I don’t think I’ve watched these movies for over a decade, but they were formative for me and I think it’s time I go back and revisit.

Great profile of a unique guy who everyone says is my celebrity doppelgänger.

I sometimes have difficulty explaining to friends why micro.json.blog exists. Why post there and Twitter/Facebook? Saying that I want to “own my own content on my own domain” doesn’t resonate with most people in my social circle. There’s some sense to it, but I think the main reaction is “that seems like trouble/ruckus for small gains”.

I think a better answer to why I try and keep spaces that I fully own and control on the internet is found in @manton’s post today:

Facebook and YouTube are conflicted about how to handle this because their model is wrong.

Centralized platforms have succeeded on three stools:

1. Ease of use.
2. Discovery
3. Network effects

Unfortunately, creating a platform that succeeds at all three of these things also creates a platform that is an effective vector for hate speech, harassment, and coordinate misinformation campaigns. That’s not a possibility, it’s an empirical fact.

The current model has made it so that solving easy problems around speech require seemingly impossibly hard solutions. I want to take some of that back.

Sometimes I decide I’m going to play a song that requires a few repeated chords and rip my vocal chords to shreds like I did tonight with Play Crack the Sky.

This Will Destroy You is very good music.

When I’m really frustrated and anxious I do a lot of fantasizing. Just me or is this a normal coping mechanism?

Philosophy Bites is a great podcast, but this episode on “overdoing democracy” is particularly good and timely.

Elsa and I often use partner. Here are my reasons:

1. At some point I decided assuming straightness was weird, and as long as orientation is declared constantly that won’t change.
2. We’ve been together 8 years and living together 7 years and “girlfriend” is silly and incomplete.

Go to Whole Foods to buy food for dinner: that’ll be $80. Go to Wegman’s to buy food for the week: that’ll be $130.

Evening walks with the pups, @gracie.and.brandy

What a lovely story about Mel Brooks, a man who has deeply influenced my sense of humor.

I haven’t even read this yet, but I wanted to say, “Of course there’s a woman I’ve never heard of who is actually doing all of the work and who isn’t a giant ass in public without consequence.”

In some ways, the endless torrential rain this summer is the ideal way to break in a new home. What leaks will spring will have to have sprung at this point…

This morning I was feeling down. I was wallowing (self-analyzing?) and I think I achieved some genuine insight. I went on to have a really good day totally unaffected by what I now consider my core psychological challenge.

Emotions are weird.

I’ve been playing guitar for 17 years and I just now realized that Hallelujah is in the sweet spot of my vocal range.

Also, holy crap, I’ve been playing guitar longer than I haven’t. I missed that moment. Although to be fair, the last 8 years or so have been a bit of a hiatus. It does seem like I’m finally picking it back up again though.

This is good weather and a good joke. It’s silly how much I love my weather app.

Hello, “moderate” Republican 👋🏻. Did your party abandon you, or does it turn out your political philosophy, taken to its natural end, arrives at a place you’re uncomfortable with?

Here’s a thought: maybe your political ideology is bad.

Just about nothing is more frustrating in development than a slow cycle time. Taking 20 minutes to see if something worked is excruciating for productivity.

Currently reading: The Last Mortal Bond by Brian Staveley 📚

A break in the clouds #nofilter

A break in the clouds #nofilter

An international lens on anti-gentrification. tl;dr It’s about distrusting outsiders, which is reframed across class, racial, and ethnic lines freely based on context.

Horrifying look at Baltimore Police Department IT, which is still running on decades old systems and custom Lotus Notes applications.

We’d do well to allow politicians to explain both their ideals & their plans for practical steps they will take in today’s reality.

You can support a policy that can’t pass, but also believe we have 3 other options that make things better for people that can pass right now.

New keyboard day, ask me anything.