@marick i’m envious.

I periodically — lately oddly frequently — repost this one.

Merge the Court https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7964.html

the american zodiac is the presidency you were born in. i’m a nixon. explains a lot about how things have gone.

@LouisIngenthron i guess i’m crediting the administration with some influence over this.

@LouisIngenthron i’d characterize that mistake, in either case, more as overestimating themselves. and i don’t doubt that there’s a lot of that! but there are also a lot of very brilliant, more detached people associated with this administration, and i think they might have considered the contingencies. prediction markets now have Biden’s nomination at 60-ish percent. which sounds about right to me.

@_dm @Simplicator i think Trump did a good job of not being that bad.

he confabulated on abortion and professed moderatehood by supporting medication availability, completely dodged questions about kicking out stable, attached long-term undocumented and climate change, questions on which his movement’s actual answers would alienate tye public.

if the strategy was let the public see Trump and be afraid, i think it failed badly.

@Simplicator i’m not sure how you do damage control from events like this. a public that already suspected the president has lost a step will just somehow forget?

@paninid i don’t know. domestic policywise it’s been by far the best administration of my lifetime. that earns them at least a little bit of benefit of the doubt in my book.

my theory is that the Biden Administration demanded an early debate precisely so there would be time for a change of course if his candidacy came to seem untenable.

i find this a bizarre, kind of gross invocation of Eugene Debs.

debates only for elections that don’t really matter, crest vs colgate? we are responsible for saving ourselves by conceding we face no real choice, shldn’t legitimize bad choices with a debate?

Debs ran for President from jail. Convicted felon, “opposed to the form of our present govt…opposed to the social system in which we live…I believe in the change of both but by perfectly peaceable + orderly means.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/debate-trump-platform-january-6/678818/

@pluralistic argues that, since Congress is gridlocked and half-bought by the beneficiaries of extraction and enshittification, the Federal government should use its leverage as a buyer, set procurement requirements that cleantech purchases (i would say all government tech purchases!) should be resistant to enshittification, and to just plain bricking when a supplier disappears. https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

From @simondlr, an image of a subway station near Chongqing, China, at the time that it was built in 2017, and then an entry to the same station now.

As Simon says, "We should build more bridges to nowhere. We need to build more housing."

https://sceneswithsimon.com/p/protocol-thresholds-and-the-days

Here's what experts say to keep in mind.

It seems to me this makes factual claims that are simply untrue. Not contestable claims about politics, but statements about events that did not in fact occur, intended to manipulate the recipient.

Why is that permissible in political advertising?

"The lurch back towards that early web is a deep hunger for the personal web. The web that made you feel like you were part of this crazy but exciting endeavor that suddenly connected you with some other person across the world… We want something that feels more…real. Something authentic, not performative… We don’t want a content treadmill, we want online presences that are idiosyncratic and intimate, peculiar and distinctive." @rscottjones https://rscottjones.com/its-not-about-nostalgia-its-about-human-connection/

no death is pedestrian.

@taber there might be a control on your car’s audio systen which, when connected by bluetooth, let’s you go back 30 secs (or some other duration, it’s app dependent). hopefully, turning car audio off also pauses the audiobook. these two elements are enough to make audiobooks followable when i drive. i go back a bit after my attention was drawn elsewhere and i’ve missed something. i turn audio off when i know my attention will be needed elsewhere.

Experience smoother checkouts by adding your primary payment card now.

“It’s always best to plan ahead while you’re ahead. Start today.”

When your targeted ads are funerary, you start to wonder what the algorithm knows that you don’t.

“ten things I like about Scala 3” @eed3si9n https://eed3si9n.com/10things/

#scala