Curious reader — 65 sources in 90 days
Also a writer — 6 original pieces this quarter
Setting aside the politics and the optics of the thing, I legitimately wanted to know about more about the algeafication process of the reflecting pool and this Newsweek article was capable enough to help me out.
American flag blue to pipes: 4 theories why Lincoln Memorial Pool is now green
Reflecting Pool turns green days after $14M revamp—here’s why algae blooms may be linked to heat, design changes, and long-standing infrastructure issues.
newsweek.com
I find this author's theory of the mind for LLMs pretty shallow but I love their conception of feedback, on its purpose and how to (try to) make it valuable. Way back when, when I was a writing tutor, I was often struck by how useless my advice seemed to be and I think this piece captures a lot of why that was. Which is to say, I was treating their writing as a problem to be solved rather than their person as a thing to be fostered.
Feedback: Human and Not
Acts of community.
open.substack.com
As someone who was in violation of this permit this weekend, I support this protest. It's also basically completely unenforced so it feels like it's just punishment for folks that *aren't* scofflaws, which isn't great.
Hundreds Take To The Clackamas River In Protest Of Paddle Permit Signed By Tina Kotek
Hundreds of Oregonians hit the Clackamas River this weekend for a "Float for Freedom" event aimed at pushing back against what many (including ourselves) see as yet another unnecessary fee
thatoregonlife.com
I dunno y'all. If the problem is housework, if you're rich and successful, have you considered marrying for love and then just getting an au pair or other live-in help? Or is it still to scary to marry your equal (or, God forbid, someone smarter/more talented than you)?
Matchmakers Are Being Paid $25K to Find Trad Wives for Rich Men
Even in blue states, nonreligious tech entrepreneurs and CEOs are increasingly asking for “traditional” and “conservative” women, matchmakers tell WIRED.
wired.com
"As Jeremy Gordon writes, “everything is ‘cringe’ from the right perspective.” 2010 is thus a perfect reference point: the year Instagram launched, with smartphone adoption rapidly growing but still far from the saturation point—the twilight of unself-consciousness. Older millennials were caught on the wrong side of this divide, living their formative years in a time that was increasingly documented for social media without thinking to posture for it."
An Obituary for Edward Sharpe, the Magnetic Zeros, and Earnestness
As its latest menacing wave of virality peters out, we celebrate the most cringe artifact from the most cringe period in human history.
vice.com
In the last 17 years, 30 states have raised their minimum wage, 20 of them haven't. What can we learn about employment effects from that?
A Minimum Wage Natural Experiment Has Been Running for Over a Decade
When 30 States Raised Minimum Wages, What Happened to Pay and Jobs?
open.substack.com
Understanding the Riemann hypothesis.
The Riemann Hypothesis — A Visual Journey
An interactive journey from 'what is a prime number?' to a genuine understanding of the most important unsolved problem in mathematics.
riemann.adilmoujahid.com
As someone who has been in PDX for two decades, I still love learning about these delightful "old Portland" spots. Adding this one to the list to check out.
For 132 Years, Rich’s Cigar Store Has Been Purveyor to Portland’s Nicotine Habit
Talking to tobacconist Bill Shindler about tobacco is like chatting with Miles Davis about jazz.
wweek.com
Did you know the government (through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) give yelp-style star ratings for hospitals and other medical providers? And it's all publicly accessible? I didn't know until this last month.
Find Healthcare Providers: Compare Care Near You | Medicare
Find Medicare-approved providers near you & compare care quality for nursing homes, doctors, hospitals, hospice centers, more. Official Medicare site.
medicare.gov
A rousing defense of...healthcare insurers? I still think there's a huge element of kludge / pain introduced by (primarily employer-based) private healthcare insurance but I do think they are unfairly maligned.
Insurers aren't the main villain of the U.S. health care system
A repost from the Noahpinion archive.
open.substack.com
Yglesias giving voice to one of my biggest pet peeves in AI debates. It's not that people's theory of the mind for the AI is wrong, it's that their theory of the mind for *humans* is wrong (or non-existent).
Nobody knows what they’re talking about on A.I. consciousness
Your hot takes won’t solve the major riddles of Western philosophy.
open.substack.com
It's been 13 years since Seabird User @conorpwilliams wrote this and I still think about it now and again.
Thus Blogged Zarathustra
Zarathustra came upon a video on the edge of a website. Below it, he found a roiling sinkhole of ceaseless snark, for the bouncing baby on the screen wore a ...
mcsweeneys.net
Shots fired at Portland, Oregon luminary Ted Kaye
The flag stranglers - Works in Progress Magazine
Most flags used to be ugly. They were probably better that way.
worksinprogress.co
For my Oregon parents out there, see how many kids are getting opted out of vaccines in your school.
oregonlive.com
I don't know anything about the author (and I found the throat clearing in this piece a bit exhausting) but I found it a compelling tale of what it's like to Be Cancelled. I always found the anonymous pitchfork thing unbecoming and super problematic, even when many of the folks totally deserved it. I'm glad we've (mostly) moved past this period of excess.
