Finished reading: A House Divided, by Pearl S. Buck. 📚 I inherited a 10-volume signed limited edition of some of Buck’s works. As far as I could tell, they’d never even been cracked open. Well that’s just silly, and I’ve been working my way through. Simple, slow, and lush reading, wildly out of fashion, and quite enjoyable. This is the third volume of the Good Earth trilogy, tracing the fortunes of the Wang family across three generations. Buck’s writing seems to capture much about a Chinese culture now long-vanished, though how can I know how true-to-life the portrayal is?
More Republican Nonsense
Restore Medicaid’s intent: Prioritize the most vulnerable over able-bodied childless adults
Prepare for a lot of this ahistorical nonsense as the Republicans ramp up their effort to give money to billionaires by taking it away from everyone else. In fact, Medicaid grew out of Harry Truman’s push for universal healthcare and was envisioned as one of the first steps (along with Mediare) on that path by Lyndon Johnson, who was a savvy enough politican to get what he could passed instead of waiting for perfection.
All this bad AI is wrecking a whole generation of products
Personally, I look forward to the (unlikely) day when generative AI goes the way of the Cuecat and Microsoft Bob.
Regardless of their tagline, “playing with” your pets and kids via a $200 robot and your phone does not, in fact, make you “always there, always caring.”
Senate Democrats appear ready to back down in government shutdown fight
Have Senators not noticed that Musk&Trump are already shutting down the government? The lack of aggressive messaging from the Democrats is truly upsetting.
Why I Left the Washington Post
Ruth Marcus traces the decline and fall of the WP under Jeff Bezos, Includes a copy of the column that they wouldn’t run and which she resigned over - which shows just how thin-skinned the oligarch class has gotten, because it’s barely a defense of free speech.
Musk Seeks to Put $100 Million Directly Into Trump Political Operation
The corruption really is right out in the open, isn’t it?
Trump turns the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom
The only mystery here is how co-President Trump managed to find time in his busy schedule of screaming on Truth Social and doing Putin’s and Netanyahu’s bidding to kiss co-President Musk’s ass on the White House lawn.
TikTok will play ‘calming music’ to remind teens to stop using the app
It won’t work. No matter how good their AI-driven age verification technology gets, I have faith that teens will stay ahead with AI-driven age spoofing technology.
King Charles pays tribute to ‘marvellous’ Bob Marley as he shares favourite songs
In these troubled times, it is comforting that King Charles listens to Bob Marley, Kylie Minogue, and Beyonce.