https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/welcome-to-vichy-america

There are several causes of American collapse. Two big ones started at our greatest peak in the mid-90s.

Alongside those is a kind of nihilistic boredom.

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/how-to-drink-from-a-firehose

Finally, good comms advice.

https://jabberwocking.com/weve-finally-learned-why-paul-krugman-quit-the-times/

They wanted both sideism

https://daringfireball.net/2025/01/ice_raids_are_an_escalation_of_a_de_facto_cold_civil_war

Gruber is correct. Share this understanding.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/opinion/trump-mckinley-populism.html

I’m a bit stunned. Is this really written by David Brooks?

“they thought they could solve the disruptions of industrialization if only they could find the evil conspirators who were responsible for every ill. Their diagnoses were simple-minded, their rhetoric over the top; their proposals, Hofstadter noted, wandered “over the border between reality and impossibility.””

https://bsky.app/profile/johngordon.bsky.social/post/3lginrszk722g

To keep your old price without CoPilot you have to “cancel” — which just shows the options. For our family plan it is $100 and no CoPilot.

Since most AIs are $20/m a cost of $30 a year is a bargain for a family — but CoPilot does not appear particularly useful so far.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/insider/covering-an-mpox-outbreak-in-congo-mile-after-mile-of-muck.html

Congo is another world entirely.

https://notes.kateva.org/2025/01/repairing-broken-america-where-trump.html

Corruption, Eugenics, Mediciine, SCOTUS, Religion, Bitcoin reserve, cruelty to the cognitively disabled.

https://notes.kateva.org/2025/01/the-jan-21-2025-federal-opm-informer.html

“Nobody will be able to say they did not know.”

https://eclecticlight.co/2025/01/23/create-and-use-virtual-machines-on-apple-silicon-macs/

“they should be stored in their own volume that doesn’t have snapshots made of it, as well as being excluded from normal backups.”

A useful reference.

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/blame-mcconnell

Infamy.

https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-elon

Trump’s barnacle.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/01/musk-trump-inauguration-salute/681390/

Article is about Musk the awkward nazi, but the Bannon quote raised my brow.

“anyone has to understand Musk’s motives is a damning video, his past words and actions, and plenty of circumstantial evidence about his beliefs.”

https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/boss-tweed-attacked-the-nytimes-exactly-the-way-trump-might-0c5096bbca37

Tweed tried to do to the NYT what Bezos did to WaPo

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/of-for-and-by-the-billionaires

Americans threw America away. I hope they miss it.

https://gizmodo.com/big-tech-mafia-spotted-in-church-with-trump-as-new-era-of-oligarchy-begins-2000552550

King and barons before the pope vibe.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-lies-of-the-powerful-are-still

Probably untrue, sadly. But do it anyway just to spite them.

https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-generative-ai-the-power-and-the-glory/

This is the reference Willison and others reference. He’s a power person, not an AI person, but Perplexity made him an AI convert.

https://gizmodo.com/this-anesthesia-gas-could-be-the-next-big-alzheimers-treatment-2000551153

“appeared to activate a protective response from the brain’s …microglia … helped their brain fend off the damaging changes associated with Alzheimer’s”

There was prior research in brain injury. Gas is used in anesthesia so human trials are relatively easy.

https://www.twincities.com/2025/01/19/real-world-economics-steelmaking-faces-clash-of-new-tech-obsolete-values/

Tech change may again disrupt.

This would make a great micro history subject. RSS bypasses firewall.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-pathetic-billionaires-club

A sane and balanced person stops at 100 million. Or far less than that. Those who press on are weird or broken or both.

https://tech.kateva.org/2025/01/creating-macos-spotlight-indexed.html

Use Outlook.com, select a list, click ellipsis, choose print, save as PDF.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/modi-nationalism-demagoguery-limitations/681094/

Beyond Modi’s famed bigotry and authoritarianism focuses at his educational and economic failures and power of the wealthy.

The fact that Modi essentially lost an election should give Americans hope as our Modi takes power.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-pettis-paradigm-and-the-second

One of Noah’s better pieces on China’s latest export super-surge. I like the humility — the world is too complex for our models. Tariffs are the only answer anyone has, but they will hurt the US consumer.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-16-2025

I think there is a case that never before have Americans votes so stupidly. (The civil war, by comparison, had some logic to it.)

