"Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus," Jonathan Rauch argues. "'Fascist' best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse." theatln.tc/wVq7MFaa

Unfortunately, I'm missing the conference. (Had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night.)

Tell me you don’t understand risk pools without telling me you don’t understand risk pools

I'll be doing an AMA at this year's Unicode Technology Workshop (www.unicode.org/events/utw/2...) on Thursday, Nov. 13.

I'd welcome any questions at forms.gle/7HXm4u7J8TPs... — Unicode encoding, properties, algorithms, localization support (CLDR), code (ICU) — anything but politics!

Nu, News I'm joining The Bulwark as Economics Editor.

Some news: Psyched to announce that I'm joining @thebulwark.com as economics editor next month.
I'm currently still on mat leave, but will return to co-hosting @theweekendprime.bsky.social as well soon.

crampell.substack.com/p/nu-news

Photo of Tom Lehrer

My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.

Longitude (book) - Wikipedia

Thanks for the background information! I love the details and backstories about how people came up with clever solutions with limited technology. Reminds me of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitu...

How this long-lost Chinese typewriter from the 1940s changed modern computing The concepts in the MingKwai typewriter underlie how Chinese, Japanese and Korean are typed today. The typewriter, patented in 1946, was found last year in an upstate New York basement.

Looking forward to finding out more about this www.npr.org/2025/07/05/n...

CHM Live | Character Building: Bridging Code and Culture through Unicode YouTube video by Computer History Museum

Fun to be on the panel with Teresa, Roy, and Anushah at the Computer History Museum. Good discussion, good questions — www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcuy...

So happy for @marthawells.com and all the rest of us that Murderbot the TV series is now out in the world!

ART OF THE FOLD........

Character Building While many of us can seamlessly text and type in our native language, millions around the world lack that ability. Most living languages are not fully supported on digital platforms, raising a critica...

Excited to be speaking at the upcoming event (May 13, 2025). There are always good questions about Unicode and language support. computerhistory.org/events/chara...

Don’t Look at Stock Markets. Look at the Ports. A drop in maritime traffic suggests that the worst is yet to come.

What’s happening in Los Angeles’s ports suggests that financial markets have yet to fully price in how much Trump’s tariff war is hurting the economy, @juliettekayyem.bsky.social writes. “The stock market goes up and down. Maritime indicators keep on sinking”:

Ezra Klein groupies turn out in abundance for a night of hot wonk action Hundreds of San Franciscans swarmed the Sydney Goldstein Theater Wednesday to think deeply about housing policy and deregulation — and to thirst after Ezra Klein.

Very interesting evening, and surprisingly funny, especially when Klein was channeling a Nimby liberal.
sfstandard.com/2025/03/27/e...

Head to Japan on vacation; my wife's first visit. A long time since I've been there — my first extended visits were when we did the first Kanji Macintosh

Very kind words — and accent bombs as an added 🎁

Unicode Welcomes New Board Chair and Members Mark Davis Steps Down as Board Chair Mark Davis, co-founder of the Unicode Consortium and a pivotal figure in global digital communication, ...

Stepping aside as Unicode Board Chair: blog.unicode.org/2025/02/unic...

Hard to pick out our waymo out of the 9 !! coming down the block at the same time.

Ideally, no user would ever see the internal punycode, which is pretty impenetrable. Nor the internal bytes of utf8.

Opinion | We Have to Stop Underwriting People Who Move to Climate Danger Zones Our policies encourage Americans to flock to areas particularly prone to climate-related disasters.

www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/o...

Let’s take a quick look at LOTR from Sauron’s perspective, where it resembles nothing so much as a counter-espionage spy thriller.

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days He used the constitution to shatter the constitution.

“In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy,” Hitler destroyed “a constitutional republic through constitutional means,” writes Timothy W. Ryback. Read about how Hitler overcame democracy in just 53 days:

The '90s weren't that great Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

"…, there seems to be an agreement that the ‘90s were the zenith of prosperity and happiness."
and later
"When people say the ‘90s was a golden age, it’s possible they’re just stupid, but …"

open.substack.com/pub/matthewy...

What California can learn from the place that invented the initiative Our California ballot-measure reporter heads to Switzerland on the 150th anniversary of its first federal referendum to see what a state mad about direct democracy can take away from the country that ...

Having lived in both places, I've seen first-hand how much better the initiative/referendum process is in Switzerland.

What California can learn from the place that invented the initiative - POLITICO search.app/bDKypMJw8wHv...

Origami Black Hole xkcd.com/3033

Kludgeocracy in America It is often not so much the size as the complexity and incoherence of our government that makes it seem out of control. Because our constitutional system requires the cooperation of numerous players w...

www.nationalaffairs.com/publications...

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Two drawings of a fig. Labeled fig 1. and fig 2.

Someone, please, find me an article I can write where I can include this! I NEED to include this in something!

Crypto’s Legacy Is Finally Clear

An anti-establishment technology for an anti-establishment age

By Charlie Warzel via The Atlantic

archive.ph/HR1Iy

Time for another pastry crawl in SF