.

Finished reading: In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki 📚💙 great read on design and light. Reminds me of Alton Brown when he talks about heat

Finished reading: Humble Leadership, Second Edition by Edgar H. Schein 📚💙 another strong read from a class I finished. Being a humble leader isn’t being a weak leader. Strength comes from humility, as does earned confidence and honesty

Finished reading: Introduction to Leadership by Peter G. Northouse 📚💙A book leaders should read, reference, and return to. I learned a lot from it and the class I took.

Finished reading: How to Be an Inclusive Leader, Second Edition by Jennifer Brown 📚💙 finished this class. It’s another small book with actionable steps to being truly inclusive, not performative. It’s about taking personal risk if you’re coming from a place of privilege to make the workplace better. I learned a lot

Finished reading: Diversity in the Workplace by Bärí A. Williams 📚💙I did not like this book. It’s all anecdotes with a lot of interviewee ego stroking and self promotion. Waste of money

Finished reading: Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by 📚 💙 Finished my class. EQ is something everyone can work on, and this book offers excellent actionable steps.

Finished reading: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson 📚💙 Felt like the Mistborn books with different physics. I appreciate his books offering insights into how people operate. Lots of practical philosophy

Ugh. Digg: So much garbage, now with AI. Follow your joy; mine is elsewhere.

The Digital Packrat Manifesto by Janus Rose:

Amazon’s recent decision to stop allowing people to download copies of their Kindle e-books to a computer has vindicated some of my longstanding beliefs about digital media．Specifically，that it doesn’t exist and you don’t own it unless you can copy and access it without being connected to the internet

Let’s not call it content to start，shall we all？It is art，be it literature or music or cinema or TV or a podcast or whatnot.

Second，let’s stop renting our lives．So much of what we do and enjoy is licensed to us．Stand up＆take it back．Viva libraries!

Reminder:  doesn’t❤️you, nor does any corporate entity or 1%er or tyrant, benevolent-ish or otherwise

Our changing relationship with Apple:

Apple’s going to do what it’s going to do. Mostly, all we get to decide is whether or not we want to play in their sandbox. If you do, make it about the satisfaction of what you’re building and about serving your customers and a community that shares your values. Apple should be seen as a tool to those ends, not as a parent or partner or religion. Such expectations will only lead to disappointment.

Friends, family, people treated kindly — they’ll❤️you

10 Observations About Tokyo - by Quico Toro - Persuasion

In fifteen years … it had never once occurred to us to move to Japan. Yes, my wife grew up in the Kyoto ‘burbs but she left in 2004 and had zero interest in going back. But … a too-good-to-pass-up job opportunity came her way last summer, and we soon found ourselves packing up our lives and moving to a city we’d only known as tourists.

Six months on, here are ten observations on life here.

Matches my experience nearly spot-on. They live near where I used to work: Nihonbashi (Hakozaki-cho, for those playing along at home).

A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

– John Burroughs (h/t Mitigating Chaos)

I’d buy that for a $. The double down is when one fails, then blames others & calls them failures. 🤔 I wonder what orange-faced octogenarian incompetent does that 🤔

This isn’t just an issue of forcing users to cede ownership and keep everything within Amazon systems — Amazon has demonstrated in the past that it’s not a trustworthy librarian. The company has deleted books that it said were offered for sale by mistake or replaced books with new versions without alerting readers. Amazon’s also not interested in selling their ebooks or audiobooks to libraries, keeping a monopolistic hold on some titles. This is most egregiously the case for “Audible Exclusive” audiobooks, which won’t be available to borrow from libraries or to purchase from other services.

Tech companies selling books, music, and movies have long treated digital purchases more like rental agreements, which is nice for saving space on shelves and hard drives, but means that you’re locked in a strange, almost feudal relationship. The solution is to not give them your business — services like Bookshop.org and Libro.fm not only let you download your own, non-DRM-locked copies of what you buy, but also let you support independent bookstores with your purchases.

– James Folta at Literary Hub

Skepticism becomes closed-mindedness when its categories calcify and become exclusively outward-directed; skepticism can be open-minded when it operates flexibly and leaves space to be reflexively inward-directed. “You don’t know” versus “I don’t know.”

