There are scams and then there are $1,900 “directional” “audiophile” Ethernet cables 🙄 https://www.audioquest.com/products/diamond-rje-ethernet-cable

There’s something very funny about how a huge chunk of Twitter’s most engaged and connected users made themselves irrelevant overnight by going to #Bluesky and embracing a dead-end form of liberal politics. Like committing seppuku for your online clout.

I haven’t seen this many red cards since my hearts straight flush lost to a diamonds royal flush on the river at the Mandalay Bay in 2015 #WorldCup #CoupeMondiale #CoupeDuMonde #soccer #football #fifa #FIFAWorldCup #Canada #America #RSA #sports #Mexico

I haven’t seen a South Africa side arrive at a joint #Mexico / #USA venture in such poor shape since Ben Viljoen’s entourage fled the Boer War and set up a colony at Hacienda Humboldt in Chihuahua with the help of Teddy Roosevelt #WorldCup #CoupeMondiale #CoupeDuMonde #soccer #football #fifa #FIFAWorldCup #Canada #America #RSA #sports

PSA if you’re looking for a DVD player, the Onn ones are cheap, super tiny, can be powered by a TV USB port, and have an easy region-free remote code https://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks/onn-100008761/12926

A “pull request” is when you call your dentist and tell them your tooth is hurting

The experience of being on #Bluesky is sort of like complaining about the warden of a prison at which the gate is wide open. No one is forcing you to debate the competence of a for-profit site’s developers, you can just leave

I see a lot of takes that now China will be emboldened to “retake” Taiwan (first of all, there’s no “re-“ here, Taiwan has historically been independent and Chinese rule is the exception), and that it’ll “easily” do so. Yes, if there’s anything we’ve learned in the 2020s, it’s that wars of choice by great powers against dug-in, heavily fortified, and resilient opponents always go smoothly and achieve all their objectives…

“You can’t block imports of sunlight” yes but you _can_ block complex solar panel supply chains, which are largely supplied by a single country. Trading oil for renewables is just changing your type of dependency

5G is a great example of how the tech hype cycle is now really detached from real-world experience:

* endless discourse about how it would revolutionize every single industry
* tons of scaremongering about the U.S. “falling behind” China
* most people don’t even notice it’s different than 4G

Me redeeming credit card rewards before they get clawed back by returns and refunds

AAAA - also a #battery

#dns https://www.batterymart.com/p-energizer-max-aaaa-alkaline-batteries-2pk.html @kevin https://mastodon.km6g.us/@kevin/113724524588964200

RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116102639569199871

This is a good post. Doctorow’s discourse has to be filtered through the fact that he’s more a libertarian than a leftist; e.g., “enshittification” is primarily an attempt to save tech-centric capitalism, not a call to a more equitable society. Of course, many of his critiques (of monopolies, surveillance, and so on) are valuable and spot-on, but the current episode shows the mask slipping a bit.

The idea that there was a monoculture (driven mostly by TV) that then fragmented with the internet is super wrong. There are now like 3-4 platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Meta’s various properties, Netflix) that suck up a majority of all attention. It’s only superficially different than the old broadcast TV setup. There is a monoculture and it’s even more centralized than what came before.

I feel so out of touch because I cannot imagine paying for any LLM. Not because I’m opposed to paying, but I can’t imagine using it.

Non-masterpiece theater. #indieWeb #smallWeb #blog https://www.content-lab.agency/2026/01/15/nonmasterpiece-theater.html

Amazing illustration from a recent _Nature_ article

I’d compare him to Randy Shilts, the author of the epic _And the Band Played On_, about the early days of HIV/AIDS. Shilts, who himself died of AIDS in 1994 not long after the HBO adaption of his book debuted, was absolutely not on board with the sex-positive gay scenes of the 1970s-1980s, and the book is dripping with contempt for people who were. Again, no matter what you think of that perspective, it’s not one you normally get from people “on the inside.”

* Tired: Luddite
* Wired: “AI” “Skeptic”
* Inspired: Golumbian

What we lost with David Golumbia was an experienced technologist who unabashedly hated computers. He even mocked the idea of ending his last book with the bog-standard “now I’m no Luddite or anything…” that always comes in books that criticize tech in any way. Whatever you think of that perspective, it’s not one that any other “skeptics” (whether Ed Zitron, Cory Dóctórow, or the endless sea of AI haters on social media) provide. https://mastodon.social/@eARCwelder/115442236045990628