Asa Dotzler
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asadotzler.com
Asa Dotzler
@asadotzler.com
Sir Robin's minstrel
ex-Netscape, ex-Mozilla

https://asadotzler.com
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I'm blogging again!

I'm gonna get back to it for real this time. Corporate social media is so much worse these days so I'm going back to my roots and making the blog go once again.

Bookmark or grab the feed if you think you might be into longer reads than my posts here.

asadotzler.com
mood
Faith no More Perform "Midlife Crisis" and "I'm Easy" on the Tonight Show (1992)
YouTube video by WV Monster
www.youtube.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:49 PM
If you haven't seen Wim Wenders' "Until the End of the World," it's really good. You want the 5 hour cut. If that one grabs you, then the 20 hr cut :D

Also, one of the best soundtracks ever. Original songs from Talking Heads, Julee Cruise, Lou Reed, R.E.M., Elvis Costello, Nick Cave, and more.
November 11, 2025 at 1:42 AM
Want to avoid being followed around the web by ad providers and brands? Get Firefox.
Firefox expands fingerprint protections: advancing towards a more private web | The Mozilla Blog
With Firefox 145, we’re rolling out major privacy upgrades that take on browser fingerprinting — a pervasive and hidden tracking technique that lets we
blog.mozilla.org
November 10, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Nobody's ready for two lead guitars.
November 10, 2025 at 6:12 AM
Happy 21st birthday, Firefox.

This is our community-funded 2 page New York Times launch announcement. The names of nearly 10,000 small donor fans are designed into the first page.
November 10, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Updated
November 9, 2025 at 11:39 PM
If you're on a web page that makes it difficult to grab an image, and a screenshot won't do, Firefox has your back.

Open Page Info (ctrl+i) and select the Media tab. Now you've got a sortable list of every image on the page for easy download or referencing directly by its URL.
November 9, 2025 at 10:29 PM
I used to read more, and my plan to get back into it is revisiting favorite series from school years. Where should I begin?

Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat
Farmer's Riverworld
Moorcock's Elric Saga
Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber
Pournelle and Niven's The Mote in God’s Eye and The Gripping Hand
November 8, 2025 at 11:15 PM
I've just learned that Zohran Mamdani is a Daredevil fan, and rightly so. I like him even more.
November 7, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Meta told staff responsible for vetting questionable ads that they weren’t allowed to take action if it would cost Meta more than $135 million.

Meta *policy* explicitly blocks staff from doing anything about the biggest scammers. They are too big to fail at Meta.

Zuck is a craven piece of shit.
November 7, 2025 at 10:30 PM
That Meta is happily getting ~10% of its revenue from scam ads should be all the reason you need to adopt an ad blocker. You owe these ghouls nothing.

The only trustworthy blocker out there is uBlock Origin. It will protect you from security threats, privacy invasions, and scams. ublockorigin.com
November 7, 2025 at 10:09 PM
If the Epic vs Google settlement is approved, I think one of the most consequential changes will be one-click install of new app stores from the web free from scary warnings.

You will be able to visit a website, click a button, and have their full featured app store on your home screen.
November 7, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Tesla's gen 2 Roadster, announced in 2017, was slated for production in 2020. Official word now is the second half of 2027.

Of course priorities shift as the world changes. No question. Thing is, Tesla strung people along, insisting for 7 years its priorities hadn't shifted.

That's not okay.
November 7, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Honda's decided the car industry's pursuit of increased vehicle rigidity is misguided and is building more flexible cars.

"When a vehicle goes around a corner the outside of the structure will deform to push the outer wheel down and load up the grip to help improve steering and cornering..."

Neat.
Honda's 'Bending' Platform Shatters Decades of Car Design Rigidity
Honda’s about to flip the entire script about everything we’ve been told about rigidity.
www.thedrive.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:57 AM
Forgot to comment yesterday, the Epic vs Google settlement looks pretty good, and it's global.

Google can't block 3rd-party payment systems, can't block pre-installation of other app stores, can't arrange Play Store exclusives, and will list alternative app stores at its Play Store.

Progress.
November 7, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Internal Meta documents show last year it projected it would earn 10% of annual revenue, $16B, running ads for scams and banned goods.

Meta displays about 15 billion of these scam ads to users every day.

Zuck helps scammers screw his users because it makes him richer for zero cost and zero risk.
November 7, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Vision Pro has text fidelity that's equivalent to what you'd see on a 2010-era 14" laptop with 1366 x 768 resolution. If the idea of working on a 15 year old budget laptop screen brings you joy, you're gonna love doing productivity work on Vision Pro.
November 7, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Apple launched its AI assistant, Siri, on iPhone 4S in October 2011. 14 years later, not only has it squandered a huge AI lead, it has now thrown in the towel by outsourcing Siri intelligence to Google.

Tim Cook knows how to keep Wall St. happy, but is absolute dog shit at products and technology.
November 6, 2025 at 11:28 PM
2 years ago Sam Altman said, "It’s totally hopeless to compete with us."

This week he asked the government for loan guarantees.

What a miserable lying crook.
November 6, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Apple has lost its way. "Make the OS readable" is an option buried in the accessibility settings.
November 4, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Yeah.
November 4, 2025 at 9:47 AM
mood
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - The Impression That I Get (Official Music Video)
YouTube video by MightyMightyBossVEVO
www.youtube.com
November 3, 2025 at 6:32 AM
I predict that vibe coders will be first against the wall when the business suffers meaningful financial or legal consequences from using LLM AIs to write software. Some who can demonstrate competence in the fundamentals can make it, but generally the machine won't be blamed, the operator will.
November 3, 2025 at 5:08 AM
Our International Space Station has been continuously occupied since November 2, 2000.

For 25 years, humans from Earth have been living and doing science on a ~1,000 cubic meter* space craft orbiting the planet at 28,000 kilometers per hour**

Amazing!

* ~35,500 cubic feet
** 17,500 miles per hour
November 3, 2025 at 4:33 AM
The other game we played a lot was Monopoly.

Kinda strange in retrospect. Monopoly and D&D are pretty much opposites. Both use dice, but one's a zero-sum, winner take all contest, and the other is a framework for creativity and collaborative problem-solving.

I wonder what the adults were thinking.
My early childhood was in large and busy house. For a time it was 8 adults and 13 kids, and a bunkhouse next door with several young men in their late teens.

One of my fondest memories of that house is me and about half the clan sitting around the living room playing Dungeons & Dragons. Good times!
November 3, 2025 at 2:14 AM