Some internet questions are easier for me to answer than others...

Literal South Sea bubble farce

Got my newly issued work PC on Friday, and was horrified to discover that it includes a new key that by default opens up Microsoft Copilot.

LLMs just turned hate, greed, and ignorance into a tariff on penguins. Why in the world do I need a dedicated stupidity button on this machine?

Ohio House and Senate just passed a bill that among many other things requires a course in "American civic literacy"...not exactly the same as Western Civ, but definitely in the pattern

Sometimes history is a serious, rigorous pursuit. Sometimes you read about a colonial official named "Mr. Mango Dick."

From Potukuchi Swarnalatha's interesting article "Revolt, Testimony, Petition: Artisanal Protests in Colonial Andhra."

(Possibly a misspelling for Mungo, but Mango is more fun.) 🗃️

You know the Ben Franklin quote about whether the sun on Washington's chair at the Constitutional Convention was rising or setting?

I give you the 2025 version: is this abandoned sign from the protests yesterday forlorn or hopefully persistent?

Move over, Odysseus's twelve axe-heads, the rightful owner of this estate is the one who can drive a matchbox car through twelve construction paper tunnels...

My favorite holiday mug is one from my best friend that says "ohne Dich ist Weihnachten doof" (without you, Christmas is stupid).

The fact that Discord insists that I am "playing" Scrivener really understates how hard the writing process can be some days...

I've never pre-ordered a special collectors' edition faster than I did @nkjemisin.bsky.social 's Broken Earth trilogy. It just arrived, and it is gorgeous. (And clearly my cat Zelda wants more installments.)

Not technically new here, but I'm trying to start being part of the community, rather than just a lurker. Here's #proofofcat, which I understand is the price of admission.