Rob Fahrni

My trip to the ER today was a success, in a way, but also a failure.

My hope was I’d get an MRI to better understand what’s going on with the discs in lower lumbar. It’s where my pain is focused.

I arrived, got in pretty quickly, and had a great doc visit me. I explained what was going on and my hope for the outcome of the visit. She listened intently and asked a series of questions I answered.

She explained to me the only thing that would result in an MRI is the inability to empty my bladder, being unable to defecate, or weakness in a leg or legs. That’s it.

She shared that my insurance company would outright reject the MRI because I didn’t meet any of those conditions. She also said “You can pay for it yourself but I don’t know how you feel about a $10,000 MRI bill?” 😳

TL;DR - I don’t qualify for an MRI because I’m just in, at times, excruciating pain. But I can still walk (kind of) and pee and poop. 🤬

So, I got two injections; a muscle relaxer and a steroid. I don’t recall the names. The doc also prescribed a different muscle relaxer than I was prescribed prior because it did funny things to me.

This afternoon by 3PM or so the pain was back to a bearable level. In that regard, it was a success.

The lack of an MRI is a complete failure. Sure, I had X-rays a few weeks back so we know the bony parts are in rough shape, but we have zero clue how the soft tissues look. Do I have a bulging disc, or more? Who knows? The doctors don’t know and the physical therapists I visit won’t know exactly what PT plan I need to, hopefully, feel better.

We live in one of the richest nations in the world and our healthcare industry is driven by penny pinching insurance companies claiming we don’t need certain procedures, even though they don’t know.

One of the questions I was asked by the doctor was “Do you feel like hurting yourself or someone else?”

Think about that for a minute. Chronic pain can really screw with your mind. You get tired of it physically and mentally and just stop caring.

Yes, people commit suicide because of pain and insurance company games; Delay, Deny, Defend.

People also murder insurance company CEO’s because of their crap policies that delay and deny people the care they need.

I said “No” to both questions because I haven’t reached that “I can’t take this anymore” phase. I’m doing ok and I hope I’ll bet an MRI after my physical therapy, but I’m losing hope.

Oh, yeah, this seems to be the way in Virginia. I’ve had MRI’s in California that were never challenged by the insurance company. Maybe it’s because I have a different insurance company now? It’s probably the latter.

Can someone smart please explain what this knucklehead is saying? 😳

How can people making less than $200k benefit from tariffs? Ultimately we pay for the tariff because the poor small business has to raise their prices to pay for the tariff. Right? RIGHT!

Calling Paul Krugman, come on Mr. Krugman. Can you please explain what the hell Marmalade Messiah is saying?

What an idiot. 🤣

Mediaite • Michael Luciano

‘There Is a Complete Meltdown in the Building’: Pentagon Reportedly in ‘Chaos’ as Hegseth Loses Four Staffers in One Day

Who’s a thunk it? 🤣

I mean, you put absolute morons in charge and chaos follows. They are the Chaos Monkey Party, not MAGA.

It all starts with the idiot at the top. Good old Marmalade Messiah, Donald J. Trump.

Gizmodo

The European Commission has started issuing burner phones and stripped-down laptops to staff visiting the U.S. over concerns that the treatment of visitors to the country has become a security risk, according to a new report from the Financial Times. And it’s just the latest news that America’s slide into fascism under Donald Trump is having severe consequences for the United States’ standing in the world, all while the president announced Monday that he has no plans to obey a U.S. Supreme Court order to bring back a man wrongly sent to a prison in El Salvador.

The Cheeto in Chief is a piece of garbage.

Timothy Snider

In his meeting with President Nayib Bukele today in the White House, President Donald Trump told his Salvadoran counterpart that “home-growns are next” and that El Salvador would “need to be build about five more places” to hold American citizens.

So the president of the United States proposes, on camera, to deport Americans to foreign concentration camps.

We’re approaching a time when violence is going to be the only way to defeat this fascists regime. Constitutional crisis? The Constitution is on fire and his Orangeness is defying the Supreme Court. Law and order are gone, out the window.

If ever there’s been a time to storm D.C, now is it.

Violence is coming.