On being canceled before it was cool
I got better, but being a newt actually did kind of suck
open.substack.com
In my philosophy career / epistemology classes, we would occasionally discuss the color "grue" Perhaps we should have been using "magenta" all along.
The colour magenta does not exist anywhere in the spectrum of visible light, and your brain manufactures it on the spot whenever red and blue cones fire together, inventing a hue to fill a gap that ph
Stare at a rainbow and try to find magenta. It will not be there. The visible spectrum runs from roughly 700 nanometre red at one end to about 380
maketecheasier.com
I find this a fascinating cultural artifact.
I Didn’t Want Weight Loss to Be the Thing That Cured Me. It Did Anyway
Do I owe anyone an explanation about how or why I got on GLP-1s?
vogue.com
This is a very silly but enjoyable vibe coded app.
CANCELLED? — Cancel Culture Checker
Find out if your fave is cancelled. AI-powered cancel culture checker from a Gen Z progressive perspective.
whoiscancelled.netlify.app
We are spending money to...remove perfectly good buoys that passively record data? What are we even doing here?
Trump Administration Invests in Removing Ocean Research Buoys
Moving the objectives of Project 2025 one step closer to completion, the National Science Foundation is removing 900 ocean data collecting buoys that...
maritime-executive.com
On one human cost of living/working in the tech industry. (An aside: I appreciate something that takes less than one minute to read in today's attention economy.)
1, #185 - Grief in the Valley
Estimated Read Time: 58 seconds.
jwby.substack.com
Wild ramp poaching
It’s the Most Obsessed-Over Vegetable in America. You’re Probably Looking For It. You Might Help Kill It All.
This unassuming allium is a victim of its own success.
slate.com
Is the AI encyclical...partly AI written?
Claude, Author of the Humanitas
Evidence that the first papal encyclical on AI was substantially written by AI
linch.substack.com
Life finds a way, if you help it along with some giant turtles.
They Kept Planting Trees in the Sahara and Kept Failing. Then They Released 500 Tortoises, and the Desert Looked Alive From Space
They released 500 giant reptiles into a barren stretch of the Sahara. Five years later, satellites spotted green where only sand had been.
indiandefencereview.com
I am unabashedly pro-Waymo but I appreciate this article stress-testing a lot of the safety claims. Worth a sklm but even if you skip it: while Waymos are safer than a random car on the road, it's unclear that their rollout (at least initially) will meaningfully alter road safety. (I think that analysis is right but I am still bullish on the second-order effects.)
Are Waymos safe?
Yes — but whether they’re making roads safer is a much more complicated question.
goodstructures.co
To quote Joe Weisenthal, "this was an amazing and incredibly damning experiment using Microsoft Copilot" Note that if you try to replicate with frontier models, it won't. This only applies to outdated models. One of many reasons why folks have so many different experiences with (and reactions to) LLMs.
Real signals or artificial stereotypes?
Adventures with a cultural Copilot
open.substack.com
Fascinating deep dive on how to make one of Portland's most enduring transportation problems a little less infuriating.
It’s the Most Annoying Traffic Jam in Portland. Here’s How to Fix It.
Long trains moving extremely slowly equals maddening waits for drivers on the Central Eastside.
wweek.com
This is a neat tool. I don't know how *useful* it is to know where my generics are from. But it's neat.
Search for Where Your Generic Prescription Was Made - Rx Inspector - ProPublica
Enter information about your prescription generic drug and we will search through FDA data to figure out where your generic drug was made.
projects.propublica.org
Speaking as a user, it's been clear for years that recreation.gov has a huge bot problem. Speaking as a former nike.com employee, fighting bots is *hard*
The US Built a Site to Ensure Fair Access to Public Lands. Then Everything Went Wrong
Recreation.gov was supposed to make access to public lands more equitable and streamlined. Instead, it’s rife with bots and inequality, while a government contractor benefits.
wired.com
With the new council structure, we've been passing fewer ordinances. Bug? Or feature?
Why Is Portland City Council Passing Less Legislation Than Before?
Spoiler: an executive mayor matters more than you think.
open.substack.com
Authoritarians need middling middle managers to execute their vision. Interesting research
Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R.
New research sheds light on how mediocre employees help would-be authoritarians maintain power.
nytimes.com
My last set of endorsements for Primary season. I didn't just leave the best for last. I left literally all the candidates for last. Judges, Metro, Oregon Reps, US Senate -- all the good stuff enclosed. Get your ballots in by Tuesday!
May 2026 Endorsements: All the Candidates
Brief briefs on every race
mortlandia.com
Should you pay the equivalent of a sandwich in property taxes to support the Oregon Historical Society (measure 26-261)? A good question! Here's my analysis.
May 2026 Endorsements: OHS Levy Renewal
History repeats itself
mortlandia.com
Mac Barnett is a gem. One of the best working children's book authors out there. Also, I have the rare distinction of having reviewed 400 picture books. He's 100% right. Most of them are crud.
The Latest Overblown Literary Outrage Is Here, and It’s a Real Doozy
It’s all about a single sentence.
slate.com
We may never get a DNC autopsy but this is a halfway decent substitute.
