Recently

I have a non-recently post ready to write, any day now…

Reading

This was a strong month for reading: I finished The Hidden Wealth of Nations, Useful Not True, and Cyberlibertarianism.

I had a book club that read Cyberlibertarianism so we discussed it last week. I have a lot of qualms with the book, and gave it two stars for that reason. But I will admit that it's taking up space in my mind.

The 'cyberlibertarian' ideology was familiar to me before reading it. The book's critique of it didn't shift my thinking that much.

But I have been thinking a lot about what it argued for, which is a world in which the government has very extensive powers – to limit what is said online, to regulate which companies can even create forums or social media platforms. He also believed that a government should be able to decrypt and read conversations between private citizens. It's a very different idea of government power than what I'm used to, and well outside my comfort zone.

I think it's interesting to consider these things: the government probably should have some control of some kinds of speech, and in some cases it's useful to have the FBI tapping the phones of drug smugglers or terrorists. How do we really define what's acceptable and what isn't? I don't know, I want to do more thinking about the uncomfortable things that nevertheless may be necessary for functioning of society.

Besides that, there is so much to read. This month I added a lot of news subscriptions to my pile, which I think is now Hell Gate, Wired, NYTimes, Bloomberg, 404 Media, The Verge, and a bunch of newsletters.

• This interview with Stephanie Kelton, who is at the forefront of the Modern Monetary Theory movement in America, and wrote the very good book The Deficit Myth.
• This 404 Media story on an AI-generated 'true crime' YouTube channel is great because the team at 404 Media does both deep research and they interrogate their sources.
• Nathan Tankus has always been good but in this era he's essential reading. His piece on Fort Knox is quick and snappy. His others are more involved but always worth reading.

Listening

We've been rewatching The Bear and admiring the dad-rock soundtrack.

This Nine Inch Nails track shows up at the end of a season:

And this Eno track:

Besides that, this track from Smino played at a local cocktail bar. The bars at 0:45 sound like they're tumbling downhill in a delightful way.

Watching

So I bought a sewing machine in February, a beautiful old Kenmore 158-series, produced in the 1970s in Japan. It's awesome. How sewing machines work is amazing, as this video lays out. There's so much coordinated motion happening for every stitch, and the machines are so well-designed that they last for decades easily.

Besides that, I just watched The Apprentice, which I really did not like.

Elsewhere

• I was on a podcast with Jeremy Jung, taking about Placemark!
• My post in the /micro/ section, All Hat No Cowboy, probably could have or should have been a blog post, but I was feeling skittish about being too anti-AI on the main.