Hi all, it is a rainy, lazy Sunday around here ... perfect for a little coffee by the fire, a little coding, and a little blogging.  Also a bit later, a little football watching and a little cycling - Zwifting indoors of course!

Yesterday I made it back on the water - yay! - for the South Coast Corinthian Yacht Club's "Shallow Water Regatta".  My ace crew Jotham Schwartz and I raced my trusty C-15 "It's the Water", and won all four races.  Yippee.  It was sunny and we had a nice breeze, and were able to remember once more how great it is to live in Southern California where we can sail in January.  Without foul weather gear :)  Many wind shifts and many many roll tacks were involved...

Activating filter pass! ...

Yes!  Top Gun: Maverick’s Best Picture Nomination Is Silly - and Perfect.  For once a movie I watched and liked is nominated.  And it's not even politically correct. 

Powerline: The Daily Chart: Harvard's lack of diversity.  Not a surprise at this point, but still pretty amazing. 

American Thinker: Do You Trust the Integrity of Our Elections? If Not, Here Are the Steps We Must Take.  I do not.  OTOH I'm not comfortable will all of these suggestions either; I'm not sure about imposing country-wide standards on local elections, for example. 

Note: you can be an election skeptic without being an "election denier" (i.e., you don't have to believe Trump won in 2022), just like you can be a climate skeptic without being a "climate denier".  Maybe I'm just a skeptic!

American Greatness: The Environmentalist Assault on Civilization.  "The accomplishments of the environmental movement over the past 50 years are undeniable: cleaner air and water, protected wildernesses, and more efficient use of resources. The list is endless and illustrious. Environmentalist values are an integral part of any responsible public policy agenda. But the pendulum has swung too far."  Not only are the problems exaggerated but the solutions are impractical. 

Wow.  Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta pool balloons to ~400,000 users.  I'm one of them :)  Yeah we read about individual issues but at this scale the lack of general problems is impressive. 

Hoover: San Francisco falls into the Abyss.  Instapundit comments: Socialism: If you build it, they will leave.  If they can. 

The New Neo: I'm in California.  A close friend of Gerard Vanderleun (American Digest), who recently passed away.  A great blogger whom I linked often.  And now I shall follow the New Neo. 

The Nation: Heavy Is the Head: The British Royals in the age of streaming.  "I have never fully comprehended the monarchy’s popular appeal. Why would hundreds of thousands of people queue for hours and miles for a glimpse of the coffin of a leader they never elected, or get excited about the wedding of two wealthy people they are never going to meet".  Such a puzzle. 

I spend a lot of time in Montecito.  One of my friends asked, "have you seen Harry and Megan?"  And I said "who?"

Everyone wants your email.  Heh. 

Note: this is my first link to a Mastodon post.  Won't be my last!

Jason Kottke: The Enshittification Lifecycle of Online Platforms.  "Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die."  So how do you break the cycle?  Awareness is a good first step. 

Daring Fireball: The Billions-Dollar VR/AR Headset Question.  "The appeal and utility of all-day AR glasses is obvious. But we are obviously very far away from such devices being possible, at any price."  Hard to see these breakthroughs coming.  We talked about mobile devices but didn't see the iPhone.  We talked about AI/ML but didn't see ChatGPT.  Then suddenly there it is... 

Robert Scoble: Holodeck technology. 

ChatGPT passes US Medical Licensing exams.  Bet you didn't see that coming :) 

xkcd: Code Lifespan.  Heh! 

In 1990 (right after I was born :) we shipped a Series/1 simulator.  Written in C, it emulated the IBM Series/1 minicomputer, and enabled a large financial application written entirely in Assembly Language (!) to be migrated to newer computer architectures.  I am told it is still running...

Who knew?  M&Ms Are the Best Trolls on the Internet.  "After a long crusade by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, the brand put its spokescandies on hiatus. It’s a savvy move that seems designed for social media."  OMG I love it. 

I'll leave you with a little Neil Young: Harvest moon.  [via Little Green Footballs] 

apropos: Lunar Time.  "Not only do you need leap seconds to keep solar time and atomic time in sync, you'll need a different kind of leap second to keep Lunar atomic time and Earth atomic time in sync, because mass distorts spacetime."  Nice.

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