Here’s What I Told the DNC Autopsy
The report may never see the light of day—so the Harris campaign’s head of digital offers his candid breakdown of what worked, what failed, and what Democrats have yet to learn.
thebulwark.com
In advance of Tuesday's election, I interviewed a gubernatorial candidate who is very wooden, but somehow charismatic nonetheless.
Interview: PENCIL 4 GOVERNOR
Yes, in which I sit down with an actual write-in candidate for Oregon Governor
mortlandia.substack.com
Fascinating, depressing, detailed comparative analysis on US v. Nordic childcare.
The US-Nordic Childcare Gap
A comparison of US and Nordic childcare systems. The US funds public childcare at one-fifth the Nordic level and leaves the rest to families. What it would take to close the gap.
peoplespolicyproject.org
If you've ever gone hiking in Japan, you may have heard the jingle of "bear bells" attached to someone's calves. Which I always found silly but perhaps I should have given them more credence!
Japan unleashes 'Monster Wolf' robots to repel record bear attacks
Amid a record number of lethal bear attacks, Japan has a secret weapon. Meet "Monster Wolf".
usatoday.com
Well this is another haunting read. Oof.
Inside Israel's AI targeting system: How data from a phone become a death sentence
The Israeli military has used a targeting system powered by artificial intelligence to launch what it says are attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
latimes.com
If you split LeBron's career, as 4 different players for the 4 distinct eras he has played, all 4 of those players would probably make the hall of fame. Pretty wild! Long live the king, sportsball edition.
King me: Believe it or not, LeBron James is a Hall of Famer as a Laker alone
If this is it for LeBron James as a Laker, he can walk away with pride.
sports.yahoo.com
Traffic lights that are red if you're speeding, green if you're not. Coming to a boulevard near you!
Speeding in Portland? Some of the city's traffic lights are designed to stop you
Drivers traveling on Southeast Powell Boulevard at night may notice more red lights as Portland expands a traffic-calming system designed to reduce speeding.Sin
katu.com
For your consideration, a write-in candidate for governor
npr.org
As someone who recently went through a job search, the complaints about AI do feel mostly warranted. (Though this is next level...)
He Couldn’t Land a Job Interview. Was AI to Blame?
Armed with some Python and a white-hot sense of injustice, one medical student spent six months trying to figure out whether an algorithm trashed his job application.
wired.com
Critics agree, this performance is the most avant-gull of the whole biennale
Nesting Seagull Becomes Unexpected Star of Venice Biennale
Organizers believe this is the first known instance of the bird nesting in such a prominent area of the exhibition grounds.
hyperallergic.com
For your consideration. From my perspective, they just look uncomfortable? I'd be perfectly happy to just have everyone swim au naturale instead.
It’s Almost Swimsuit Season. American Men Are Missing Out on the Best Part.
In other countries, people call baggy swim trunks “curtains of shame.”
slate.com
I've seen a bunch of "Mythos is overrated" opinion pieces recently. I don't know enough to know. But the graph in this piece is eye-opening...
Behind the Scenes Hardening Firefox with Claude Mythos Preview – Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog
New details about what we found, and how agentic harnesses are now able to reproduce real bugs and dismiss false positives.
hacks.mozilla.org
Autonomous vehicles as a tool to help the poor is an interesting angle, one I wish I had thought of myself. (I think this piece is overoptimistic in the medium term, but probably not wrong.)
Cars often keep people poor. Waymo could help.
The poorest fifth of American families spend 38% of their income on a car. The breakdowns and road deaths that fall hardest on them are just the cost of getting by. Self-driving cars can change that.
open.substack.com
Well this is awkward.
CDC
The steep cuts to the cruise ship inspection team baffled officials in the program, which is not paid for by taxpayer dollars.
cbsnews.com
Well this was a depressing start to my day. :-/
Babies Are Bleeding to Death as Parents Reject a Vitamin Shot Given at Birth
A lifesaving injection given at birth to prevent severe bleeding has become collateral damage of the anti-vaccine movement.
propublica.org
Balanced take on data centers as both: 1) a light industrial use, with the cons that come with any light industrial use and 2) as object of ire because of what it represents (AI) rather than what it is (racks of computers in a building).
OPINION: Data centers will not destroy Reno - The Nevada Independent
OPINION: Data centers will not destroy Reno. Read more at The Nevada Independent.
thenevadaindependent.com
If you don't know it, I highly recommend The Big Dig podcast. Very Massachusetts history focused: they dig into some place where government / policy intersect with the real world, and document and explain how that policy actually was implemented and affected the populace. Every season is very different (a highway mega project, the state lottery, a fishing scallywag) but each is told in delightful depth. I really recommend it if you're the sort of person who is in to policy or recent history.
The Big Dig
Seemingly dry topics become gripping political dramas in this Peabody Award winning show from creator Ian Coss and GBH News. Each season of “The Big Dig” uncovers a different facet of society in Boston – infrastructure, gambling, food, healthcare – together the pieces connect to tell the story of modern America.
wgbh.org
