Democracy
Just another Saturday in June.
At the time of writing, the world looks pretty hopeless.
Asides
Stuff that doesn't really fit in this site's "technology, media, and democracy" remit but is here anyway.
The Darkest Day: A fantasy Doctor Who season
I can’t help myself. I’ve loved every moment of the rebooted Doctor Who on Disney+, but it appears to have hit a bit of a pause while Disney considers whether to renew its co-production. With its future unclear (although I’m certain it’s coming back before too
Grumpy morning thoughts
I earn 5-10X what I did when I lived in the UK, but my quality of life is markedly worse. My whole thing boils down to: how can America have the same standard of living I grew up with? For a lot of people, the idea of prosperity boils down
Where we're at
A quick aside: I now believe it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better (if it gets better). I’m not going to enumerate what’s been going on; you’re either paying attention or you’re not, but we’re less than one hundred days
Baby's first blog post
Fp9ootron ABCXXZXCFDSESW4ZXDAWEQ!QWZ fwwqqqqwwQsxXSQWSASXC XDΩSXEDRTY7U8I9 Editor's note: does toddler input have sufficient entropy to be used as a random number generator?
Fediverse
Fediverse House
If you're in Austin, visiting Fediverse House at 412 Congress Ave today and tomorrow is what you need to be doing. You don’t need a SXSW ticket - just show up and meet some of the key people building and thinking about the most important thing happening
About my Tesla
So, yes, hi, I have a Tesla. It’s a long range Model 3 which I bought in 2021. After a career spent working on open source and mission-drive projects — right now I work for a non-profit newsroom; once upon a time I built a social networking platform for education
Please see Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
It’s Oscars day! I haven’t seen very many of the nominees this year, but of the ones I have, I need to make this recommendation: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, nominated for best documentary picture, is brilliant. It’s an under-told part of American history, still highly
AfD
Hint: if a party is heavily supported by people who throw Nazi salutes, it might not be up to much good. Some voters for new right-wing parties are economically worried, but blame their issues on the influx of immigrants rather than the increasing divides between rich and poor that we&
Empires
For the avoidance of doubt: All empires are bad. All empires have always been bad. All empires always will be bad. The concept of empire is bad. The prerequisites for empire are bad. And the people who like empires — any of them — are bad. Do not have fondness for empires.
People and Blogs
I was privileged to be interviewed for this week’s People and Blogs: Hi! I’m Ben Werdmuller. I was born in the Netherlands, grew up and spent my twenties in the UK, and spent twelve years in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now I live in Greater Philadelphia in
Life in Weeks
Inspired by Gina Trapani, Buster Benson, and others, I started to build my own Life in Weeks page from scratch. It looks pretty cool, and it’s interesting to see my life milestones presented on this scale. But I’m not going to share it with you. As I was