Curious reader — 46 sources in 90 days
Also a writer — 3 original pieces this quarter
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
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
Sometimes I don't have commentary to add. It's just, like, the 2020s are deeply weird and will continue to get weirder.
Neukgu: South Korea police arrest man over AI image of runaway wolf
The widely circulated image had prompted authorities to move their search operation.
bbc.com
Unions are great, in that they advocate for their members! But that same dynamic can get interesting where public unions are concerned...
One of Oregon’s Most Powerful Unions Is Rebelling Against Democrats
Reporting from the Oregon Journalism Project reveals a portrait of an organization that has grown more aggressive at the same time it faces unprecedented financial and membership headwinds.
wweek.com
I'm only 30% through this piece (it's a long read) but so far I have found the plight of the Florida orange fascinating.
It Was on Your Table Every Morning Growing Up. It’s Dying Before Our Eyes. No One Wants to Face It.
The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.
slate.com
A fascinating look of the impacts of 100 year old legislation on today's implementation. (fun fact: Davis Bacon applies to Portland affordable housing projects)
An Inside View of the Davis-Bacon Act
In late 2023, the CHIPS Program Office was deep in negotiations with our leading-edge applicants — the multibillion-dollar deals that would form the core of the portfolio.
open.substack.com
Cue the Marvin Gaye soundtrack
Chinook salmon found naturally hatching in Upper Klamath River for first time in a century
The Klamath Tribes are celebrating evidence of Chinook salmon spawning in Klamath River tributary.
opb.org
Kelsey Piper is a gem and I'm glad she's working in journalism today.
Education research is weak and sloppy. Why?
The replication crisis changed the social sciences — except for ed research
open.substack.com
Private property and all but I dunno, fam. I feel like if taxpayer dollars continue to pay for arenas, we should have a say in the surveillance state there...
The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden's Surveillance Machine
Famously vengeful Knicks owner Jim Dolan has long spied on people at his iconic arenas. WIRED goes deep inside the operation that allegedly tracked a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more.
wired.com
I'm not always a deregulation guy but tax day felt like a good one to flex that particular libertarian muscle.
Mortlandia wishes you a happy Tax Day
Musings on how to make a big state run a little better
open.substack.com
An FYI for my local folks. :/
Measles has reached a Portland school. Here’s why health officials think they can stop it
State health officials say that people who were at Centennial Middle School in early April may have been exposed to the virus.
opb.org
Holy moly, some welcome good news.
Hungary Has Ousted an Autocrat
Viktor Orbán had support from Moscow and Washington, but not from his own people.
theatlantic.com
On Project Mythos, and compression, and our collective shrugs? Or something like that. This is a short piece, and worth it. So just read it already.
Milk and Cereal
It turns out that a certain company possesses a technology that can detonate the internet. We should probably all get familiar with how that technology works.
open.substack.com
Get thee to the nunnery!
Nuns who broke back into their Austrian convent ‘are step closer to being able to stay’
Plan for three nuns who escaped from care home last year to go to Rome thought to be positive sign of Vatican’s decision
theguardian.com
Not only did they discontinue the OJ, they also discontinued the frozen limeade concentrate. A little part of my childhood just died.
I Just Hoarded Away Some of the Last Cans of an Essential American Cooking Staple. Here’s Why You’d Better Do the Same.
Make some room in your freezer.
slate.com
For my Oregon peeps, a very useful tool this time of year.
Pacific Northwest Wildflowers: Bloom Status Map
Map of wildflower hot spots in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California — and when they
nwwildflowers.com
A #slatepitch in techdirt. Not sure I agree with it but it is a plausible path forward.
AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web
I remember, pretty clearly, my excitement over the early World Wide Web. I had been on the internet for a year or two at that point, mostly using IRC, Usenet, and Gopher (along with email, naturall…
techdirt.com
The (invasive) fungus among us
An unstoppable mushroom is tearing through North American forests. Fungi enthusiasts are doing damage control
A rogue mushroom is ripping through North American forests, after escaping from cultivation. As it runs riot, mushroom enthusiasts are rescuing the native fungi in its path.
bbc.com
Submitted without comment.
Kill Chain
On the automated bureaucratic machinery that killed 175 children
open.substack.com
Been nerding out on both data models and roads recently, so I found this interesting. (But I'll admit the audience for it is pretty small -- recommended if you like both urban planning and graph/algorithm design.)
The Data Structures of Roads
What is the data structure of procedural roads?
sandboxspirit.com
Have I shared this before? It's a silly side project I launched a month or so ago, tracking the lineal championship across a bunch of basketball and hockey leagues. Sportsball! Whimsy!!
Championship Belt Tracker | WNBA, NBA, NHL & PWHL
The lineal championship belt - every game is a title defense. Track WNBA, NBA, NHL, and PWHL belts.
whohasthebelt.com
I don't normally recommend taking personal advice from Matt Y. but this is genuinely very good advice.
Worry less, do more
Paralyzing anguish isn’t how you help people or solve problems.
slowboring.com
It's good to read pieces that challenge your priors and worldview. Case in point.
The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why
Every aspect of Iran’s ability to project regional power is being successfully degraded.
aljazeera.com
Building state capacity is pretty badass.
Water and Sanitation in the Developing world
Why trillions in aid have failed to bring adequate water and sanitation to much of the developing world.
open.substack.com
Developing a custom mRNA immunotherapy for your cancer-riddled dog is a flex (and the future?)
theaustralian.com.au
Excellent read. It's really a shame that, per Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Association, Inc. v. United States (1999), we can make gambling illegal but not gambling ads.
My Year as a Degenerate Sports Gambler
Practically overnight, America made wagering on a game as frictionless as checking the weather. I was determined to understand the consequences—for my country, and for myself.
theatlantic.com
Learned about this neat urban planning tool today, for understanding streetscapes before and after changes. Check it out!
Streetmix
A collaborative civic engagement platform for urban design. Design, remix, and share your neighborhood street with Streetmix.
streetmix.net