～Ethan Mills，№726

The problem with the internet ＆social media is that they require incredibly sophisticated information literacy ＆critical thinking skills to use effectively；the powers that control them deliberately engineer to bypass the formation of information literacy ＆critical thinking skills

～Ethan Mills，№750

😖So frustrated with pihole’s breaking changes, esp the Docker container. Only recently got v5 working as I wanted; now redo the whole thing for v6. Need to figure out how they broke DHCPd; reverted back to my router to get things talking

Charts are a window into the world．When done right，we gain an understanding of who we are，where we are，and how we can become better versions of ourselves．However，when done wrong，in the absence of truth，charts can be harmful. This is a guide to protect ourselves and to preserve what is good about turning data into visual things. We start with chart anatomy；then we look at how small changes can shift a point of view；this takes us to misleading chart varieties；we finish with reading data and next steps. – via FlowingData

At first blush it looks comprehensive，cited，objective ＆factual

Currently reading: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson 📚💙 Quick for a Sanderson read; I picked this up for Cosmere & it’s on my ereader. Following Welcome To The Cosmere: A Brandon Sanderson Reading Order Guide

Finished reading: The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe 📚💙 The first half of this book gripped me. The second half was a fever dream I could not follow easily. I worked hard to finish as much as I could, but it stopped being fun. Maybe I’ll pick it back up & finish someday ★★★☆☆

Amazon’s Kindle change is really about lock-in. They think we license ebooks from them, not that we own the ebooks we buy #enshittification

The problem is that if the ebook content is on a USB it can be transferred to a computer, and there the DRM can be broken and the book can be pirated and uploaded to a torrent and then downloaded by Meta to train its next AI.

Start Up No.2385: Broadcom and TSMC eye Intel buy, deepfake speech in five seconds, why sleep is the brain’s dishwasher, and more | The Overspill: when there’s more that I want to say

My Applied Critical Thinking class assignment is “What information sources shape your worldview?” Fuck social media for news, fellow kids! was the gist of my epic essay of an OP and the subsequent comments on others' posts. In other news, damn kids on lawn; shakes fist at cloud

Next to the American death cult that is MAGA, the other American death cult that is 2nd Amendment gun-nuttery, and the other other American death cult that is our health insurance setup, the question my overseas friends ask about is why filing American taxes is so hard and stupid:

Let me tell you about the most wasteful US federal government spending I know about. It's a humdinger. You and everyone you know are mired in it for weeks, or perhaps months, every year. It will cost you, personally, thousands of dollars over your lifetime. I'm talking about filing your taxes.

Not paying your taxes. Paying your taxes is fine. It keeps the country running, though not because the government needs our "tax dollars" to pay for things. The government annihilates the money it taxes away from us, and creates new money to pay for programs. The USA needs US citizens' dollars to build highways the same way Starbucks needs its Starbucks gift cards to make lattes – that is, not at all:

https://theglobepost.com/2019/03/28/stephanie-kelton-mmt/

I'm talking about filing your taxes. In nearly every case, a tax return contains a bunch of things the IRS already knows: how much interest your bank paid you, how much your employer paid you, how many kids you have, etc etc. Nearly everyone who pays a tax-prep place or website to file their tax return is just sending data to the IRS that the IRS already has. This is insanely wasteful.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/11/doubling-up-on-paperwork/#rip-freefile

When I filed taxes as an expat, the heavy lifting E&Y did was not so much what was needed for the country I was working in but rather the byzantine IRS paperwork. That was expensive work and E&Y charged my employer an appropriate amount. But it was still ridiculous.

Being back in the States for five years, I rely on the IRS Free File. I’ve no interest in contributing to the nonsense racket that is Intuit or H&R Block. I’ll fucking print out and mail my tax forms like in the old days before I’ll throw those leeches another cent.

This is, without hyperbole, a five-alarm fire for digital privacy and security. The UK government is attempting to fundamentally reshape global digital security through a secretive demand, hoping the world is too distracted to notice or resist. They’re not just asking for a key to their own citizens’ data — they’re demanding the power to unlock everyone’s digital life, everywhere, while forcing Apple to lie about it.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. This isn’t just about privacy — it’s about the future of secure communication itself. Don’t let this slip by in the chaos of the moment. The UK government is betting on our distraction and apathy. Let’s prove them wrong.

Techdirt’s coverage on privacy＆encryption is strong；everyone should read UK Orders Apple To Break Encryption Worldwide While World Is Distracted，especially the folks who are all but I have nothing to hide as that is a naively bullshit position to take

Backdoored encryption is not encryption at all．The technical reality is stark：You can’t create a backdoor that only works for＂good guys.＂Any vulnerability built into the system becomes a vulnerability for everyone — state actors，cybercriminals，and hostile nations alike.