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Pat Saperstein • Variety

Val Kilmer, who played Bruce Wayne in “Batman Forever,” channeled Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone‘s “The Doors” and starred as a tubercular Doc Holliday in “Tombstone,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles.

We lost a good one. I’ve always enjoyed Val Kilmer in his roles. My favorite is his portrayal of Doc Holiday in Tombstone but I also liked him in Real Genius, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The Saint.

If you were a fan or are curious about Mr Kilmer give the documentary Val a viewing. It’s really well done.

Oh, I also liked his Madmartigan in Willow.

RIP 🪦

Namanyay Goel

Last Tuesday at 1 AM, I was debugging a critical production issue in my AI dev tool. As I dug through layers of functions, I suddenly realized — unlike the new generation of developers, I was grateful that I could actually understand my codebase. That’s when I started thinking more about Karpathy’s recent statements on vibe coding.

I’ve noted here frequently how slow I am to pick up new languages and frameworks. Largely it’s because I have to dig in, get to the bottom of things, and really develop an understanding of how things actually work. The more abstract — or magic — the language or framework the harder I have to work and the longer it takes for me to grok it. That takes time. For me it usually takes two times longer than most people. I’m a dumb redneck who likes computers, I ain’t that smart, so I learn via a lot of head banging and frustration, oh, and persistence and hard work.

All that to say, I love the craft of software development and I have a really hard time with the notion of using an LLM to develop and entire application for me. I can see using an LLM to get past things I’m not great at. Like my current huge struggle with auto layout in AppKit, but not for everything. 🧠

The Onion

You say ‘city,’ and I’m going to piss myself, and there’s no way I’m going to hide that wet spot just to make you libs more comfortable. I’m going to tell it like it is—for instance, I’m a man, and I’m scared of my own desires, and I don’t care who knows it!

When I think of Conservatives I think of folks who believe they’re patriots, self reliant, tough, and religious.

Often I think they’re none of those things. Being a patriot doesn’t mean wearing a flag shirt or having the Constitution tattooed on your arm or the American flag waving in your front yard.

A patriot is someone who loves their country and would do anything to protect it. That also means being critical of it and standing up for what you believe.

Many Conservatives I’ve met tend to be hateful of others and angry about what others have.

The Onion has a nice way of capturing that. 😃

Ashur Cabrera

I’ve been using the recently revamped Reeder on iOS, and after just a few weeks it feels pretty darned close to my ideal way of reading feeds.

Ashur has written a nice piece on his experience with Reeder. It is a very fine piece of software for iOS and Mac and Silvio Rizzi is an extremely talented designer/developer.

He’s taken a new direction with his beloved feed reader. It’s now more broad and can subscribe to more than RSS feeds, which is something I’ve wanted to do with Stream, and The Icon Factory have done with Tapestry.

It’s a new dawn for feed readers. They’re more general purpose viewers now. Expect to see more of this from other readers in future releases.

Also, thank you for the mention Ashur. I’m very grateful for your support over the years! ❤️

Tom Warren and Jay Peters • The Verge

A Microsoft employee disrupted the company’s 50th anniversary event to protest its use of AI.

The world is in such a strange place at this point in history and I hope we learn from it, otherwise we are doomed to complete failure. War, division, and climate change are all huge threats to humanity.

I don’t blame Israel for defending itself against Hamas. Who would? They were attacked by a terrorist organization who wants to exterminate them. We did the same thing after 9/11.

However, I do take issue with Israel attempting to obliterate Gaza and all her people.

Israel of all countries should know better. Jews were hunted by Hitler’s Nazi Germany who wanted to exterminate them. How can they turn around and do the same? 🙏🏼

Alan Ohnsman • Forbes

Elon Musk’s polygonal pickup is a polarizing sales flop that’s missed the billionaire’s volume goal by a staggering 84%. And there’s no sign that things are improving.

Yeah, the Cyber Truck. 🤣

Vojtech Novak, Shubham Gupta, Fabrizio Cucci, Riccardo Cipolleschi • React Native Developer Blog

This release ships React 19 in React Native and some other relevant features like native support for Android Vector drawables and better brownfield integration for iOS.

