apple juice

Fitting choice for the Oxford English word of the year. From The Guardian:

If you want to witness the last vestiges of human intellect swirling down the drain, hold your nose and type the words “skibidi toilet” into YouTube. The 11-second video features an animated human head protruding from a toilet bowl while singing the nonsensical lyrics “skibidi dop dop dop yes yes”. The clip has been viewed more than 215m times, and spawned hundreds of millions of references on TikTok and other social media.

Source: Is doom scrolling really rotting our brains? The evidence is getting harder to ignore | Siân Boyle | The Guardian

The collective action required to solve this problem is massive.

I wonder about this prediction, Writes, and Write-Nots. AI has had an enormous impact on student and professional lives already, and it is only likely to get more pervasive as it becomes more integrated into all the tools you are already using. Pretty soon, people will need to consciously choose tools that don’t include AI generation by default. Once it gets to that point we just accept that it is part of our lives and move on. Rarely do we consciously add the friction, the hard work back in.

“I’m usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won’t be many people who can write.”

I could certainly benefit from writing more, I actually do enjoy the process of writing, trying to explain my thoughts, but rarely find the focused time to do it.

Letters from an American, January 19, 2024

Great post here. I recommend subscribing to this newsletter if you haven’t already.

As I sit here at my computer, there is so much to be thankful for. My family, friends and neighbors. Our careers and schools. Our city, and state and country. I’m thinking today about the many people in our country who might be celebrating Thanksgiving with much less, or not celebrating at all. And then, when I expand my thinking beyond our borders and seas, to the people in other countries who are searching for a better life, or who find themselves entangled in conflict, likely through no fault of their own. It’s a lot to comprehend.

I hope we’re still moving towards a future where the arc towards peace, safety, self-determination and freedom is as apparent and attainable as it is for our small corner of the world. Elections matter, the world over, and we’re seeing those outcomes play out, sometimes delayed, sometimes immediate. Nobody really reads my blog anymore, but I hope for anyone who does, that you are informed, involved, and take the responsibility of voting seriously.

I believe it is ultimately the free people of the world who can affect the change within our governments necessary to create equitable conditions for everyone. We won’t get there through violence, hate, intimidation, but simply through our love for each other and a mutual respect for our common humanity.

While not specifically about Minneapolis, this article on the St. Paul rent control gives an idea of what might come to pass if the the Minneapolis Question 3 passes and gives the City Council the ability to propose an ordinance on rent control. (As far as I understand it!)

St. Paul is an unlikely place for such a strict rent control policy. Housing costs are low and wages high in comparison with big coastal cities that have enacted rent control like Portland, San Francisco, Sacramento and New York City.

If Question 1 passes, St. Paul will become not just the first city in Minnesota to enact rent control but the first in the Midwest.

Minneapolis could follow shortly after with voters also deciding this November if the city council can write a rent control ordinance with the details of the policy to come later. Unlike St. Paul, Minneapolis does not allow ordinances to be passed through ballot initiatives.

From St. Paul voters could pass one of the country’s most stringent rent control policies – Minnesota Reformer

This post is coming to you from a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro running Mac OS 10.6.8, (released in June of 2011)

I have basically three pieces of software installed on this laptop:

• Eudora Email (because it remains the best email client of all time)
• ArcticFox (Firefox derivative that has some recently updated security)
• MarsEdit (for writing blog posts)

I put a new SSD in it for $20. (I actually laughed out loud the first time I saw it boot up it was so fast.)

But why even bother, you may be wondering?

Basically, it’s an experiment in reducing distractions. If I have a computer that is dedicated to basically two things – personal email and writing on the ol’ Blog, will I actually do more of both? My hypothesis is yes. When I open up the work laptop at home… there’s always work to be done. When awaken my desktop, there’s photos to edit, news to browse, etc. things to distract.

On this laptop, it’s stripped down to the bare minimum of functionality.

As technology marches on, I do think it’s worth looking at the lessons of the past.

Look, for example, at our music consumption. Why has vinyl experienced such a resurgence, despite Apple Music, Spotify and the rest offering a vastly more convenient option?

Or, take notebooks: Bullet Journals, Moleskines, etc. With all of the digital tools available, why do folks bother with pen and paper?

I think the reason to bother with this has to do with the intentionality of use. What can I learn from using a simpler machine with software that is over a decade old?

The other day, we were lucky enough to score an outdoor table at *Owamni*, the new restaurant near the Stone Arch Bridge and St. Anthony Falls which serves native foods. The restaurant is excellent, I highly recommend it!

Additionally, there is a brand new park adjacent to the restaurant, which you can read about here (article written by my neighbor!)

The re-development of the riverfront into beautiful public space will benefit the entire city. It is well worth checking out both the restaurant and the park, as well as advocating for more of this!