Andrew Mercer

This is always the first thing I try when I’m getting really weird behavior or error codes that don’t make sense.

@@@@@@@@@ All the @s!

The “optimizing” trend is all about shifting responsibility for health onto the individual and profiting from it.

You can do everything “right” and still get cancer. Ask me how I know.

Sure, why not?

Just had an argument with my partner that ended with her emphatically stating “I did *not* forget about Dre.”

Is there any truth in the Christian revival? Podcast Episode · Holy Smoke · 02/17/2026 · 32m

Is Christianity making a comeback? The data might surprise you. I joined the Holy Smoke podcast to dig into the evidence behind a "Quiet Revival."

Apple podcasts link: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
Spectator link: spectator.com/podcast/is-t... #quietrevival

Survey researchers: I'll discuss LLM "synthetic respondents" in a free webinar this week.

➡️ Synthetic Survey Data? It's Not Data

Thursday Feb 19, 12pm Eastern, hosted by Sawtooth

Free registration: sawtoothsoftware.com/resources/ev...

(P.S., I give no quarter on this topic 😆)

Possibly both.

This is one of those horrifying things I learned about relatively recently and ugh…. no thank you.

Pro-tip: you almost certainly do not want the 10-cup rice maker, even if it’s only slightly more expensive than the 5 cup. I promise.

Clue: *Quality that's subject to bias in surveys, where respondents answer questions in a way that they believe will be viewed favorably by others

@evanbirnholz.bsky.social out here giving @aapor.bsky.social lessons in the Sunday crossword 🥹

Good Times

All the best basslines are from the 70’s prove me wrong.

I am 100% here for this series

I mean, not at first! But they get there! It’s heartwarming!

It’s also got some of the best writing and voice acting I’ve seen in a game.

Setting aside the fact that it is *extremely* violent, God of War (2018) is a very sweet, very wholesome game.

Happy Friday the 13th to those who celebrate. 🔪🔪🔪

Morning sessions cost twice as much is not so implausible I think.

Yet…

There's some of that, especially downtown, but around where I live the ice has been too solid to absorb much dirt. It just sits there, slowly getting smaller but never quite going away. Xeno's ice chunks.

For the love of god, can it just melt already?

And yet he's right. At one time or another, we have all been Marl.

Insufficiently stimulated, Marl throws a fit and swipes over to TikTok, never to return to your app. Your feature decreases DAUs in the A/B test. In the launch committee meeting, you mumble something about “user agency” as your VP looks at you with pity and scorn. Your button doesn’t get deployed. You don’t get your promotion. Your wife leaves you. Probably for Marl.

This piece is just a goldmine of good quotes:

This is a helluva quote:

“Reddit and Craigslist remain incredibly useful and valuable precisely because their software remains frozen in time. Like old Victorian mansions in San Francisco they stand, shielded by a quirk of fate from the winds of capital, reminders of a more humane age.”

Oh my god Myrna Loy.

🫡

Omg this is amazing.

My “smart” fridge can connect to wifi and knows how may times I’ve opened and closed the doors. That’s basically it. I think the wifi is just so to make it accessible to botnets.

Watching Home Movies for like the 300th time. Like we do.