POSTS

Media Highlights for 2025

Books

I read zero books published in 2025 this year. For shame!

Albums

The cover of "THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED": a person driving a rickshaw filled with cardboard Image: The Armed

Highlight: THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED by The Armed

An absolute assault. I defy you to listen without gritting your teeth. The Armed met the present moment with rage. I wish it wasn’t so relatable, but we were all along for that ride this year.

Honorable mentions:

I still can’t believe that I got to see seven of these acts live! This was a great year for music.

NPR’s Tiny Desk

Bartees Strange performs in NPR's offices Image: National Public Radio

Videos

Screenshot of a video recording where recording artist Kawehi demos the Waves Audio Harmony plugin Image: Kawehi

Heavy stuff is important, too

Articles

General

An illustration of two people seated in front of two vending machines; one eats ramen noodles from a cup while the other takes a sip from a beverage. Image: Noah Smith

  • that tfw when the world ends again by Jenn Schiffer [livelaugh.blog]

    the world has ended for me many times, but then again i survived and that’s hope in action. also revenge.

  • Japan is not a xenophobic country by Noah Smith [noahpinion.blog]

    I know that there are a lot of people who are not going to be convinced by this post. Stereotypes are beloved, cherished things, and the impulse to explain the world through cultural essentialism is deep-rooted and strong. There is a certain segment of the population who is always going to believe that Japanese people are still a bunch of 18th-century samurai, contemplating the cherry blossoms as they polish their swords. Old canards survive because they’re comforting — they’re easy shortcuts toward the feeling that we’ve somehow made sense of a complex and fast-changing world.

  • Bad Religion in the studio by Ricky Frankel [punknews.org]

    According to an Instagram post, Bad Religion are in the studio. The post contains two images of Brett Gurewitz and Greg Graffin working on what appears to be new tracks along with the caption, “Gentlemen, start your engines!”

  • Software Development at 800 Words Per Minute by Dickson Tan [neurrone.com]

    If you’ve ever wondered how someone codes without seeing the screen, or if you’re curious about accessibility in the software development process, this post is for you.

  • You Can Just Show Up by Sumana Harihareswara [harihareswara.net]

    The weekend after the Presidential election in November 2024, I was seized by the need to meet some neighbors, face-to-face, to be in solidarity with. On a crisp fall morning, I made a sign that said, “Worried about the election? Me too.” […]

  • The Year in Japanese Shoegaze in 7 Songs by Kanra [thissidejapan.substack.com]

    Something is in the air in tiny live houses across Japan.

Generative AI

A man pushes down on one end of a lever that sits on top of a fulcrum. A robot sits on the far end of the lever, weighing it down. Image: Channing Allen

  • Trusting your own judgement on ‘AI’ is a huge risk by Baldur Bjarnason [baldurbjarnason.com]

    Something seemingly working is not evidence of it working.

  • No, AI is not Making Engineers 10x as Productive by Colton Voege [colton.dev]

    Even after I got over the idea that there was a secret clade of engineer who was now ten times as productive and strong and tall and sexy as I was, I still felt some anxiety over the fact that I still didn’t enjoy using AI very much. Vibe coding is a complete bore once the magic wears off. Reading LLM generated code sucks. Asking it politely to use a not hallucinated library is painful. But what if I was, despite all that, 20% more productive vibe coding than regular coding? Would it be wrong for me to do “normal” coding if a higher output path is available?

  • The Timmy Trap by Scott Jenson [jenson.org]

    We want [AI systems] to be human. This is why we call their frequent mistakes “hallucinations,” a term that implies a temporary lapse. But it’s not a lapse; it’s a fundamental lack of human cognition.

  • The leverage paradox by Channing Allen [indiehackers.com]

    New technologies give us greater leverage to do more tasks better. But because this leverage is usually introduced into competitive environments, the result is that we end up having to work just as hard as before (if not harder) to remain competitive and keep up with the joneses.

  • I Am An AI Hater by Anthony Moser [anthonymoser.github.io]

    I am here to be rude, because this is a rude technology, and it deserves a rude response. Miyazaki said, “I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.” Scam Altman said we can surround the solar system with a Dyson Sphere to hold data centers. Miyazaki is right, and Altman is wrong. Miyazaki tells stories that blend the ordinary and the fantastic in ways people find deeply meaningful. Altman tells lies for money.

