Defiant Sloth

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:36:40 -0500

I’m usually not one for indulging in nostalgia, but the pull towards it has been greater these past few years. Noah Kalina has a good reason why:

It’s probably because most people who grew up in that era are having a midlife crisis, but it probably also has something to do with enshittification and how corporations, in their pursuit of infinite profit, have turned everything we once loved into unremarkable products to be quickly consumed and discarded. We long for the days when things seemed like they had real meaning and value.

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 15:56:08 -0500

This is how you continue to win the PR battle of late-stage capitalism, in context of Costco aiming to return any potentially recovered tariff charges to its members:

[CEO] Vachris said Costco aims to shield shoppers where possible, noting, “We always want to be the first to lower prices and the last to raise them.”

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:25:16 -0500

The rebellious changes to small businesses' models during the ICE occupation in Minneapolis have seen impressive engagement, continuing to show the resilience of their owners and the neighboring communities. MN Reformer highlights the ‘Post’-Modern Times restaurant, which stopped charging for menu items about a month ago, and has been navigating its metamorphosis.

I’ll also call out Backpocket Vintage, run by my friends Jacob and Ally, who have established a permanent mutual aid pantry in their St. Paul retail location. They, along with many Twin Cities businesses, have been instrumental in orchestrating assistance and support for those in need.

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 10:41:11 -0500

AppAddict has a well-sourced, updated list of OCR apps for Mac. Personally, I can vouch for CleanShot — it gets multiple-(and I mean multiple)-times-a-day usage from me. TextSniper was also good (my initial pick years ago), but redundant if you have CleanShot.

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:11:48 -0500

Information Architects’ take down of the fetishization of Microsoft Office and US software tyranny, and how Europe could break free by using “a contemporary, dynamic, simple model”. But the real nugget in here is why it’s so difficult to accomplish:

We do not dislike bad software as much as we dislike changing our behavior

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 16:38:38 -0600

Trying the new Acme Weather app by the original Dark Sky devs.

A clean, succinct interface kindly echoes the old app. Community submissions is neat, but not prominently used yet. The innovations seem to be multiple forecasts averaging and this cheeky experimental notifications pane. I’m in.

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 17:00:00 -0600

Watched Blue Moon last night 🍿 — Chamber drama camp, Linklater-style, with long-time collaborator Ethan Hawke. Not perfect, but an extraordinarily intimate way to conduct a biofilm on someone, distilling the relationships and decades-long career of lyricist Lorenz Hart into a 1h 40m runtime.

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:54:49 -0600

Taegan Goddard's reality check on the worst jobs in politics, kindly suggesting folks should pursue local government instead:

Rank-and-file House members have remarkably little power. They spend an extraordinary amount of time fundraising. Leadership tightly controls the agenda. Cable news and social media warp incentives. And public approval of Congress routinely hovers near the basement.

Because at the end of the day...

City councils decide zoning, housing supply and public safety priorities. County executives oversee health systems and infrastructure. State legislators shape education funding, voting laws and abortion policy.

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 12:30:00 -0600

When traveling, is it “selfish to withhold a location, or responsibility?" Appreciate this find from Kottke. Decades ago, sharing travel photos was usually a response to the question “how was your trip.” It’s sad to see the blisters that social media and FOMO-sharing has inflicted on places.

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 08:55:13 -0600

Thoughtless acts of idiocy in the name of disgruntlement and social media attention. It happens too often, and as Bethany points out, is egregiously dangerous when such acts involve children (perhaps even more so in a school context).

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 19:02:06 -0600

For those who remember, the Sleep Indicator Light was the perfect Second Steve Jobs-era attention to detail at Apple. Alas, that design whimsy has dimmed within the company. Marcin Wichary laments about it on his fantastic new UI/UX-focused blog.

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 13:42:00 -0600

What is this moment? Benn Stancil writes a frenzied piece, kind of nailing it with that bomb of a first paragraph. And this:

They say the internet is dead, full of robots talking to one another. On the contrary—it is furiously, psychotically alive. It is a vortex of this new psychosis, tightening around a single axel, spinning faster and faster as it does. Log on, and that is all there is.

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:30:00 -0600

Absolutely this:

[for a local newspaper with out-of-state reader:] Why not instead charge per article. Like a toll you pay on a road you drive on once every few years.

Basically another way to fund local papers + incentivization for garnering attention to great articles.

