Nancy Friedman
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fritinancy.bsky.social
Nancy Friedman
@fritinancy.bsky.social
2.8K followers 1.1K following 2.7K posts
Name developer, writer, lapsed journalist, bay swimmer. Born in Los Angeles, semi-rooted in Oakland, California. “Queen of retail rabbit holes.” https://fritinancy.substack.com/
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fritinancy.bsky.social
Then I spotted this ad a few minutes later.
Bus-shelter ad for an AI company called Nurture: Instinct Falters. Data Doesn't. Your child's development is too important to leave to chance
November 22, 2025 at 10:13 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Wrong-way apostrophe from Perricone.
#tistheseason
‘Tis the season for gifting
November 20, 2025 at 1:14 AM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Uh-oh, someone disabled spellcheck.

@thewrap.com
Screener and Q&A Link: The film will be viewable for 24 hours. The Q&A will be available through TheWrap's Youtube Channel on: Wenesday, November 19, 2025 | 4:00 PM PT
November 19, 2025 at 12:30 AM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Ad for @mullvad.bsky.social in the 19th Street Oakland BART station. The point: Your data remains private with us. 1/2
Ad for Mullvad VPN: We have no idea who our customers are. Maybe they all live in San Francisco. Well, then this ad was a waste.
November 14, 2025 at 1:38 AM
fritinancy.bsky.social
And here’s Gather, a restaurant in Berkeley, confused in a different way.
#tistheseason
T'is The Season
November 11, 2025 at 7:21 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
I'd held out hope that this @sfstandard.com hed was a pun, but no, it's just another misspelling of "peek." sfstandard.com/2025/11/11/m...
Sneak peak [sic]: A Chinese superhero swings onto the SF Opera stage in a $10M spectacle / Take an exclusive first look at the spectacular costumes on display in an ambitious world premiere.
November 11, 2025 at 4:26 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
I'm not going to show her face or reveal her name*, but oh, honey, you really need to get acquainted with a tailor. This jacket looks *terrible.* Where's our @dieworkwear.bsky.social for women's clothing?

*She's a public official in San Francisco.
A woman in an ill-fitting gray blazer stands with her arms crossed in front of her.
November 11, 2025 at 1:35 AM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Excellent reporting. Copyediting would have made it better.

@nytimes magazine 11/9/25

1. *is being
2. *one less
Ana's full name, as well as those of other trafficking victims in this article, are [sic] being withheld for their safety. She wondered if they were relieved to be dealing with one fewer [sic] foster kid.
November 9, 2025 at 5:01 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Here's Southwest Airlines all confused about where the apostrophe should go.
#tistheseason
Tis' [sic] the season for saving.
November 7, 2025 at 2:57 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
From Garnet Hill.
#tistheseason
’Tis the season of giving
November 4, 2025 at 5:36 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Welcome back to ’Tis the Season season! This one’s from Amtrak. #tistheseason
'Tis the Season to Be Wary: Holiday Shopping Safety
November 4, 2025 at 4:30 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Weird ad buy — page A7 of the Sunday @sfchronicle.com. Is anyone in the target audience likely to see it?
Dear Developers, Over the past few years, coding has started to change. We've seen glimmers of magic—when your thoughts are completed as they materialize, when an idea can take shape faster than you can type. There's so much left to figure out. If we get this right, we can create tools that allow us to spend more time thinking, exploring, and building. These are the things that drew us to software in the first place. We are excited for this future, and to build it with you. The Cursor Team cursor.com/future
November 2, 2025 at 6:52 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Just look at this gorgeous thing, will you.

First new Collegiate edition in more than 20 years.

Thanks, @merriam-webster.com!
Brand new, still-in-the-box copy of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 12th edition, with the traditional red cover
October 28, 2025 at 10:21 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Stop hiring humans? Don't stop hiring humans? Make up your minds!

