It occurred to me while I was writing my most recent blog post that we don't talk nearly enough about how and why PayPal incubated so many of the worst people in tech and technofascist politics. What the hell was going on there?
New post: "Ready for the revolution" https://coyotetracks.org/blog/ready-for-revolution/
Technology needs another revolution. It's just not the one the industry seems hellbent on delivering.
A very good fresh raspberry margarita: muddle five raspberries in a shaker. Add 2 oz blanco tequila, 3/4 oz agave nectar or rich simple syrup, 3/4 oz fresh lime juice, and ice. Shake. Double-strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice.
*hurriedly looking for my planet of the apes mask*
7. According to the 2022 U.S. Trans Survey, which had over 92,000 participants, roughly a quarter of transgender people whose identification documents do not match their gender identity reported experiencing verbal harassment, assault, or denial of services when showing their IDs.
When I hear Apple pundits talk about how Siri "needs" to move to LLMs, I cringe. I don't need Siri to do web searches, but I need "turn on the bedroom lamp" and "set the thermostat to 74" to be 100% deterministic.
gizmodo.com/sam-altman-says-i...
An outline showing a cocktail menu divided into “classic tiki drinks”, “originals/modern tiki”, “boat drinks”, “martinis”, “bowls”, and “zero-proof”
I was joking in the post yesterday about starting a tiki bar, but, like I said, just in case.
New post: ""How are you leveraging AI in your technical writing?"" https://coyotetracks.org/blog/leveraging-ai-in-writing/
It's a question I expect to be asked in the future. I have an answer, but I can't help suspect it's the wrong question.
I have learned today that Bahama Breeze is going out of business. Okay, they're a chain, not remotely authentic, but I will miss them in spite of it all. They had pretty good inauthentic food and a few surprisingly decent cocktails.
I am late getting into the office, e.g., switching from the personal laptop to the work laptop. There are many things I dislike about Florida in 2026, but "working remotely and living rent-free" is a silver lining I desperately cling to.
Attempting to explain to my younger adult that, thank you, I know what fujoshi is while still smarting from having my older adult tell me that there was no power supply with my monitor, it was just a cable.
Being an adult relating to other adults is (honestly) fun!
I’m just squinting at the wrong quote mark being used for the apostrophe there…
A reddish-brown coffee mug sitting on a small, round mug warming plate, which has a black top and wooden sides. It’s sitting on a wooden desk in front of a speaker.
Okay, as much as I enjoyed the Ember heated mug I bought some years back when I was more willing to spend frivolously, I kind of like the $22 mug warmer plate I bought as a "replacement" even more.
Commenter on HN: "Why is everyone talking about sandboxes when it comes to OpenClaw? [That's] like giving your dog a stack of important documents, then being worried he might eat them, so you put the dog in a crate, together with the documents."
I hadn’t heard that, but MinIO did that a couple weeks ago, apparently because they think an LLM will be good enough.
I don’t doubt it. Gas in Florida has gone up about $1 in the last two weeks.
It would be nice if gas was that cheap around here in Florida!
New post: "What you're allowed to do" https://coyotetracks.org/blog/what-youre-allowed/
On real restrictions in computing life versus imagined ones.
Update: the more I think about my current iPad usage (e.g., moving to all consumption), the more I suspect the mini is the iPad for me—which means I hope the update to it arrives sooner rather than later.
Or, you know, no iPad is the iPad for me, which is at least cheaper. 🤔
I suspect I'm being blocked on writing more for my blog because I keep starting articles about things that annoy me, and they not only feel boring and depressing, they feel repetitive. I need to get back to things that *don't* annoy me.
I suspect that as I find myself traveling with the MacBook Pro more, my iPad "needs" might be better served by moving back to the mini. Hmm.
I'm not a huge believer in "use Emacs for everything possible," but a modern Gopher/Gemini client seems entirely appropriate in it somehow.
Part of me kiiiiinda wants to upgrade my iPad Air 4th Gen, but I don't think I have a really good rationale for it—and I like the old discontinued thin keyboard case more than the Magic Keyboard. (If I really want great typing, I'll bring along a thin mechanical keyboard!)
When I force-quit Google Maps to stop it from whining and it STILL sent a notification saying "I'm connected to CarPlay!", I was like, "Maybe I should just delete you from the phone entirely."
Used Google Maps on the phone for the first time in a while yesterday. The UX has caught up to Apple's in a lot of ways, but it is a *shockingly* whiny app. It wants you to give it *all* access, and if you deny it, it will bombard you with "But it'll be SO MUCH BETTER IF YOU DO" notifications.
My first serious test of the MacBook Pro's nanotexture display, and it's passing with flying colors—basically reflection-free at a outside picnic table, where the (glossy) phone display is all but unreadable. Also, it is 86°F with a 64° dew point and I have hot coffee because I am an idiot.
Through the Emacs keybinding journey:
- left option = meta, right option = option
- both option keys = option, command = meta
- both option keys = meta, command keys = command
I have to use Emacs's native compose for "special" characters, but this still works best for a Mac-native touch typist.
Just caught myself thinking "What's a good website for Mac news, now that MacStories doesn't cover Macs anymore?" (This is not remotely true, if you look at the front page, but it does sometimes feel like their beat has become AI agents lately.)
If you have only one device, that’s a great solution. If you don’t, you’re going to make trade-offs, like using an end-to-end encrypted system that only you have the key for.
I was encountering a few tiny but constant bugs on the Mac (for instance, always prompting “save this password to 1Password?” after it had just filled *in* that password!); 1Password’s upcoming price hike nudged me into trying this alternative.