writing
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Weekstart
Or both Monday and Tuesday? If Saturday and Sunday are the weekend, why not call Monday the Weekstart? Smart? Or just good at whatever this is? An AI counterargument to the mirror thesis. And not just because my name gets dropped in it. This Ezra Klein podcast with Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu is required listening. Continue reading
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Where Has All the Interest Gone?
The answer to the headline is Almost Everywhere Else. The new wheres are uncountable, and their number and variety are growing. The transition is from Think about the word station. That’s where we got our audio and video before the Internet came along. Some of that audio and video was distributed by or though stations Continue reading
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On em dashes and ellipses
I don’t know who was the first to write The em dash is dead and AI killed it. Maybe it was Jacob Schilleci in the Reno Gazette Journal, but since most of it is behind a paywall and that paper is one of many run by Gannett, I’m not sure—though that’s where the first link in Continue reading
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My Three Hooks
For many years, I attended an annual gathering of folks who wanted to save the Internet for future generations. Aspirational guidance was provided by the metaphor “big hooks:” ones meant for catching big fish. Since I was a kid, my life has always been about big hooks, especially ones that maximize personal and collective agency, Continue reading
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Thursday, 19 June 2025
Good read. Lenin Peak (Қуллаи Ибни Сино) is a 7,134 m (23,406 ft) triangular prominence in the Trans-Alay Range that divides Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, but was still in the Soviet Union when an avalanche killed forty-three climbers. A Crushing Wave of Snow is the disaster story told by Miguel Helft, a climber who was witness Continue reading
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Saturday, 14 June 2025
Across the final three decades of the last millennium, I was the creative director and main copywriter for Hodskins Simone & Searls (HS&S), a hot advertising agency in North Carolina and Silicon Valley. I also still wrote often for a local Magazine called The Sun, which has since grown to become one of the world’s Continue reading
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Thursday
And having any readers is better than having none. So far (2:30 pm), this blog post has had three visitors. (Update at 11pm: eleven visitors.) And I’m not even sure those visitors have read any of this. Meanwhile, Online Sports Betting is For Losers is now up to 3,252 visits, second all-time behind Death is Continue reading
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Giveaways
And that's just one problem for the party. Nate Silver: Why young men don't like Democrats. Follow the money. Reason: J.D. Vance Wants a Free Market for Crypto. What About Everything Else? What happened to that IBM, no Microsoft, monopoly? Some U.S. stats: Apple mobile phone share: 58.87%; tablet share, 54.43%; laptop share: 17.1%. (via stat counter.com) Continue reading
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Maybe I need re-writer’s block
I’ve never had writer’s block. Give me a writing assignment and I’ll blab something out. It might even be good, or at least good enough. But I don’t write in final draft. Or talk that way. I know people who can do either or both. But I don’t know how they do it, much as Continue reading