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  Longish, but really good, read on reforming foster home licensing and oversight: https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/how-to-peel-a-banana Lots of people think that government is simply incompetent. That's the story told by cut-all-the-taxes radicals, who (as Grover Norquist famously said) want to shrink government enough to drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the tub. But implementing the *intent* turns out to be really effective. And we're getting steadily better at it. Came my way...

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  All right, Fedi. Help me out. I grew up addicted to Spiderman in the Stan Lee era -- I read all the Peter Parker the Spectactular Spiderman and The Amazing Spiderman comics as a kid and young adult, mostly as they came out. I've seen all the movies and generally enjoyed them. I just watched Brand New Day. I'm trying to figure out how I feel about it. Complicated, for sure. What's your view? Boosts for reach appreciated. Replies requested.

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  Here's Queen Maxima of The Netherlands, joining the Pride gathering in Amsterdam's Vondelpark and supporting the local (and global!) LGBTQ+ community. It's a shame that Donald Trump is to MAGA-whipped to do this.

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  Excellent piece by @pluralistic@mamot.fr: https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/28/hitl-ers/#ai-ai-oh If a human domain expert asks an AI agent a question about that domain, he or she can get a fast response, and then decide whether or not it makes sense. Good deal! Every really interesting use case for LLMs that I've seen matches this pattern. And every instance where a non-expert chooses to trust an LLM's output is a mistake.

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  Super cool: https://a-hidden-infrastructure.spun.earth/map

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  This very good thing happened in the midst of all the doom: The Federal Trade Commission extracted a settlement from John Deere that gives farmers the right to repair the machines that they buy from the company. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/07/ftc-states-secure-settlement-deere-company-advancing-farmers-right-repair If you can't fix it, you don't own it.

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  You might not be getting enough Wavy Gravy in your diet, so here you go: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2026/05/12/wavy-gravy-90th-birthday

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  In case it needed saying: https://cyberscoop.com/cisa-nsa-five-eyes-guidance-secure-deployment-ai-agents/ Via @Mattdevost's Global Frequency newsletter.

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  "The crackdown was led by the Dubai Police, under the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ministry of Interior, in partnership with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Chinese Ministry of Public Security." https://thehackernews.com/2026/05/global-crackdown-arrests-276-shuts-9.html Via @Mattdevost's Global Frequency newsletter. Matt's on a roll this morning.

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  A while ago, I finished Michael Pollan's new book, A World Appears. Loved it! He explores sentience and consciousness, providing a survey of research in the field by a variety of different folks with a whole bunch of different viewpoints and approaches. Highly recommended! https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-world-appears-a-journey-into-consciousness-michael-pollan/47e179e0a2408aa0 1/2

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  I like a lot of physicists but Richard Feynman is my favorite. Today is his 108th birthday! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

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  This is interesting: https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-emergent-self-loop/ I am a big Kevin Kelly fan.

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  Good HCR post this morning: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-10-2026

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  If you require my email address, it’s not “for free.”

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  This story is an interesting overview of the design of mission-critical software that ran on Artemis: https://cacm.acm.org/news/how-nasa-built-artemis-iis-fault-tolerant-computer/ It's also funny, because despite all the diligence and care, the massive brainpower aimed at reliability, Microsoft Outlook still didn't work right.

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  Grandma Stand! https://kottke.org/26/05/grandma-stand

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  Good historical piece on the effects of communication technology -- not the technology itself, but how it altered the economy and society -- from the WSJ series USA250: https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/information-technology-us-4f3c71f3 Came my way via @Mattdevost's Global Frequency newsletter

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  Looks like Ted and Coach Beard are back in Richmond to coach the women's team. S4E1 drops 5 Aug. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxZg4SfIURg h/t @jkottke

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  I’m on the board of directors of Cityside Journalism, non-profit parent company of the newsrooms Berkeleyside, The Oaklandside and Richmondside. Enormously proud that two of our newsrooms have been ranked among the top 25 in the nation by Nieman Lab. Honestly I think it should be all three! You’ll see some big national publications on the list. Oakland has a population of 440k and Berkeley of 120k. We’re peers with bigger newsrooms serving much larger audiences. https://www.niemanlab.org/2026...

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  Heather Cox Richardson today: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-29-2026 A British monarch reminds a US Congress and President of the ideals and commitments of America's Founders.

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  Cory Doctorow @pluralistic has a longish piece in today's newsletter about the practical effects of the Trump administration's energy and technology policies: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/20/praxis/#acceleration The European energy crisis created by Putin's accelerated invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is an excellent analogy for what's driving solar adoption in Trump 2. My nerd friends in Europe are working hard to wean themselves and their governments from US big...

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  I'm a regular reader of @brianmerchant's Blood in the Machine newsletter. Today's edition recaps the very narrow failure of Big Tech efforts to forbid states from passing any laws regulating artificial intelligence. The collapse of that amendment in the Trump spending bill is a rare instance of good news. Brian reminds us how near a thing that was. https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/dont-forget-what-silicon-valley-tried