I hope we get an opportunity at adopt this on the project I’m on at WillowTree. It sounds like a nice step forward for hybrid apps like the one I’m working on.

Gus Mueller

Last week I bought a 13" MacBook Air in Midnight (24GB memory, 512GB SSD).

After reading this I’m tempted to go with a new Air as a personal Mac. I’ve been one of those die hard must own a MacBook Pro people but seeing a developer I have a lot of respect for say it works beautifully for an app like Acorn gives me confidence it would be a great choice for my less substantial projects, like Stream. 👍🏼

Tasha Robinson • Polygon

Warner Bros. dropped a new sneak-peek teaser for James Gunn’s Superman on Thursday out of CinemaCon, and it’s mostly just the same trailer we saw back in December, with the same quick-cut looks at Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Guy “worst haircut in the ’verse” Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), a giant kaiju that might be Jimmy Olsen, and more. The difference is, there’s an extra two minutes of footage that might just be the full theatrical cut of the sequence that follows after Superman crashlands in the snow near the Fortress of Solitude — and it’s a long, agonizing two minutes.

Based on the trailers I’ve seen I don’t think I’m gonna like this Superman.

Henry Cavil is still the best Superman. 🦸🏻‍♂️

Sarah Perez • Tech Crunch

Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, and a range of other online services, is reducing its workforce. The layoffs will impact 16% of staff across divisions, an Automattic blog post published Wednesday reveals.

I feel really bad for Automatticians. They’ve been through a real rough patch over the last year. First all the hubbub with WPEngine, the mass resignations, and now a layoff.

I hope they all land on their feet and Automattic survives and continues to lead the progression of WordPress far into the future.

I’d also like to see Matt Mullenweg loosen his grip on the open source organization so it can lead future efforts. ❤️

Matt Birchler

Back in 2019 I moved my blog off of WordPress and over to Ghost. In short, I wasn’t happy with WordPress and wanted a blogging engine that felt more like it was made for blogging than a full CMS where I didn’t use 99% of the features on offer. Ghost seemed to align with my values as a writer and a general user of technology, and over the past 6 years, that’s only become more clear that was the right choice for me.

Paying an organization to take care of the servers and infrastructure for your blog is very freeing.

I switched to Micro.blog a few years back and don’t regret it. The team makes sure we’re always up and running and the service and user experience are dirt simple for blogging. Just as they should be. ❤️

Matthew Haugey

I’ve used most Google’s products since the day they were introduced, so it was a great opportunity to see what these products are like for first time users, since the first time I used them long ago, they usually looked much different.

An interesting read on Google’s widely used products and services. Understanding how the Enterprise versions work is challenging. I’ve had a number of odd experiences with sharing documents over the years. Go read it. You may find yourself nodding your head in agreement.

Emma Roth • The Verge

France’s competition watchdog (Autorité de la concurrence) ordered Apple to pay €150 million (~$162.4 million) after finding that its App Tracking Transparency system allows the company to abuse its dominance in the mobile app market. In its decision, the authority says the initiative — which Apple pitches as a way to give users more control of their privacy — harms small publishers and “is neither necessary for nor proportionate with” Apple’s goal of protecting personal data.

Heh, App Tracking Transparency is something I really appreciate as a user but I can see how some App Developers would not like the idea.

At WillowTree we create a lot of what I refer to as “Marketing Apps.” Most large corporations who have something to sell you really need to have these beautifully designed and implemented applications that not only advertise their products but often need an ordering workflow. We do that and we do that really well.

Every one of the apps I’ve worked on is chock full of analytics measuring all sorts of things. The great companies take the user experience data they collect very seriously and make improvements accordingly.

The app I’m working on now has improved dramatically over the last year because the company we’ve done work for studies their analytics. It really can work.

Politics

Johnathan V. Last • The Bulwark

Fittingly, it was the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, who declared the official time of death.

The United States of America is now a world wide embarrassment that cannot be trusted and has become a laughing stock.

Postpone any trip to the US you’ve had booked. It’s a real mess here.