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/01/17/what-im-expecting-from-the-new-administration/

Remember those who voted for Trump and those who grovel before him. So you can quietly spit when they pass. Until we die.

https://www.persuasion.community/p/we-need-policy-implementers-not-policy

“actual RFP and bidding process are regulated by the Federal Acquisition Regulations, a document spanning hundreds of pages of detailed requirements that mandate things like seeking bids from female- and minority-owned businesses and the like.” (Also veteran owned, which means lots of scams)

https://jabberwocking.com/stop-panicking-people/

The legit CDC fail was airflow. Not what people mostly remember.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/health/cancer-younger-women.html

HPV vaccine and GLP1 should help.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/us/perdue-jbs-slaughterhouses-child-labor.html

Ok, $8 million. But that is $17 for them. Hilariously inadequate fine.

https://fallows.substack.com/p/the-speech-joe-biden-is-likely-to

I don’t listen to speeches so i appreciate Fallows summary

https://www.quantamagazine.org/heat-destroys-all-order-except-for-in-this-one-special-case-20250116/

In theory, but it is good QFT. Physicists will try to test.

https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-incoming-clubber-lang-administration

“Republicans in immigrant-heavy states have been suggesting he’ll prioritize or only focus on the worst criminals”

“tariffs … cost a typical US household in the middle of the income distribution more than $2,600 a year.”

https://gizmodo.com/why-does-chatgpts-algorithm-think-in-chinese-2000550311

“certain languages might offer tokenization efficiencies or easier mappings for specific problem types”

Somebody is going to train an AI to develop an optimal representation and computation language.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/15400543?visit_id=638725492563981009-404877346&p=gemini_update_business&rd=1#zippy=%2Chow-does-this-transition-affect-nonprofit-organizations

At some point it might make sense for a family to pay for Google Workspace. I think my legacy Google Apps won’t get Gemini Advanced sadly.

https://snyder.substack.com/p/why-greenland

I’m not sure Trumpian logic exists but this is a decent exercise. Trump is, at heart, a property and land guy and he understands very well how to distract the media. He likely has some whacko we’ve never heard of babbling to him about Canada and Greenland as refuges once the world melts.

https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2025/01/whats-an-h-1b-visa/

It has all happened before. He predicts the program will grow again.

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/supermassive-black-hole-caught-turning-on/

We get to watch as, a few hundred million years ago, a black hole ate something big and sent out a jet of materials. (A thousand civilizations died of course).

https://openai.com/global-affairs/openais-economic-blueprint/

I asked Claude to summarize the 15 page document and I summarize Claude:

1. If you don’t back us China gets the money.
2. We will put our hubs in Trump states.
3. Federal money for AI infrastructure

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/01/14/smith-special-counsel-report-vol-1

Most of us didn’t think America was as broken as it was. We thought the GOP would turn from Trump. America is far more broken than we realized.

https://thenewstack.io/the-configuration-crisis-and-developer-dependency-on-ai/

Resolving complexity is expensive and often unprofitable. Easier to leave it the AI, but then the AI becomes essential.

https://www.startribune.com/centurylink-landline-outages-twin-cities-under-fire-copper-theft/601204175?kwp_0=2443396&kwp_4=6813103&kwp_1=2897572

Another day in the Age of Chaos. The copper theft here is dystopian, but CenturyLink is also happy to dump the regulatory burden of money-losing copper wires. We lost service weeks ago and are moving legacy landline to voip.ms.

“About a third of Minnesota households still have landline service, though as of 2020 only about 5% relied on it exclusively”

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/this-is-the-contrarian

“Not Owned by Anybody”

“His insane pronouncements … cannot be ignored or treated as hyperbole”

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/a-contrarian-take-on-volume-one-of

The greatest failure of American governance since the internment of Japanese-Americans.

“It’s important to bear the Supreme Court’s culpability in mind as we prepare to defend our democracy”

And the GOP.

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/on-meeting-the-autocratic-moment

At this time RSS is full feed and free

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/i-have-resigned-from-the-washington

The best of WaPo and others that have fallen to the oligarchs. RSS works.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-13-2025

We need micropayments but this may be where to send your WaPo subscription money. HCR post has details of how GOP plans to force their agenda.

https://gizmodo.com/longevity-obsessed-tech-millionaire-discontinues-de-aging-drug-out-of-concerns-that-it-aged-him-2000549377

Taking multiple random experimental meds at once is sure to go well.

https://www.twincities.com/2025/01/12/real-world-economics-steeling-ourselves-for-a-changing-industry/

First of a two part explainer. RSS ducks paywall.

https://gizmodo.com/technology-is-supposed-to-decrease-teacher-burnout-it-can-sometimes-make-it-worse-2000548989

About as good research as we will get. Typically old requirements persist so it is a new set of hassles.