I’ve been playing the daily word game waffle for months (and months and months) and I finally got 100 wins in a row.
While this is a minor achievement in the grand scheme, the game is a way for me to keep in touch with some friends I don’t see as often as I’d like, so I’ll keep playing.
I joined twitter in May of 2007. I was in a fun internet beard-growing community at the time, and Twitter was a cool and new tool to help me keep up with my online friends.
I was a staunch “only follow people I know” advocate for a while, but I eventually cracked to follow accounts for sports and sports teams that I follow. My follow list grew from there to include internet people whose work I enjoyed, as well as an occasional author or artist. These days I really enjoy the baseball stats bots and the sneaker drop notices.
I never got into the politics pool, and I think that’s what kept me a happy user for so many years. I didn’t have any interest in the shared outrage community that blew up there.
Twitter was never a perfect place, but I worked hard to keep my corner of it small-stakes and pleasant. I had a nice setup of third-party apps that I had tuned to make Twitter a pleasant experience.
Obviously, that all got fucked up when Musk bought the damn thing and started tearing it down in the name of…what, free speech? The dude is a rich clown and he ruined it. I haven’t deleted my account, but Twitter is off my phone for the first time in a loooong time.
I’m not so old that I can’t find a new way to follow my friends online, but I haven’t made the Mastodon move and I’m not sure I will. I’ve never given up on blogging (despite the occasional time away) and I’ve been glad to see some friends hopping on that train (Adam, Mike, Daniel).
Look at that big beautiful face. That’s my original profile photo, too. There used to be a lot of pepper in this beard.
I know, I know, you can’t beat the bots. I was “in line”, as they say, no later than 10:00:20am for the 10:00:00 drop.
And I don’t even love the brown ones. I just want to see how the fit is on these things without paying 2x retail for a pair.
It didn’t happen today, but I’m going to get these fucking things at retail.
This is so damn stupid. What an asshole.
Like a lot of the internet, I’m glad to see Jason Kottke back and blogging after his sabbatical.
He’s the model, IMO, for what a blog should be.
I’m a go-to-bed-early guy so I don’t get many runs with the broader Warzone group. I still get to have occasional fun in a Happy Hour capacity.
Adam cut together this fun one of a W we caught.
From this morning’s Noahpinion, guest-written by Benn Eifert (@bennpeifert)
The investing industry is ridden with bullshit. The most common and insidious form is over-optimism: offers of tantalizing risk/reward that defy any notion of reality, often based on misinformation or deception. Less common but even more dangerous are outright frauds.
The problem is inherent to the product. Most consumer goods – apples, hotel rooms, laptop computers – are tangible objects or services that you can see, taste, feel, or experience, so you can judge how much they are worth to you. Investments represent claims about some future probability distribution of monetary outcomes which are not literally verifiable. The best an investor can do is form a reasonable judgment about the uncertainty around those claims, based on historical evidence and details about the mechanics of how those claimed outcomes are generated.
Far from breaking news, but a timely and well-written reminder in this age of “we hope to give you access to your assets soon“.
*****
Unrelated, I get a great deal of joy from every issue of The Big Takeover. I love reading record reviews and every issue is packed full of bands I’ve never heard of, written about by people who care as much as I do.
I was extra excited to see the Wet Leg LP, the front-runner for my personal Record of the Year, in the 4-spot. Man, I hope they come nearby on their next US tour.
Pal of mine Michael Eades used to host an annual Summer Mix series. It was before everyone was on streaming sites, so you would have to patch together a zip file of mp3s, or stitch something together and host if yourself.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of my 2012 submission which is absolutely crazy to think about. It still bangs, in case you were wondering.
I cooked it up in Spotify but a couple of crucial tracks are missing. It is still a strong listen but isn’t the same.
We’re still at it and having a good time talking about, as we say, Things We Like.
Picks
(11:30) Plosivs – s/t
(16:04) Elden Ring
(25:36) The Gilded Age (HBO)
(31:09) Bust Down (Peacock)
Drinks!
Adam – Short Throw Brewing- Who Got Da Props?
Mike – Negroni with Hendricks Gin and Dolin Blanc Vermouth
Followup and Footnotes
Music Break: Raheim Supreme and Ohbliv
Call of Duty: Rebirth Island
The Prepared – Tool Guide
I happened to check in with Twitter just as SBNation made that Eli Manning post, so there weren’t many replies. I got 100x more likes on that post than on anything I’ve ever posted (*and* it was a funny joke).