Notes for August 14, 2026

But the thing is, this battle doesn't exist. It's a narrative believed by the tech press and by a lot of internet users who don't remember a time before the Big Platforms on the internet, but it makes as little sense when you poke at it as the claim that the local coffee shop is done for because it won't become Starbucks.

Well put. I hate that kind of cringe, "if you ain't first you're last" Ricky Bobby mindset. We need diversity and the freedom to build whatever kind of communities we wanna build. Not everything has to be one size fits all.

Not every coffee shop needs to be Starbucks to be successful. Not every place you hang out online needs to be Facebook or Instagram to be successful. Not even if it's social media shaped. And not just because, as I've argued, your internet can actually be small, and be healthy being small. But because it's actually kind of crazy to think that every digital space must be, or be on its way to being, the One Place Everyone Is.

Yesss 100%. Everyone is different. Why is Big Social so desperate to eliminate freedom of choice? I want different options. I'm not going to spend my life being loyal to one brand per category of thing, you know? I'll drink Pepsi out of a Coca-Cola glass, I don't give a damn. I like variety and I don't want to be on the most homogenized and sanitized timeline. I wanna live in the one where I have an overwhelming amount of choices. I want a federated ecosystem of different cliques and factions on different corners of the web. I don't wanna live in a fucking Black Mirror episode where there's one tv channel, one website, one food product...

Different strokes for different folks.

Ohio ranked as one of the worst states in the country, according to ‘U.S. News & World Report’

As a guy who lives deep within the caustic bowels of Central Ohio, I can attest to this. There are vast oceans of corn as far as the eye can see. Most of the spring and summer smells like cow shit. Everyone's driving around in jacked up Chevies with truck nuts, rolling coal and flicking Pall Mall Red 100s butts out the window with a tattered TRUMP 2020 flag flapping around in the humidity. We're as red as Texas but somehow still considered a swing state. A significant amount of my energy is spent daydreaming about leaving everything behind and running away to Seattle.

PBS broadcaster loses access to 50TB of data comprising 70 years of TV history after contracted cloud storage vendor goes defunct — public TV channel sues Iron Mountain data center, which hosts archival materials, to ensure preservation

Nine PBS is afraid that it will lose over 70 years of archival materials and programming after its contracted cloud storage vendor has apparently gone out of business. According to Current, the channel used Open Source Storage, or OSS, for storing over 50TB of data — but it suddenly lost access to its data earlier this year.

This is your periodic reminder to backup your data ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

'Alien Technology': Harvard Scientist Warns Declassified Pentagon Files Reveal Huge UFO Discovery

Renowned Harvard theoretical physicist Avi Loeb evaluated the chilling report, suggesting the anomaly could stem from powerful electromagnetic disruptions, classified government black projects, or potentially groundbreaking alien technology.

It’s always potentially groundbreaking alien technology with this guy.

Astronomers find entirely new kind of object in space

Astronomers think that the object is probably a hugely dense cloud of gas. It is not powered by nuclear fusion, like a normal star, but a black hole at its centre.

Now THIS is some space news I can get behind. Man, that'd be a cool name for a grunge song. "Black Hole Star"... feels oddly familiar but I can't put my finger on it. I guess I'll just file it away in my garden of sounds for now.