Grant Burningham

Tolkien, who saw almost all his friends die in the Somme, and knew the seduction of despair, wrote both Denethor and Saruman as doomers.

Just checking on Utah's precipitation and ...

The shortest story on being middle-aged in the world: For sale, road bike, under 200 miles.

Russia warning as Putin close to first nuclear bomb tests for 35 years The world waits as Russian President Vladimir Putin considers giving the green light to nuclear bomb testing at the former Soviet Arctic site in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago

this happens, and then we test our own (restarting nuclear tests are in Project 2025) www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...

Social media rewarded simple narratives and, in some cases, lies. it cultivated information bubbles. it stole content and repackaged it. and it vacuumed money out of news organizations.

In my mind, the economics failed journalism a couple of decades ago. as a profession it's barely holding on. As the Fourth Estate was hollowed out, what took its place was entertainment and very well-funded partisan press, mostly on the right.

I would read a roundup of dumb things said by local pols on fringe podcasts!

I just tried Anthropic Claude, which is generally pretty great: Less wrong but more hilarious.

I'm kind of mad at you for making me listen to old Pink Floyd this morning.

The Mormons later said if they'd been delayed the two weeks it took to build the road, they wouldn't have gotten any crops in the ground, and they were sorely needed the next year.

The pioneers came down Emmigration Canyon using a road that was built by the Donner Party. It took over two weeks for the Donner Party to make it down the canyon the year before the Mormons came.

Kinda crazy the pioneers got here today. They must have been freaking the fuck out that they didn’t have any crops in the ground.

I can say that at a local paper, this was absolutely devastating. You find something out, google takes it and serves it on its own. Unstainable if you want to have people who can work finding things out for the rest of us.

kinda weird Trump's people campaigned on creating this scandal?

@landdesk.bsky.social explains the Colorado River Compact of 1922 open.substack.com/pub/landdesk...

Can't escape the feeling that if the Simpsons murders happened today, OJ would have a podcast and be running for Senate by 2030

it's early, and at first glance i read this as "evil-based newsletters"

“A U.S. citizen!” And now he’s missing.

Adrian Martinez tried to defend a man ICE was harassing. Video shows six agents swarming him. He struggles but doesn’t lay hands on them. They take him to the ground & shove him into a CBP vehicle.

Abuse of power. Keep recording. Don’t stop.
(1 of 2)

"because masks make men cruel ..."

YouTube video by LUNAR Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys) discusses theremin and Good Vibrations (1990)

I was first introduced to Brian Wilson via a documentary on the theremin I saw at Sundance in 1993. youtu.be/FUozR7EZMRI?...

There's a non-zero chance :)

Phillip Dick? Winston Churchill?

I'm taking a continuing ed class at the U of U and had to login using my security questions — who the hell was my hero when I was 24? Vonnegut? Andrei Kirilenko? Teddy Roosevelt? Who?

Use way more than you think you need to, like at least 5+ tablespoons

www.amazon.com/Good-Balance...

Best iced coffee recipe: 2 shots espresso, add a couple ozs of cold water and a generous squirt of chicory syrup. Shake in a tumbler filled with ice until it's foamy and serve over more ice.

Mug Brunson but don't breathe on SGA

Learned new euphemisms for "penis" — "tusk" and "yard."

"Furiously feminist," a blurb on the back reads. Labeling something pornographic always requires context and that has a political dimension. This is one of 19 books Utah chose to ban. Make of that what you will.