I find [the Beatles winning a grammy] depressing．First，the song was an utter dirge．Second，half of the band are dead．Third，it wasn’t rock．Fourth，it wasn’t a song that they，the band，wrote…

[trump's] chaos isn’t confidence—it’s desperation．He’s trying to conjure power he doesn’t actually have．He is manufacturing a perception of dominance in the hope that Americans will simply accept it．The real danger is letting his illusion of power become reality.

"Because common sense is never more than an inherited amalgam of past clarities and past confusions, the defenders of common sense are unlikely to enlighten us.”

– Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics

From Ben Werdmüller：I want you to do these four things right now

Okay，friends．Here’s what we’re going to do．It’s not going to take long…

Let’s install Signal
It’s time for a password manager
A VPN is a great idea
Let’s make your social media more secure

Currently reading：A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy 📚💙"A wise man seeks wisdom；a madman thinks that he has found it." – Persian proverb “The only real science is the knowledge of how a person should live his life．And this knowledge is open to everyone”

Here’s a line from Niall Williams …

“… you could stop at，not all，but most of the moments of your life，stop for one heartbeat and，no matter what the state of your head or heart，say This is happiness，because of the simple truth that you were alive to say it.”

Currently reading：The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe 📚💙＂I began to walk，fearing a hundred things that would never harm me and utterly ignorant of the real risks I ran.＂p.4 What a gripping and terrifying start．Looking forward to where this takes me．Also，the quote is basically cybersecurity

Finished reading：The Book of the New Sun: Volume 2 by Gene Wolfe 📚💙 Glad I stuck w／it；Autarch_＞_Lictor．Kind of explains what I didn’t like of Lictor w／o wholey redeeming it 🙁．The story’s ending both was expected＆surprised me．Heading into The Urth of the New Sun next

… a Turkish proverb: “If a clown moves into a palace, he does not become a king; it makes the palace a circus.”

Currently reading：The Book of the New Sun: Volume 2 by Gene Wolfe 📚💙 Finished The Sword of the Lictor，which went weird in the back 3rd ＆left me cool towards continuing．Diving straight into The Citadel of the Autarch anyway．Considerably longer；I’m hoping it reignites my enjoyment of the tale.

😍🎧🎶

Trick of the Tail，the 7th studio album by Genesis … the album they made after Peter Gabriel left the band & Phil Collins took over as [singer] … I was interested in it．It was compelling．It was different.

– The Trick to Getting Into Trick of the Tail and Genesis | I Have That on Vinyl #musicsky

Finished reading: The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe 📚💙 Still sorting out my feelings on The Claw of the Conciliator. I liked it; didn’t always know what was happening. The play was particularly inscrutable for me, at least so far. Curious to see what The Sword of the Lictor will bring

“If it is important to you, you’ll find a way.

If it isn’t, you’ll find an excuse.” | Anonymous, seen on the walls of a Jiujitsu gym.

It resonated.

– A Learning A Day

when … a critical thought pipes up to cut me short—I pause．And then I wonder：Why now？What is it about this … that has excited my internal doubters？… what am I afraid of？… I’ve come to realize how much of my doubt is actually fear—of being judged，of being shamed.

Snow ⛄️ Day! No work no school! Think it’s time to knock my home office into shape once I finish my coffee ☕️

For those participating in Dry January: note that not everyone experiences the same benefits from abstaining. I’ve been dry for a year; while I lost weight and cut back spending, most other benefits folks claim escaped me. Ultimately I’m still me, boozy or dry. Remember: your mileage may vary

Currently reading: The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe 📚💙 Finished The Shadow of the Torturer (I have the old-school paperback) & starting The Claw of the Conciliator. It takes a while to look up all the baroque words Wolfe used in his story, but it is worth it.

Happy blogoversary to Examined Worlds. My friend Ethan writes on SciFi and fantasy, philosophy, and whatever else moves him. I like the way he runs his site and look forward to another ten years!

Currently reading: The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe 📚💙 I forgot how intricately dense Wolfe’s writing is, in a good way. I started on this several years ago and set it down. The book requires attention, which I lacked at the time. Def glad I picked it up again but it is slow going