Re-Thinking the RSS Experience ✱

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:05:00 -0600

We never stop talking about RSS.

A new app was released by Terry Godier the other day, aimed at “calm, clarity, and relief from the pressure to stay current on everything”. Look, I admire the effort. Get rid of the email triage view, go for a paradigm de-emphasizing unread counts and folder/individual feed hierarchies.

It’s not the first time something like this has been done, but it is an elegant one (designating each feed an attribute based on its timeliness, and fading them over time to ease the frictions is clever). Other exemplary mentions:

Silvio Rizzi’s Reeder did it a few years ago with the app reboot
Richard Smith tried it years ago
Iconfactory has Tapestry
Dave Winer probably has messed around with this more times than you can count

Great — RSS is an app design playground again. I love that. And I have no beef with any of these design directions, but as someone who went 100% into the new Reeder in September 2024, I have come to realize that the experience of reading via RSS should be inclusive of varying consumption styles. After using Reeder’s unified “river” concept for a year and a half, and having previously used the email columns concept for over two decades, I see applicability for both (one interaction paradigm doesn’t suite all RSS types). I recently switched back to NetNewsWire (which revamped their design to accommodate Liquid Glass), and have enjoyed the switch. For now.

🤷‍♂️

I’m not sure of the right way to declare this, but I like app experiences that Reeder and Current offer, but the pain is missing out on a favorite writer in the midst of a single feed. Yes, there are ways to back into Voices (on Current) or individual feeds (on Reeder), but when you start doing that, it defeats the purpose of “no unread count”, because now you’ve got FOMO, and your behavior isn’t much different than before. Can the configuration of Current actually be both? Time will tell.

But at least we all have immeasurably talented RSS app authors and feed management solutions that keep on keeping on, and hell yeah, RSS is forever, no matter how you want to consume it.

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 14:05:44 -0600

Watched: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 🍿 at the Alamo Drafthouse (during a limited two-time showing this past weekend). Last time I watched this was in 2017 shortly after finishing Twin Peaks The Return, and felt it was a masterwork. Nearly ten years later, my mind hasn’t changed.

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:28:23 -0600

An overdue excalamation for not just the past few months, but years: I’m proud of our local Minnesota press. So many extraordinary journalists keeping tabs within communities not just within the Twin Cities, but far and wide outside them. Highlighting a few (but far from exhaustive) who have been instrumental in covering the ICE occupation here:

(Pictured - print issue of Hill & Lake Press)

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:15:58 -0600

I take a few weeks off from posting (the current stage of what’s happening with our country has been eroding my brain)… and a plethora of perspectives pile up.

With regards to cinema creation driven completely by AI, I like M.G. Siegler’s take:

Hollywood shouldn’t be concerned about a kid in their basement using AI to make a rogue version of Star Wars, they should be worried about Disney using AI to make a version of Star Wars without much of the headcount currently needed to make a Star Wars. This is the real disruption here.

Relates to my piece a few months ago. This is worth emphasizing in the midst of the Warner Bros./HBO takeover by either Paramount or Netflix. Companies acquire, companies streamline, companies penny-pinch. Hollywood actors, directors, and writers need to be thinking about this every waking moment.

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:26:47 -0600

Everything has to break all at once, I suppose. From The Economist, on the rapid decimation of the free press:

Journalists have plenty of faults, but preventing them from doing their jobs will have dire consequences. A vigorous newsgathering ecosystem, once destroyed, is hard to rebuild. And a world with less press freedom will be dirtier and worse-governed.

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 09:00:25 -0600

Appreciating The Verge’s work lately, including keeping us informed on the best gas masks to buy in 2026 (naturally), and doing stellar work informing the latest in Minnesota. A tech site has every right to do this (particularly in the wake of technology being used against citizens of the USA).

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 08:50:46 -0600

Small non-violent victories. A knitting shop in Minneapolis resurrects red Norwegian hats to signal defiance of ICE actions and raise mutual aid:

Since making the pattern available for $5, the shop has raised nearly $400,000, Mashaal said Friday. So far, she said, they have donated a total of $250,000 to two local nonprofits focused on housing support for immigrants in the community — STEP (St. Louis Park Emergency Program) and the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund.

The pattern for knitters is available here. An historic example of the Norwegian cap is here.