Joan Westenberg • The Index

If you had told me a decade ago that a former president would waltz back into the White House, torch the global economy, slap double-digit tariffs on damn near everything, spook the markets into evaporating over three trillion dollars in a single day, and call it a “booming economy” with a straight face—I would’ve thought it a particularly cruel and poorly conceived joke.

Again. See my first comment above.

Trump and his administration are burning everything down. Morons all.

Of note, Joan Westenberg has become one of my favorite writers. She delivers facts and opinions with a dry wit I really appreciate.

Sharon Waxman • TheWrap

Now as the owner of The Atlantic, she is the quiet superhero behind the current Signalgate scandal. Editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who in full disclosure I know well enough to have his email, has rightfully been taking a hero’s tour on media everywhere since he broke the story of having been “accidentally” included in a Signal chat group of the top national security officials talking about an imminent attack on the Houthis, in violation of every imaginable security protocol not to mention common sense.

It took one brave woman to put all the billionaire bros to shame.

Now if we could convince Bezos to sell the Washington Post to Kara Swisher that would be incredible.

Hazif Rashid • The New Republic

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” - Supreme Court Justice, John Roberts, March 2025

What a knucklehead. In April of 2024 you said a President could do anything they want as long as it was done as part of their duty as President. Right. RIGHT!?

Let’s see what he said.

Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.

Right, like I said, he can do whatever he wants as President.

Nice work, dumbass.

John Towfighi • CNN

Since Trump took office, stocks are down and bitcoin has plunged. What’s going on?

I’m sure, like me, many of you see a headline like that and mutter something not so nice under your breath.

Why the trolling headline? If you set things on fire it tends to frighten people, especially when that thing is the government of the United States.

Violence is coming.

How can it not?

Paul Krugman

Large numbers of farm workers in Kern County, at the heart of California’s agricultural country, have reportedly stopped showing up for work after what appears to be a wave of arrests — based, as far as anyone can tell, on racial profiling — by Border Patrol agents.

Kern, Kings, Tulare, and Fresno counties and many more are a part of the great San Joaquin Valley of California. It’s farm country. Most of the fruits and vegetables you enjoy come from there. Everything from oranges, almonds, lettuce, grapes, and a whole host of others are raised right there in the valley’s fertile soil. Guess who picks those crops? Yep, you guessed right, migrant workers. It’s back breaking labor and these folks do it in weather from below freezing to 110+ degrees. Yes, you read that right. It gets extremely hot and these folks show up to work every day.

Now, imagine if you will, all those amazing people no longer picking fruits and vegetables. Who’s gonna do it? Are you? If these raids continue you can expect food prices to sky rocket, crops to rot on the vine or branch, and farms struggle to stay in business.

The irony of the whole thing is how much farmers in the San Joaquin Valley love Trump. Oh, yes, they love the man. Before moving east I saw many a Trump 2020 sign in farmers fields and groves. Not tiny signs, gigantic signs mounted on the side of trailers. It’s the red middle of a very blue state.

FAFO season is here. Time for the “find out” part of the equation.

The Index

This man is a coward. And no amount of corporate jargon or performative masculinity can make that stain go away.

Zuck, for all his martial arts training and gold chains, is nothing more than a frightened little man. A man with children and a wife too cowardly to stand up and say “Donnie-boy, I’m not supporting your agenda because I want a free and safe America for my family.”

Instead we get a boy, going along with this wishes of an orange idiot.

Fourteenth Amendment

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

There it is, plain as day. It’s way more clear than the Second Amendment the wing nuts cling to.

If you’re born here, you are a citizen.

I feel bad for the folks who made a living on TikTok. I’m hoping they’ll find another job to take the place of being an influencer or whatever they did on TickTok to make a living.

As for the folks who are bummed because they liked watching it. You’ll get over it. I wasn’t happy when Space Karen took over Twitter and shut down the API so I stopped using it, exported my tweets, and deleted my account. I don’t miss it because Mastodon is even better and isn’t controlled by a single company.

I suspect it will be back soon. Hang in there.

President-elect Donald Trump said his inauguration on Monday will take place inside the U.S. Capitol rather than outdoors because of severe cold, the first time in 40 years that U.S. presidential inaugural ceremonies will be moved indoors.

