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
Curious reader — 61 sources in 90 days
Also a writer — 6 original pieces this quarter
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.Â
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
I do appreciate the degree to which Andy systematically destroys bad arguments about data centers / AI. Which is not to say there aren't real issues with either! There are! It's just that most of the headlines you see are basically nonsense.
Data center land use issues are fake
We have plenty of land, data centers provide more revenue per unit area than any other building, and we should have way less farmland
open.substack.com
Another example of salmon restoration, this time in Puget Sound.
npr.org
I feel a bit mixed about sharing this profile of someone who was clearly in crisis many, many times and who also has done a lot of damage (to the MAC of course, but also he harassed a lot of folks). But I also think it's interesting and worth reading and sitting with for folks in the Portland community. I'm also skeptical that there are easy solves for problems like his, despite what political actors and reddit posters might claim. I'm at least glad our red flag laws worked?
oregonlive.com
The one agricultural future you can't buy these days? Onion, of course.
The Onion King and Market Manipulation | Sherwood Financial Partners
How Vince Kosuga’s manipulation of the onion market led to the 1958 Onion Futures Act, which still bans onion futures trading today, highlighting the dangers of market manipulation.
sherwoodfp.com
I don't know if I entirely buy this but it's an interesting perspective and a model worth stress-testing, at worst.
Where Are All the Normies?
How a century-old political playbook explains why the city’s decline may be a feature, not a bug
ericfruits.substack.com
Sure, you probably want a couple of your favorite songs played at your funeral. But to be really next level, have you ever considered being entombed with a literary classic in your gut?
Egyptian mummy unearthed with literary text on abdomen in first ever find | CNN
Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt have unearthed a mummy with a passage from Homer’s “Iliad” stuck to its abdomen, in a first-of-its-kind discovery.
cnn.com
I don't use chatGPT but "the goblins came back to haunt us" is such a funny (but hopefully not prescient) line. Interesting, accessible view into model training and rewards.
Where the goblins came from
How goblin outputs spread in AI models: timeline, root cause, and fixes behind personality-driven quirks in GPT-5 behavior.
openai.com
I dropped my Measure 120 analysis before all the major papers so that it didn't color my opinion and because with Mortlandia you get quality *and* timeliness.
May 2026 Endorsements: Gas Tax
To pay, or not to pay, more for your gas during an oil supply shock
mortlandia.com
A delightful look into Sears homes from the time they were on sale.
Vintage Mail Order Houses That Came from Sears Catalogs, 1910s-1940s - Rare Historical Photos
In the early 20th century, companies such as Sears, Roebuck and Co., sold tens of thousands of mail-order kit houses.
rarehistoricalphotos.com
Sunday parkway schedule, for my local Portland bike nerds.
2026 Portland Sunday Parkways Season
Portland Sunday Parkways Presented by Kaiser Permanente announces its 2026 season featuring four open street events in Southwest Portland, East Portland, Downtown Portland, and a brand-new event in North Portland.
portland.gov
I endorse this "shoplifting is bad, actually" take.
Why shoplifting is bad
It may feel like a small act of rebellion, but it hurts a lot of people who don't deserve it.
open.substack.com
Completing a 4 year degree in 8 weeks is really something.
Students are speeding through their online degrees in weeks, alarming educators
Some online colleges allow students to take unlimited courses on their own time, leading to quick degrees and worries about devaluing credentials.
washingtonpost.com