Such an excellent idea.

Just to crib Jan's great chart here a little bit - here are just a few of the headlines that came out when growth somewhat slowed in 2024

Many, many media outlets do not really know how to handle technological change like this

Today seemed like a good day to have a closer look at better ways of doing things.

people will scold you for joking around when things seem really scary and fucked up. brother, those are the times what we invented joking around for

[alt text by NASA] The Moon, seen here backlit by the Sun during a solar eclipse on April 6, 2026, is photographed by one of the cameras on the Orion spacecraft’s solar array wings. Orion is visible in the foreground on the left. Earth is reflecting sunlight at the left edge of the Moon, which is slightly brighter than the rest of the disk. The bright spot visible just below the Moon’s bottom right edge is Saturn. Beyond that, the bright spot at the right edge of the image is Mars. Credit: NASA

Whoa 🤯

The Moon, in full eclipse, with the #Artemis II Orion spacecraft. Part of the Moon and spacecraft are lit by Earthshine, and both Saturn and Mars are visible to the lower right. Incredible. Details: images.nasa.gov/details/art0...

Captured by the Artemis II crew during their lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, this image shows the Moon fully eclipsing the Sun. From the crew’s perspective, the Moon appears large enough to completely block the Sun, creating nearly 54 minutes of totality and extending the view far beyond what is possible from Earth. The corona forms a glowing halo around the dark lunar disk, revealing details of the Sun’s outer atmosphere typically hidden by its brightness. Also visible are stars, typically too faint to see when imaging the Moon, but with the Moon in darkness stars are readily imaged. This unique vantage point provides both a striking visual and a valuable opportunity for astronauts to document and describe the corona during humanity’s return to deep space. The faint glow of the nearside of the Moon is visible in this image, having been illuminated by light reflected off the Earth. [alt text from NASA]

The #Artemis II astronauts said they needed more superlatives to describe their view of the eclipse, when the Sun was behind the Moon and its near surface was faintly illuminated by Earthshine

There are now 10 toilets in Space

International Space Station: 4
Crew Dragon Docked at ISS: 1
Soyuz Docked at ISS: 1
Tiangong Space Station: 2
Shenzhou Docked at TSS: 1
Artemis II on way around Moon: 1

This will be the first time a toilet has left low earth orbit!

NASA starts countdown clock to historic Artemis II moon mission launch The space agency is targeting Wednesday, April 1, to launch a crew of four astronauts on a potentially record-breaking journey around the moon and back

The space agency is targeting Wednesday, April 1, to launch a crew of four astronauts on a potentially record-breaking journey around the moon and back

A fine Auckland skyline sunset this evening.

I asked Claude to game out a few US/Iran war scenarios and it pushed back saying some of my inputs seem farfetched. I told it to go look up the actual news and it came back with the AI equivalent of "HOLY SHIT."

A vibrant sunset silhouette of the Auckland skyline in New Zealand. The iconic Sky Tower stands tall in the center, illuminated with red and white lights against an orange and dusky purple sky. Surrounding it are various modern skyscrapers with glowing office windows, reflecting their light onto the dark water in the foreground. Sky Tower, Auckland city skyline at sunset.

Good evening Auckland.

I changed the background color of ads on Google Search results to be the same as the average color of all visible light in the universe, a color named Cosmic Latte.

A bright yellow, human-shaped safety sign stands against a clear blue sky, designed as a silhouette of a worker wearing a hard hat and pointing one finger directly upward. Large, bold black text on the figure's torso reads "LOOK UP AND LIVE," serving as a high-visibility warning for overhead power lines.

Texas Roots Revival

TIL about Spotify Prompted Playlists, a beta feature which let's you describe the music you want, whether to exclude songs you've listened to recently (or include) – just natural language and it uses AI to craft a playlist. I used it to make this; pretty good! open.spotify.com/playlist/37i...

Happy New Year from Auckland!

A dramatic silhouette of the Auckland skyline, featuring the prominent Sky Tower, set against a vast sky filled with textured clouds glowing in fiery shades of orange, red, and pink.

Ok, Auckland, that was a pretty good sunset. Good job.

A large ginkgo tree with brilliant golden-yellow autumn foliage stands prominently in a residential neighborhood under a clear blue sky.

golden hour ginkgo tree

Later, Steve Jackson came to my high school to speak to us about game design and he played a round of Illuminati (card game) with us. I ran a BBS of my own (Lion's Den), joined EFF-Austin, and sat in on meetings with Bruce Sterling (!).

I almost wasn't there for the verdict because I was wearing blue jeans and Justice Sam Sparks told me to go change into proper attire if I was going to be in his courtroom.

Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service - Wikipedia

Folks talking about GURPS today. I was a user of the Illuminati BBS run by SJG and seized by the Secret Service as part of Operation Sundevil (along with GURPS Cyberpunk). I was in the courtroom for the verdict.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_J...

One of the things I've been looking forward to with LLMs is the ability to have control over the UX without the need to have someone build the feature.

I prefer reminders to not be set to "all day" but instead trigger during waking hours, but I don't want to be bothered to specify a time.

Sure we put you through a month of hell, but on the other hand we got nothing for it.

@schiff.senate.gov How can your office voicemail box be full this far into the 21st century?

Lovely spring day in Auckland.

Found the Lost hatch on the side of an old volcano in Auckland.

The mental health benefits of not knowing any history right now must be massive. Moving through your day with total equanimity. What happens next? Who knows? Maybe something good

A close-up of a white control panel with two large, white knobs. The left knob is labeled "Volume" and has markings from 1 to 10. The right knob is labeled "Stations". Below the "Stations" knob is a list of radio station genres, numbered 1 through 6: 1. Hawaiian, 2. Easy Listening, 3. Smooth Jazz, 4. R&B, 5. Classic Rock, and 6. Alternative.

Not that they track it, but it would be interesting data to see what people switch to. Also, missed an opportunity for a Spinal Tap reference.

If you want a weird but true fact to talk about:

Dexter Holland, lead singer of The Offspring, was instrumental in this. His doctorial thesis in molecular biology was sequencing mRNA in HIV. The paper was also heavily cited in creating the COVID-19 vaccine.

I was looking for a self-hosted solution focused on RSS.

Ok, got ReactFlux working as the UI and processing every feed entry with the Gemini API using search grounding to produce good summaries and rewrite headlines. This is pretty good.