Finished: The Last Kingdom, by Bernard Cornwell 📚. First book in Cornwell’s series about the making of Britain in the time of King Alfred. I enjoyed it, though I didn’t think it was as good as the Sharpe books. But then, what is?
Didn’t finish: The Insect Crisis, by Oliver Milman 📚. I think this could have made a really good long-form article somewhere like The Atlantic. As a book I just found it interminable.
Trying out Firefox with vertical tabs. I think I like it, but I wish I could put the bookmark window to the left of the tab window. My muscle memory wants to go to the far left for bookmarks.
But also I’m glad to have developers make decisions and move on. “Everything should be configurable” is a huge trap that leads to lousy products.
“Fire is Not the End”
Olympus E-M10 IV with 14-42 kit lens @ 42mm, f/5.6, 1/30s, ISO 1250. Close to the Clark Butte trail.
T. rex researchers eviscerate ‘misleading’ dinosaur leather announcement
I’m shocked, shocked that there is lying going on in the advertising industry.
Today I hiked 13.5 miles of basically obliterated trails. Perhaps not my best decision ever.
I just realized that Trump does have a plan to end illegal immigration: simply turn the USA into a worse shithole than anywhere else on the planet.
Finished: Eye of the Storm, by Jack Higgins 📚. The fictionalized story of the 1991 mortar attack on #10 Downing Street. Higgins brings in many of his favorite characters, right back to Liam Devlin. Airport reading, but good airport reading.
House Transportation proposes to include $20 per vehicle fee in GOP megabill
Oh look, another regressive tax!
Amazon has no choice but to display tariffs on prices now
Bezos answered the White House by rolling over and showing his belly and whimpering. The Verge rightly roasts him by quoting back some of his asinine rhetoric on how his wealth enabled him to stand up against intimidation.
Boycott Amazon.
The Trump administration’s anti-rights campaign is turbocharging harmful trends already present, gutting international human rights protections and endangering billions across the planet, Amnesty International warned today upon launching its annual report, The State of the World’s Human Rights.
Trump Administration Proposes Defunding Suicide Lifeline for LGBTQ+ Youth Beginning October 2025
Literal erasure in action.
Color additives banned? Not exactly.
Marion Nestle (who has been a nutrition researcher and writer for decades) looks at what RFK Jr’s “ban” of artificial dyes will actually do. (Spoiler alert: nothing.) Also incidentally calls out some of the lies from his press conference.
Exclusive: Most Americans see Trump as “dangerous dictator,” poll says
The other 48% are in denial.
(And yes, I’m cherry-picking the poll that most sings to me. Deal with it.)
White House blasts Amazon over tariff cost report: ‘Hostile and political act’
How’s that sucking up going for you, Mr. Bezos?
US dismisses all authors of National Climate Assessment, email says
Because the Trump/Musk administration wants everything to burn down literally as well as figuratively.
Michigan Democrat files articles of impeachment against Trump
Good for you, Mr. Thanedar. At this point, I don’t care how quixotic this is. I’d like to see new articles filed every day by every Democratic member of the House.
Put an Old-School BBS on Meshtastic Radio
Tempting. Many many years ago I ran a dialup BBS on a Heathkit H-89 computer using Tom Jennings’s Puppy BBS software - the source code for which amazingly can still be found online. Perhaps I’ll go back in my dotage.
A nearby dark molecular cloud in the Local Bubble revealed via H2 fluorescence
Gotta love astronomers: “nearby” in this case means about 300 light years away. Or if you’re a bit rusty on astronomical math, 1,800,000,000,000,000 miles or thereabouts.
“Howl”
Olympus E-M10 IV, M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens @ f/10, 1/25s, ISO 2500. Birds Nest Fungi along the Sweet Creek Falls trail.