(Photos by me in San Francisco, October 25, 2025)
San Francisco bus-shelter ad for Artisan, an AI company. Headline reads "Stop Hiring Humans." A checklist touts the benefits of "Ava, the AI BDR" (business development representative): won't come in hungover, never burns out, works holidays, costs almost $1,000 less per lead than a human. San Francisco Muni bus ad for Motion, an AI company. It reads DON'T STOP HIRING HUMANS.
October 26, 2025 at 12:18 AM
fritinancy.bsky.social
This is a passage in a truly boggling (to me) story by @danielkolitz.bsky.social for @harpers.bsky.social about the new (to me) sense of “goon,” but all I can think about is: the past tense of “to sled” is “sledded,” dammit.
Some part of me, I’m saying, was convinced that these gooners were human. Almost certainly they had, in their lives, hugged grandparents, cuddled pets. Bundled in winter coats, they had sled down snowy inclines, secure in a legal guardian’s love. None of them had thought, When I grow up, I want to consume pornography in such immense quantities that strangers will fear for my sanity.
October 24, 2025 at 2:42 AM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Medium continues to make everything harder.
Q: What is the change to the Medium Partner Program, exactly? When a member reads your story through non-Medium channels, like through social media or search, you will earn 5% more from their activity (reads, replies, highlights, etc) than if they had come to your story through Medium, like the app, the daily or weekly digest emails, or on the web homepage. You can read more about how we calculate earnings here. Q: How are we rewarding external traffic? "Reward" means specifically through earnings in the Medium Partner Program when a Medium member reader your story, and they come from outside Medium. With this most recent update, here's no change to distribution based on activity from outside Medium. Q: How does this affect non-member activity? With this most recent update, non-member activity is unchanged. Non-member activity doesn't earn any money. Q: What happens if a reader comes through a friend link? If a member reads your story through a friend link you shared outside Medium, you'll get the small bonus to earnings. If it's shared inside Medium, your earnings will not change. If a non-member reads your story through a friend link, your earnings are unchanged since we're currently only taking into account member activity.
October 23, 2025 at 2:50 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
New naming trend? No more apostrophe'd "chik'n" and "turk'y": now fake meat is "inspired."

(At Berkeley Bowl Marketplace. The cylinder at the bottom is "salami inspired.")
In a deli case: packages of Prime Roots "ham-inspired," "turkey-inspired," and "salami-inspired" "clean plant protein."
October 21, 2025 at 9:35 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
*lying

@nytimes.com
NY Times movie review: But despite all these changes, the story’s heart remains. Captain Anderson’s ship, bound for the North Pole, is stuck in the ice. Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) and his men spot an explosion in the distance, then a wounded man laying [sic] on the surface. They take him on board. It is Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), seemingly near death.
October 17, 2025 at 3:51 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
I guess we've moved down the alphabet from AI to BI.
Bus stop ad from Julius.ai reads “are you BI-curious?” in white type against a blue background, followed by three connectivity bars and a winking emojis.
October 16, 2025 at 11:07 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Look at my face Am I bovvered?
October 15, 2025 at 2:39 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
You don’t “cow to” someone. The @politico.com writer may have wanted “kowtow.”
From a Politico story about Young Republicans: The group chat members spoke freely about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO, the love of Nazis within their party's right wing and the president's alleged work to suppress documents related to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein's child sex crimes.
October 14, 2025 at 10:38 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Waddle (verb): to walk with short steps and a swaying motion.

Wattle (noun, anatomy): a fleshy caruncle hanging from various parts of the head or neck.
Trump wattle
October 9, 2025 at 12:05 AM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Your tax dollars (not) at work.
U S. Customs and Border Protection official tariff document with the heading "Countries that does business with the United States"
October 5, 2025 at 2:21 AM
fritinancy.bsky.social
“Enshittification” on the October cover of @harpers.bsky.social.
Cover line: Enshittification explained Excerpt of a review of Cory Doctorow's new book "Enshittification: How Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It." "'Enshittification,' his handy, profane neologism, describes the four-step process by which Big Tech intentionally ruins its platforms for profit"
September 28, 2025 at 5:18 PM
fritinancy.bsky.social
Who do I have to sue to get GRUNION accepted by #NYTspellingbee?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunion
GRUNION, a fish familiar to coastal Californians, is not accepted by the NY Times Spelling Bee
September 26, 2025 at 12:16 AM