Travis Cole

How Jack Smith’s strongest case against Donald Trump collapsed Seeking to get the classified documents case to a jury before the 2024 election, the special counsel made a fateful decision that some in his office saw as a misstep.

Not happy to see Jack Smith had a path to do the classified documents case in DC where it would have been an easy conviction. Instead took it to Florida and got a judge known to be in the tank for Trump.

www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

And by investment in AI, I mostly mean the capex for the datacenter buildouts, but that’s all in service of software (models, etc) that are mostly developed in SF.) If that halts the rest does too.

As someone who lives and works in SF and cares deeply about halting democratic backsliding, I have incredibly mixed feelings about this.

Exclusive | Inside the Tech CEO Campaign to Stop Trump From Sending Troops to San Francisco Sam Altman, Jensen Huang and Marc Benioff helped Mayor Daniel Lurie to persuade the president not to deploy the National Guard.

The subtext is US GDP growth would be flat without investment in AI. If civil unrest erupted in SF it could stop or slow the AI development. This would be a self own by Trump going into the midterms next year, killing the only engine of US economic growth.
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Donate enough and you get a pardon for that crime. Or your import business gets its tariffs lifted. Or those unfavorable regulations stop being enforced. The SEC looks the other way.

This is so spot on. Francis Fukuyama calls this repatrimonialization. It moves us to a patronage system. You pay tribute for favors. Donors get access, relief from tariffs, pardons, or the national guard leaves their city alone.

The Peril of a White House That Flaunts Its Indifference to the Law

Good reporting from the NYTimes on Trump admin not even trying to come up with a legal justification for killing suspected drug smugglers.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

The Path to American Authoritarianism What comes after democratic breakdown.

I still think this is the best explanation I've read of what is going on with US politics right now:

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Republicans Who Have Rarely Opposed Trump Raise Questions About His Drug War

I wonder how many of them actually understand what they've done. I don't think they can constrain him at this point. Probably the only power they have left would be to impeach him, which they of course won't do.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

Why do people still use us-east-1?

The Trump admin both wants to weaponize and defund the IRS. And pull funding from blue states that pay more than they receive. I find myself wishing the US had a structure more like the EU, without direct tax payments from citizens to the IRS. This seemed like a crazy libertarian view years ago.

I think it’s time for a new generation to get familiar with Rage Against the Machine.

Imagine spending a ton of engineering time solving a problem like making databases scale to zero.... that is only ever going to be needed by customers who won't pay you any money.

Spencer Cox Wants to Pull Our Politics Back From the Brink Podcast Episode · The Ezra Klein Show · 09/19/2025 · 55m

The 2 most recent episodes of the Ezra Klein Show are must listen if you care about what's going on in the US right now. Spencer Cox, the Gov of Utah is a voice of reason: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

And the discussion with Ben Shapiro was also just great: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Democrats coalesce around insurance subsidies as shutdown demand, Neal says Any stopgap deal needs to include an extension of enhanced health care tax credits or other concessions, the Ways and Means leader said after strategy meeting.

If the Dems strategy is to demand concessions on healthcare, they are going to blow it. They need to let Rs own their policy failures and feel the consequences in the mid-terms.

This looks like a plan to save Rs from themselves… And an own goal by Dem leadership.

www.politico.com/live-updates...

From the Economist: www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

I think anonymous social media should simply be illegal. it’s toxic to democracy and a civil society. Probably some platform size threshold where identity becomes mandator.

Yacht rock sounds absolutely amazing on a Schiit Vali 3 with Sennheiser HD 600s.

This whole thing is so stupid, a competent congress would pass immigration laws that provide a fast and easy path for there workers to be here legally...

I'm still gonna throw a little more money into this well and test out some vintage new old stock Western Electric 396A tubes. For science. I expect no difference, but they are gonna look cool. Pretty sure I've talked myself out of getting a _real_ tube amp...

It's been fun to experiment, but it tells me that Schiit Gunnr at $229, or Magni Unity with the DAC for $189 would have been audibly identical. And like I said previously, the only difference from a MacBook Pro headphone jack is this gets louder.

I set both amps to 70dB. I have both turned on, and just swap the cable. I've also tried my HD 6xx and HD 600 into each amp. I *can* hear a slight difference between those headphones. But HD 600 between the amps, can't hear it.

I made a janky DIY headphone volume measurement system. Cut out a bit of cardboard roughly the shape of the HD 600 ear cup. Cut a slot in it the shape of my iPhone, running SPL Meter. I play pink noise and stick the end of the iPhone into the slot, holding it still until the volume settles.

The gain difference does change the volume substantially. Swapping from the Sylvania 5670 to a GE JAN 5670W drops volume by around 5dB. I do wonder how much people just hear a volume difference and think one tube is better than the other.

A stack of Schiit Modi / Magni / Vali, DAC and Headphone amps.

I've tried some "tube rolling" experiments with the Schiit Vali. I think there is basically no audible difference. I'm no EE, but my understanding is with hybrid amps the tube is only for voltage gain, not current gain, which actually moves the headphone drivers. But there IS a gain difference.

The Sennheiser HD 600 probably does need more power so it's not clipping peaks. But a modern MacBook Pro/Air can detect high impedance and drive 3V RMS. This will push the HD 600 to ~111.8 dB SPL.

My Schiit Vali will push the HD 600 to 123 dB SPL.

30 minutes at 95 dB risks hearing damage.

I've learned that modern audio gear, DACs, Amps, etc, is now orders of magnitude better than humans can hear. Apple's $9 USB-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter is basically perfect from an audio perspective unless your headphones need more power.

I got a Schiit Modi, Magni and Vali. A DAC plus 2 different amps. Cool devices, but literally the only audible difference over the MacBook Pro's headphone jack is they get a lot louder. Hearing damage loud. A/B testing with HD600 and HD6xx.

Measles Spreads Quickly in Rural Alberta Areas That Resisted Vaccines

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/w...

This is getting very bubbly. This kind of thing tends to come down hard.