The reason is simple. Through all the bluster, Donald Trump is just a big sissy boy. He’s afraid he’s gonna get a little cold sitting outside. A real man would suck it up and enjoy the moment.

Well, there’s that, and he’s terrified his crowd size will, once again, be much, much, smaller than previously. Remember how tiny his crowd was in 2017? Yeah, it was tiny compared to the mass of folks who went for President Obama or President Biden who followed him.

He’s so hated I’d imagine most of the CEO’s he’s somehow gotten to be there would rather be sitting alone in the cold than be seated behind him.

I keep expecting to read of another assassination attempt on the Marmalade Messiah.

It will happen. He’s equally adored and hated here in the States. Worldwide I’d imagine there is more hatred for the man.

Please release all the Department of Justice Special Counsel reports behind the indictments of President elect Trump.

As a nation we deserve to know what our future leader allegedly did so we can form our own opinions, given the Supreme Court made it difficult to prosecute a President for crimes committed while in office.

We all know he’s a criminal. We should know about his many crimes.

I’d encourage everyone to make a similar blog post if you have a blog, or post to your favorite social network. We really need this to happen for the good of our country and for future generations to understand what a mistake we made by electing Donald J. Trump to a second term in office.

Orange Man has lost his ever loving mind.

What do you want to do? Invade Canada? I bet half of the US would help our lovely neighbors to the north. 🇨🇦

How long will it take Trump to cross a line Americans cannot stomach?

How long after that does the next Civil War start?

How much cruelty will you put up with before doing something about it? I guess we all may have to answer that question in 2025.

Mediate

‘Democrats Are Realizing Woke Is Broke!’ Morning Joe Crew Reads Entire Maureen Dowd Column Slamming Identity Politics

Woke? Come on! Why not talk about the Orange Dude’s misogyny, racism, and just outright hate? That’s what people in America voted for and want. It’s more about that than the Democratic Party being “woke.”

Yes, Democrats believe in equity, inclusion, and empathy for their fellow man. Why the hell shouldn’t we all want that?

Are you flat ass saying hate is the way? No thanks. I want nothing to do with that.

I’ll be here to help black and brown people, LQBTQ+ people, and Women.

Wanting everyone to be treated the same and have the same opportunities isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength. Hate is too easy.

Get outta here with that crap.

UPDATE:

If you have a Threads account, or can see this video, go watch. This guy, whoever he is, nails it

John Gruber

Given the circumstances when I went to bed Tuesday night, it was no surprise I was welling up with tears come the morning. But I’d never have expected they’d be tears of joy, with a sense of hope — however diminished — and abiding love in my heart.

This is, without a doubt, the best piece John Gruber has ever written.

Please take the time to read it. John weaves a very personal tragic moment into the tragedy of the election. I cannot get over how great it is. John really is a masterful writer. Wow.

Thank you for sharing such a beautifully written, thoughtful, and personal piece right when we all needed it, John. ✪

The Editorial Board • The New York Times

Donald Trump has described at length the dangerous and disturbing actions he says he will take if he wins the presidency.

At least The NY Times had the intestinal fortitude to do this.

Done and done! I’ve done my part and voted to keep the United States of America a democracy!

I am all in on Kamala Harris being the next President of the United States. She is fully qualified and will bring an excellent staff on board to keep this country running.

We’re at a critical time in our Nation. Fascism has been knocking on the door for sometime now and it’s time we squash it, forever. Trump cannot win. He will never leave office and will destroy the United States of America. I fully believe that.

Trump is a petty, vindictive, narcissistic, asshole. He fits right into the mold of a psychopath – it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s killed someone – and Trump is 100% fascist.

Save Democracy in America. Vote Harris - Walz.

@Lana@beige.party

Uh, and by Christian I mean specifically evangelical Christian, obviously. You better not have any heretical ideas about God like this crap about loving thy neighbor and feeding the hungry and clothing the homeless. That’s the sort of idea that’ll get you in trouble in Trump’s America. But as long as you’re a white, straight, cisgender, evangelical Christian man, you’ll be fine.

Sure, everything will be fine.

Vote Harris-Walz if you want a free America.