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 09:22:25 -0600

Kirstie Kimball (of Beyond Beurre Blanc) on the extremely difficult nature of writing about food in Minnesota right now:

I want to also say that almost every single writer I know has received a lot of flak right now for not covering things the exact way specific individuals want us to. So much of that is that we are balancing getting you to go out to restaurants, covering tragedy, and also making sure that restaurants stay protected. Most of my interviews right now have been off-the-record. I’m going to assume that’s true for everyone else.

She has been doing extraordinary work (as well as many others she highlights in her post). In the face of immense adversity to this state and her own well-being, she has (as I commented on her post) a “ seemingly unending energy to provide support for neighbors and promote food shelf/hospitality urgencies, and being a voice of reason, a voice of hope, and a voice of truth in these times.”

I’m simply calling out one of many heroes in the moment right now.

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:10:46 -0600

Racket’s piece on neighbors who turn a nearby restaurant into a field hospital on Jan 24:

Within seconds of treating our first patient, throngs of neighbors begin filing into the restaurant, choking on tears and snot from the blocks-long cloud of tear gas. The two bathrooms past the coffee bar are now filling up with our team, who instruct the new patients: First, gargle with water, then spit. Repeat. We each take a comrade into our hands, gently tilting their heads to the side so that water flushes the irritants down and away from their eyes. Turn the head in the other direction. Repeat.

The Minnesota General Strike of 2026 ✱

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 11:30:17 -0600

Preceding another tragic murder in Minneapolis on Saturday, the first general strike in the USA for 80 years occurred in Minneapolis on January 23, 2026. (The last one was the women-led 1946 Oakland General Strike.) This was planned over the span of a mere week, across all forms of communication — social, messaging, and stapled paper to neighborhood lamp posts. The turnout was a show of unity — an estimated 50,000+ citizens came out in -9 degrees Fahrenheit (with harsher wind chills) to the backdrop of hundreds of closed businesses, schools, and unions. It was a massive, peaceful exercise of human togetherness for the good of community in the face of injustice.

First, links to Stand With Minnesota and Minneapolis Mutual Aid, two well-curated lists for mutual aids, materials purchasing, donating, and support. There are many surrounding cities here organizing help for their neighbors and community members who are unable or fearful to leave their homes, and I want to acknowledge this isn’t just a Minneapolis-St. Paul situation, it’s state-wide, suburb-wide, rural-wide. People continue to be incredibly active and intentional in organizing support, a testament to Minnesota’s strength, resilience, adaptability, and resolve for action over words.

On the day of the strike, it was hard to discern just how many people marched together, through a twisting route westward along the avenues stemming from The Commons park adjacent to US Bank Stadium to Target Center (a nearly mile-long trek, lasting over three hours for participants). But what was easy to discern was the united front of people, together against a fearful and dire situation in their cities, and wholly bundled in winter gear and signage. There were homemade coffee carafes propped on car hoods, folks handing out hand warmers, bright-vested volunteers (or city-mandated traffic controllers, hard to tell) helping direct traffic amongst the swell of moving bodies.

A smattering of buildings and business were open. As the march wound through the city, the skyways were packed with observers. The Hennepin Public Library was permitted open as a midway reprieve of donated coffee, cookies, a spot on the floor to rub warmth back into your toes. Various small businesses along the route, shutting down their own commerce for the day, offered open doors as places to stop in for warmth. Some offered free hot dogs.

The strike was both quiet and loud, in so many ways. A scarcity of professional media added to the curious feeling. It should be said that several local outlets also went on strike. As such, I’ve curated a fair list of mainstream media and journalism coverage that reported the strike in some capacity.

In lieu of another tragedy yesterday, we hope the light that was lit here finds others across the way, and helps bind the bonds we have as people caring for the well-being of others and our country.

The Guardian
Minnesota Star Tribune
The Wall Street Journal
Minnesota Reformer
MinnPost
Minnesota Public Radio
The New York Times
Status Coup’s recorded livestream was one of the few, possibly only, realtime capture of the entire thing, amidst a few mechanical malfunctions due to the weather.

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:34:28 -0600

A well-documented piece from The Guardian on the situation here in Minnesota. It’s been difficult to discern from our local vantage how the rest of the country and world see it.

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 14:57:25 -0600

Positive momentum into 2026 with regards to the prices of renewable energy:

Today, wind and solar are cheaper than coal and natural gas, and increasingly, they are boosted by ever more affordable batteries, which have gotten 90 percent cheaper over the last decade.