Politics

An illustration of a dress shoe lifting off of a crumpled American flag; one white star is stuck to the sole of the shoe Image: Emmanuel Polanco

  • Unfreedom at the Washington Post by Timothy Snyder [snyder.substack.com]

    The use of the plural “liberties” (rather than “liberty” or “freedom” in the singular) is not an extension but an unwelcome qualification, in fact a limitation. The use of the plural suggests that there is a finite list of specific liberties, rather than freedom for all people as such. This indicates that liberty is constrained for people. Interestingly, no such constraint is placed upon the inhuman abstraction that also figures in Jeff Bezos’s editorial line, “the free market.” What has unqualified freedom, according to Bezos? Not people. The market. And this, as we shall see, is not only incoherent but authoritarian.

  • The Path to American Authoritarianism by Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way [foreignaffairs.com via ash.harvard.edu]

    America is on the cusp of competitive authoritarianism. The Trump administration has already begun to weaponize state institutions and deploy them against opponents. The Constitution alone cannot save U.S. democracy. Even the best-designed constitutions have ambiguities and gaps that can be exploited for antidemocratic ends. After all, the same constitutional order that undergirds America’s contemporary liberal democracy permitted nearly a century of authoritarianism in the Jim Crow South, the mass internment of Japanese Americans, and McCarthyism. In 2025, the United states is governed nationally by a party with greater will and power to exploit constitutional and legal ambiguities for authoritarian ends than at any time in the past two centuries.

  • uspol, unconventional things to do to fight fascism by Scarlet the Fox [plush.city]

    Y’all, I’m a former local government person, and I want to talk about the things that I saw that did move the needle. (I was pushed out of government due to fighting racism, but before that, I was able to push meaningful things through.)

  • Wu fires back at Bondi’s demand to shed so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies, saying ‘Boston will never back down’ by Eve Zuckoff and Beth Healy [wbur.org]

    “Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures,” Wu said.

  • I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%. by Christopher Armitage [cmarmitage.substack.com]

    The historical record says once fascists gain power, they stay for 30-50 years. But the historical record doesn’t have examples of fascists taking over a country where their opposition controls most of the economy, technology, and cultural production. We’re in uncharted territory, which means we need unprecedented responses.

  • Scanlon Introduces Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Citizens United Ruling and Return Power to the People by the office of Mary Gay Scanlon [scanlon.house.gov]

    The Democracy for All Amendment would empower Congress and states to set reasonable campaign finance rules and limit corporate spending. The amendment would enshrine in the Constitution the right of the American people to regulate the raising and spending of funds in public elections, curbing the concentration of political influence held by ultra-wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups. It would also overturn other far-reaching decisions around campaign finance that wrongfully equated money with free speech and unfairly determined that big, wealthy corporations have the same First Amendment rights as people.

  • Quincy saint statues case in court. What the judge has ruled by Peter Blandino [patriotledger.com]

    In a stinging rebuke to [Quincy mayor Thomas Koch], [Judge William P. Sullivan in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham] questioned the mayor’s sincerity in claiming the statues “have nothing to do with Catholic sainthood, but rather … boost morale and symbolize values of truth, justice and the prevalence of good over evil.”

    […]

    “… While Defendants may disagree that their actions rise to the level of subordination, the allegations plausibly suggest they do,” Sullivan continued. “However, it is not surprising that individuals of a majority view may not appreciate the feelings of concern or alienation held by those in the minority.”

  • The Price of American Authoritarianism by Steven Levitsky, Lucan A. Way, and Daniel Ziblatt [foreignaffairs.com]

    To navigate this moment, Americans must sustain a kind of double vision, recognizing that their country is confronting authoritarianism while not forgetting that avenues for democratic contestation remain open. Losing sight of either truth invites defeat: complacency if the danger is underestimated, fatalism if it is overestimated. The outcome of this struggle remains open. It will turn less on the strength of the authoritarian government than on whether enough citizens act as though their efforts still matter–because, for now, they still do.