Chris

I’m in Las Vegas this week attending the AI4 conference. First time in Vegas. And wild to see 8000 people here talking and learning about aspects of AI.

Guess it was our turn for torrential rain this morning: 2.75” in the past two hours. Looks like it’s done now.

A reminder that 5 years ago today was the Iowa derecho that knocked out our power for almost two weeks. Let’s not do that again.

#iawx

"PhD-level experts in your back pocket" is a completely nonsensical description of AI but a pretty good description of social media if you follow the right people

I get that the Cubs are blowing out the Cardinals, but the Fox announcers are just insufferable and the kid umpire in the stands needs to go home and ump some tee ball.

They savaged Obama for asking for "fancy mustard" at a restaurant once, while Trump covered the Oval Office in tacky gold shit, bulldozed the Rose Garden so he can pretend he's at his shitty golf club, and vowed to tear down the East Wing to put up a $200,000,000 ballroom.

Submitted a support email for Castro watch behavior, got an email back within 15 minutes acknowledging it’s a bug and that it should be fixed very soon. Encouraging support responsiveness!

Last night I was all shiny about the Castro podcast app. This morning on my run I found one annoyance: while it would pause the podcast for workout prompts as expected, it didn’t restart the podcast after the workout prompt was done. Feels like an obvious miss.

I’m a longtime Overcast user, but I’m giving Castro a try: https://chrishubbs.com/2025/08/07/im-a-longtime-overcast-user/

I did login on a browser where I hadn’t before. Then I looked at Reddit and saw a bunch of other people with the same complaint. Then I stopped trying to do my own debugging. 😂

And 18 minutes later, micro.blog finally got my post pushed out to Bsky.

Wow, rough morning for online services. Fastmail's web interface is hosed, and ​micro.blog doesn't look like it's updating.

Wow, so is Fastmail’s web interface hosed up this morning for everyone else, or is it just me?

Read emails aren’t visible in the web view. A check box shows up so that you know there’s logically something there, but it’s not visible or selectable.

Note to self: highlight that little note on the recipe that calls for a second rise.

In other news, dinner is going to be an hour later than planned.

What’s your preferred camera angle for Zoom meetings? I have traditionally kept mine head-on, but considering moving to a side angle so it doesn’t always look like I’m distracted when I’m looking at one of my side screens.

Wowww

Count me among the haters on this one. I love baseball. Banana Ball is to Baseball what the Globetrotters are to Basketball. Do not want.

See also: every time I have considered the pastorate/priesthood the study/preaching/eucharist always sounds awesome but the people always sound exhausting.

“What’s it called when you’re introverted but have taken on numerous leadership and outgoing roles your whole life?”&10;&10;“Introvirtuous: I’m here to help. But I’d rather not be.”

Rarely do I see a new (to me, at least) meme that hits so close.

OK, it’s a little (a lot?) programmer-nerdy, but I thought this post on speeding up JSON.stringify was fascinating, particularly the move to keep separate implementations for 1-byte vs. 2-byte characters and hot swap between them if needed.

v8.dev/blog/json…

Autonomous

2025 Reads: Autonomous by Annalee Newitz 📚

Apparently read this one back in 2017 and had totally forgotten about it. Still a decent read.

WSJ headline: "Tesla Gives Musk $23.7 Billion Stock Award to Stay Focused"

I would be willing to stay focused for much less than $23.7B, just sayin'.

Every Grain of Sand by Bob Dylan on Apple Music Song · 1981 · Duration 6:11

Crucial Track for August 4, 2025: https://app.crucialtracks.org/profile/cjhubbs/20250804

"Does Romans 8:28 teach that God is in control?" Q&R with Bradley Jersak

A fresh perspective on Romans 8:28: https://chrishubbs.com/2025/08/04/a-fresh-perspective-on-romans/

My gym has a couple who I feel like are in that last category. And then I saw one of them reading the most generic self-improvement book while they were on the treadmill... and now I'm not sure. Mostly it seemed kinda sad.

Yes. It seems very obvious to those of us watching that this is scary stuff. And yet most of the Democrat senators are acting mostly like business as usual.

Dozing off during the sermon: a time-honored tradition.

Dozing off during the sermon when you’re the reader assigned the creed and the prayers: a slightly riskier proposition.

⚓️

Kinda surreal seeing my old boss testifying at the NTSB hearing today for the DC crash investigation. Couple of career balls bounce differently, could’ve been me sitting there. (He’s doing great, glad it’s him and not me!)

You're Alright by Michael W. Smith on Apple Music Song · 1986 · Duration 4:36

Crucial Track for August 1, 2025: https://app.crucialtracks.org/profile/cjhubbs/20250801

the entire republican party is currently involved in a cover up involving the worlds most notorious underage sex trafficking ring

Introduction to Tantra

2025 Reads: Introduction to Tantra by Thubten Yeshe 📚