So I've started blogging again, after a two-year gap, and during those two years I was reading RSS feeds and saving items, and I now have a compendium of about 70+ items saved for posting.  (I've been ruthless; there were originally way more.)  These have been sitting in SharpReader, patiently waiting for me to post about them, and I will dribble them out as appropriate.  Here you go!

Loved this picture I saw online - on Facebook, so yeah can't link to it :( - it's been cold enough in the Netherlands for the canals to freeze, enabling ice skating.  How great would that be to do?  Definitely on my list!

Apr 2016: Amanda Peet via Salon: Never crossing the Botox Rubicon.  "What's the point of doing it if everyone can tell? I want the thing that makes me look younger, not the thing that makes me look like I did the thing."  Such a tough choice. 

Noted May 2016: StoryWorth via Daring Fireball.  "Invite your mom, and each week they'll send her a question. She replies with a story through the app, email, or even a landline. After a year, they'll bind her stories in a hardcover book."  Such a good idea.  I didn't follow though, but I should do, now... 

I left this item in my saved feeds mainly so I wouldn't forget it.  Need another way to remember.  Although, since it is now seven years old, I guess it didn't work that well, did it?

Nov 2016 from Digby Parton on Salon: After a bitter election, a new America: Our first female president and the most diverse coalition in history.  It precelebrates a Hillary Clinton victory.  I saved this because it was so wrong, but OTOH it wasn't as wrong as I thought at the time; did not expect Biden to defeat Trump. 

Interesting to note how many new portals like Salon now protest when you have an ad blocker; back then, nobody cared.  They're easily defeated but annoying.

Dec 2016: Not another MNIST tutorial with TensorFlow.  I was obsessed with TensorFlow back then, and still am; a wonderful tool for solving the toughest problems in unusual ways.  ChatGPT and all the rest are children of this breakthrough. 

Apr 2017: Doc Searls: Open Word - the Podcasting Story.  For reasons Podcasting never rose to the level of blogging or especially microblogging, nor of video, but it's still out there, and it's open.  Weirdly unlike microblogging and video there haven't been walled gardens housing podcasts.  I guess Apple kind of tried, but it didn't take. 

May 2017: The incomparable xkcd: Machine Learning. 

This is one site where virtually every post is worth reading.  Still.

Oct 2018: Instapundit: Trump to terminate birthright citizenship.  I was enthusiastically supportive of this - still am - but it didn't happen.  Right now the US is flooded with illegal immigrants who are (among other things) having "beachhead babies". 

Dec 2018: Jon Udell: Where's my Net dashboard?  On RSS readers and infoglut.  Same as it ever was, but I think Feedly and it's brethren are helping.  The amount of inbound is incredible. 

One approach, as taken by many of my friends and colleagues: let others do the filtering, and use social media as their inbound.  I do this a bit too, but OTOH I'm one of those "others" doing the filtering :)  It works a bit like the layers in a neural network ...

Feb 2019: Joi Ito: Resisting Reduction: A Manifesto.  On the nature of "success". 

Sept 2019: Instapundit recalls the NYTimes: Airplanes took Aim.  The NYTimes have been a flawed and prejudiced source of "news" for so long now, it's a wonder anyone regards them as credible. 

March 2020: Become a Master of Python Programming.  I did, or at least I tried.  It's been the latest hotness since ... well since 2004 when Bittorrent was coded in it by Bram Cohen at least, and it's stayed hot due to AI.  Definitely the 2020s version of "one word: plastics". 

Well, that takes us up to the Covid pandemic, aka [to me] as the Wuhan flu pandemic.  There are more to follow ... stay tuned!