Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
Well, well, well, sick again, I see. Yes indeed I am. This time it’s not a stomach virus, this time it’s a common everyday cold. Stuffy head, runny nose, tired. It’s annoying. 🤧
Let’s get to the links. Enjoy!
A new ballot effort aimed at asking Californians if the state should remain in the union was approved for signature gathering to appear on the 2028 ballot on Friday.
This is nothing more than performative as it’s illegal to secede from the Union.
I mean, seeing California, Oregon, and Washington becoming their own country or joining Canada would be amazing. I’d certainly want to move back ASAP. 🤣
Lately I’ve been on the hunt for a personal database application that I could use to store, manipulate, and explore data important to me. I think I’m at least now able to articulate what it is I want, but I haven’t yet been able to find anything that perfectly matches the daydream.
This is really interesting. There are a number of database products available for the Mac, I personally use Base and love it, but something a bit more user friendly could make for an amazing product for someone. I’d personally love to see a forms creation product with a database behind it so I could make custom forms and put them on an iPad, iPhone, or Mac. It would be great for folks who do sidewalk questionnaires.
Something like this probably already exists. I just haven’t looked for it.
For the first time in nearly 20 years, WordPress no longer feels like a sure bet if you need to get a website online.
Ah, yes, the WordPress saga continues. I wonder what Matt is up to? It feels like he’s partially giving up. I hate to see that as WordPress is critical infrastructure on the internet. It powers so many sites and I can see it doing so much more.
Roger Monty’s • Search Engine Journal
Three unrelated things happened in the world of WordPress and Content Management Systems which may point the direction of how content is published on the web. Two of the developments are directly related to WordPress and has the feel of pieces falling into place.
This is a very interesting piece. If a community rises up out of WordPress and forks it I could see Matt losing out and losing control of the future of WordPress. It would be really nice to see him do something similar to what Eugen Rochko did for Mastodon.
Tesla is dying. The company’s fourth-quarter earnings read like a eulogy for the electric dream. Revenue crawled up just 2% to $25.71 billion, missing analyst estimates by over $1.5 billion. Automotive revenue - the heart of Tesla’s business - collapsed 8% to $19.8 billion. Operating income cratered 23% year-over-year to $1.6 billion. The operating margin withered to 6.2% from 8.2% a year earlier. These are the vital signs of a company in free fall.
I can only imagine it’s gonna get worse. Who wants to buy a car from a company with a Nazi as CEO?
The Tesla Board needs to grow a collective pair and fire the man. Get someone who will turn Tesla around.
I wonder when we’re going to see a round of layoffs from Tesla?
Microsoft Word is a tyrant of the imagination, a petty, unimaginative, inconsistent dictator that is ill-suited to any creative writer’s use. Worse: it is a near-monopolist, dominating the word processing field. Its pervasive near-monopoly status has brainwashed software developers to such an extent that few can imagine a word processing tool that exists as anything other than as a shallow imitation of the Redmond Behemoth. But what exactly is wrong with it?
Charlie is a professional writer and he has a monster hatred for Microsoft Word. That made me ask myself what do writers actually use for writing their novels and books?
I know John Scalzi uses Word, but does he strip it down or just use it out of the box?
George R. R. Martin uses 1980s era WordStar for DOS.
From the article.
But then he did one better. He told Conan that he has two computers, one that’s up-to-date and has Internet access, and one that’s ancient and runs DOS. He uses the newer machine for browsing the Web and checking emails, but he turns to the older one when it’s time to write. And his late-’80s software of choice is the classic word processor WordStar 4.0.
I’d love to see someone collect data on what famous authors use as their word processor or typewriter of choice.
Andrew Cunningham • Ars Technica
But regardless of geography, it feels an awful lot like OpenAI wants to benefit from unlimited access to others' work while also restricting similar access to its own work.
I LOL’d when I read OpenAI isn’t happy about DeepSeek possibly using ChatGPT to train their model, given OpenAI crawled the web and trained their LLM with our work. Oh the irony.
“When I think about where I’ll raise a future family or how much to save for retirement, I can’t help but wonder: Will humanity even make it to that point?” he asked.
I think it’s healthy to have a bit of skepticism about LLM’s and where the future of actual AI leads us. Doom is not such a bad answer. Let’s be cautious and slow down the pace. I’d definitely hate to see someone create SkyNet. 🤔
Corey LaJoie to run partial Cup schedule for RWR, joins Prime Video as analyst
I’m happy for Corey! I’m a fan. He’s been an underdog forever and may not have the skill of top drivers but the man doesn’t give up. I’m excited to see how his own team — Stacking Pennies Performance — does this year! Getting the 01 number was quite clever. Since he’s not a chartered NASCAR member it means he’s not guaranteed a spot on the grid. What does that mean? It means there are only so many spots available to racers and he will have to qualify his way in! He starts his new adventure at the Great American Race in Daytona this month. If he qualifies it’s a victory given the number of racers qualifying Open cars.
If I were some super rich dude I’d definitely get behind this guy.
I struggled for a bit trying to decide what to write about in my next Substack. But as this - how should I put this - batsh*t crazy week came to a close, I came to the conclusion that this post needs to be about you.
Man! I wish I were enough of a somebody to get Mr. Acosta to listen to me. All of this attention focused on Substack is not good. They support Nazi and white supremacist content on their platform but so many writers and reporter, like Mr. Acosta, just ignore it.
It’s mind boggling how they can ignore the sins of Substack while covering the likes of Donald Trump and the hate and cruelty he foists on so many groups of people here in the United States.
Get off the platform.
Politics
Donald Trump has entered the White House again, an astonishing number of American voters seemingly unbothered by his authoritarian rhetoric, let alone the fact he’s an adjudicated rapist and 34-time convicted felon. No wonder the ‘f’ word is in use more than ever, especially due to the actions of Trump’s apparent right-hand man, the unelected Elon Musk.
Keep saying it. Donald J. Trump is an adjudicated rapist and 34 time felon. Oh, and he’s a fascist to boot.
Piece of garbage human.
I’ve been getting reassuring emails from my university to let me know that they have assembled a team to respond to the federal government shut down of NIH and NSF funded research. In case you hadn’t heard, they canceled review panels at NSF and suspended research at NIH. They made the uncertainty that has always haunted research funding far more shaky. This is a warning shot — they’re going to make everyone conscious of the fact that the Trump team, a collection of idiots with no qualifications in science to throttle any and all science they don’t like.
It’s depressing to see the greatest nation on the planet shut down scientific research. The Marmalade Messiah is trying his best to turn the United States of America into an Idiocracy.
Levi Rickert • Native News Online
The Trump administration’s intensified deportation efforts have created unexpected challenges for Navajo citizens living in urban areas like Phoenix. As the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began widespread raids in major cities across the country following the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, concerns have surfaced about Native Americans being mistaken for undocumented immigrants.
I knew something like this would happen. It was bound to given how gung-ho ICE has been about “rounding up” brown skinned people.
What an absolute shit show. One that will affect so many lives. It’s terribly cruel and pathetic.
