alex guenther

when he came down his escalator to announce running for president, basically the first thing he said was that the japanese were laughing at us by not buying more ford automobiles. it's psychotic that that was not his last speech.

firmly convinced this is also true of tariffs, something Trump probably read about in a 1980s Newsweek magazine article about the economic threat posed by Japan

At least the Reichstag actually was on fire

i think i'm going to return to using social media to just broadcast random little thoughts like this about my day. i find i have nothing to say about society collapsing that many many people here aren't saying already.

the flat bottom one

the v60 one

just bought two collapsible chinese silicone coffee drippers i really like for less than 10 bucks each. one is for flat-bottom filters like the kalita 155, one is more hario v60 shaped. they're pretty small but seem to work great. will be perfect for travel. made my day!

this is of note to me b/c it's very rare for one of my dreams to *not* have a train station at the center of them, and football stadia and casinos are almost unheard of

dreamt i climbed a high stone tower via a spiral staircase and about halfway up there was a full-size football stadium with a game in progress. i continued upward until i got to the top, where my evil twin (i think?) was waiting, but he escaped on a zip line to a nearby seaside casino resort.

A man with a spectacular 1970s mullet, wearing big wellies and a v-neck jumper over a T-shirt, looks at camera as he stands on a boat which is itself standing on the muddy bottom of an empty canal. He is holding up an enormous wooden plug on a long chunky chain

Today is the 47th anniversary of this clearly unimprovable photo, from a story so absurd that it shouldn’t be true, but is: the day a team of workers from British Waterways pulled the plug out of the Chesterfield Canal, and all the water emptied out

usually if you ask experts why an empire fell they’ll say it’s nuanced and multifaceted, so i think it’s kind of cool that with America future historians will get to just say like “oh they took the idiot train to moronsville”

What Happened When Mark Zuckerberg Moved In Next Door

In Crescent Park, Palo Alto, neighbors say peace vanished when Mark Zuckerberg moved in—buying 11 homes, building a secretive compound, running an unpermitted school & bringing 8 years of noise, parties & heavy security. He sent neighbors noise canceling headphones.

I feel this should be a bigger story, right?

for years i've sung "my swedish fish" there and recently got my wife to start doing it

you would have to pay me money to play this bullshit at this point, i do not want to be an army man for the rest of my time on this earth

Well, we found it: the vaccine I am willing to become an insane person to avoid being mandated to get. They finally did it. I'm actually kind of impressed.

confusing choice to show unusually hairy humans not walking erect on the cover

The Newport Arch - the remains of the north gateway to Roman Lincoln (Lindum Colonia). Built in around 200 AD, the arch is the only Roman gateway in the UK still used by traffic. 📸 My own. #RomanSiteSaturday #RomanBritain #Lincoln

three random #haiku:

parallax; the poles
of the listing lampposts glide;
shinbone, bollard, bruise.

will a future me
stroll across a skybridge slung
over this abyss?

after the applause,
ache of inrolled echoing.
limescale on the coil.

There's a couple of great UK TV performances on YouTube as well.

teriffic lyrics, perfect song, definitely never heard this track before today, hats off jarvis:

"Well did you hear, there's a natural order
Those most deserving will end up with the most
That the cream cannot help but always rise up to the top
Well I say, shit floats..."

YouTube video by Jarvis Cocker - Topic Running the World

i have jarvis' 2006 solo album on CD somewhere, but just threw on the spotify version this song was NOT on it... it's amazing & extremely relevant in 2025: youtu.be/h74IC_wwdzw?...

teaching people to double-check *everything* from the easy-to-use tool that just did their work for them is not going to work.

(teaching someone it's always crap & will lead to their own humiliation in the future so they should choose not to use it seems slightly more likely, but still unlikely)

understood the concept of the coffee blend today - had two bags of coffee beans at work that were awful in different ways. mixed them up in a big bag & the result tastes fine.

(it's both good and bad that this is how i learn. good b/c life is a parade of small delights. bad b/c i'm dumb and slow)

this is similar to my great culinary breakthrough of last year, "steaming bok choi by throwing it in rice cooker when the rice is almost done", which brought me joy for months on end

understood the concept of the coffee blend today - had two bags of coffee beans at work that were awful in different ways. mixed them up in a big bag & the result tastes fine.

(it's both good and bad that this is how i learn. good b/c life is a parade of small delights. bad b/c i'm dumb and slow)

transitive verb meaning "to make something clammy"

clams

limescale clouds / cloaks / clogs the coil

limescale COATS the coil

three random #haiku:

parallax; the poles
of the listing lampposts glide;
shinbone, bollard, bruise.

will a future me
stroll across a skybridge slung
over this abyss?

after the applause,
ache of inrolled echoing.
limescale on the coil.

i can't help but notice that a large number of the replies are... typographically concussed? in oddly similar ways.