mastodon
4.6.0-nightly.2026-03-19
toronto, canada
Who is [Stephen Smith]?
Modified quote from Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia’s famous speech (which doesn’t seem so long next to that 60-page-ish radio address, a Chavez rant, or the 2026 SOTU)
Reading 老T博客’s post https://lawtee.com/article/three-body-problem-reading-notes/ yesterday got me thinking about the wisdom of all the advanced civilizations shrouding themselves in advanced cloaking devices https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-many-black-holes-are-there-NCM4DnlORqCu8Q7OuJ5Ypw. But I don’t think they hide themselves so they can have a first strike advantage; I think it’s because they don’t believe in open source. Who wants a bunch of overly emotional Neanderthals with impulse control issues reverse engineering their advanced tech?
A former host of “The Miseducation of America” has made decades of shorthand a bit more confusing by reviving the old name of a government agency …
The DoW → https://www.war.gov/
The DOW → https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/DJIA
DOW → https://www.dow.com/, is part of the DOW and the DoW is a customer.
Interested in reading more of the DoW-free internet but don’t feel like sifting through all the noise to find the good reads? Kagi has new free Android and iOS apps to help you find the best of “The Small Web” which is 99.9% of the internet: https://blog.kagi.com/small-web-updates
Why limit yourself to the same dozen or so sites when there is so much other great free content out there?
Download the apps here: https://kagi.com/smallweb/get
Sick of DEFCON's 5-point scale? Hoping for a better way to collapse the infinite caos of global reality into a single number; one with a bit more wiggle room before the end times? Then check out @kagihq@mastodon.social's new Global Tension Index. But if you do prefer excessive oversimplification it also has a 5-point colour scale: 🔵🟢🟡🟠🔴, kinda like the weird new Canadian weather alert system (very DHS circa 2001).
Try it out: news.kagi.com (Settings > Visual enhancements > Toggle "show world tension index" on)
Like I said a couple days ago …
@thomasefleming@mastodon.social
There’s definitely something to this … https://economist.com/britain/2026/03/08/ten-years-after-the-eu-referendum-britain-has-become-more-european
“Ten years after the EU referendum, Britain has become more European”
Is it just me, or does anyone else find delta to be one of those really annoying words because there are several other words in the thesaurus which could accomplish the same bit of information transfer without creating any confusion or making the less informed feel stupid and too uncomfortable to ask a follow-up question cause it seems like everyone else gets the cryptography?
Just say gap, or difference, cause that’s all it is.
https://www.timeout.com/london/news/revealed-the-london-tube-platforms-with-the-biggest-gaps-031625
For a more 1990s Wired experience, check out https://wired.jp. Stay far away from the .com one if you'd like to not go down a negativity death spiral of doom scrolling (like seriously who is in charge these days over there?).
Canadian English full page translation made this https://wired.jp/article/series-philosophy-of-technology-17/ an enjoyable read even though I only know a handful of Japanese characters. Not sure about what would happen in American English.
Will the UK eventually start to rejoin the EU? What a dumb question, it’s already happening. It’s like pot being legal nationally in the US, it’s no longer an if but a when.
Anyway, a pro-Brexit newspaper was just acquired by Germans (they already own some slices of American media too) … https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/mar/06/german-twist-in-the-telegraph-tale-shatters-lord-rothermeres-dreams
My better half needs a new personal laptop and I think this is the one. He wanted something under $1000 without all the high tech early adopter stuff he’ll never ever use. This hits the sweet spot at 799 Canadian.
“In 2020, the Ontario government passed the Time Amendment Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent but only if neighbouring jurisdictions such as Quebec and New York State make the same move.”
https://www.insauga.com/clocks-go-back-but-can-it-be-the-last-time-in-ontario/
Talk about a memorable epilepsy awareness month!
There’s a little bit of lag, but https://translate.kagi.com/ works great translating webpages. I can get through the latest posts on https://consomac.fr/ with no problem.
You can also do it with Google and Bing, but it’s fun to support an up and coming Public Benefits Corporation like Kagi that doesn’t have DoW breathing down its neck (yet).
My whole life DoW used to just make this pop into my head (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average), but it seems like all the old norms are breaking down these days.
Don’t have the MS365 Enterprise license to unlock Excel’s most powerful data analytics features? There are free options. Ironically, Microsoft Visual Studio Code, a completely free app, has thousands of free data analytics plug-ins, from things like DuckDb to Python that allow you to splice and dice your data into lots of useful formats. And the barriers to entry are low, knowledge gaps can be filled with digital assistants to guide you through scripting (or reading a popular German Tech site).
Speaking of drummers, The Muppet Show has a brand new episode streaming now on Disney+. If you loved the original you’ll love this one too, but this time it’s completely commercial free*
*𝘙𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘯-𝘢𝘥-𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘳.
I don’t get why the mainland is freaking out. They already’ve got chips and other high tech from Taiwan even with geopolitical ambiguity. They took over America’s Thinkpad, Motorola and many other major brands, are about to sell their electric cars in Canada, AND now they even get to take over one of the former Crown Jewels of Japan, Sony high end televisions.
Commercial power dudes, lots!
So what if a heavy metal drummer makes a symbolic visit to a shrine?
https://www.tomsguide.com/tvs/sony-just-handed-its-tv-business-to-tcl-heres-what-it-means-for-you
🎶 Japan (Satin Jackets Remix)
By Tycho, ft. Saint Sinner, Satin Jackets
https://youtu.be/IR2QfCr4DpQ
Another reason I find Android irritating is that @Tusky@mastodon.social doesn't yet have a built in alt text generator like iOS's @IceCubesApp@mastodon.online. So then I have to do the extra step of going into my digital assistant, attaching the photo and prompting it "write alt text for this photo" and then have a conversation with it cause it never usually gets it right the first time (weird hallucinations), and then after some back and forth finally have something decent enough to copy back into Tusky.