I don’t mean the design of a spreadsheet; I mean the design of the spreadsheet application. As far as I know, nobody has proposed anything new for spreadsheet apps in ages. But here’s an idea: Ambsheets. A cell can contain multiple “ambiguous” values, making it easier to explore alternatives. Via Simon Willison. Continue reading

Replicating SMS messages in a monolithic silo bought by a delusional megalomaniac, or another monolithic silo owned by an insecure sociopath, or even another monolithic silo not (yet) owned by some ultrarich control freak is not really very useful. Take more time to consider what you write. Take more time to consider what you read… Continue reading

Responding to a hilarious headline, Meta warns that it will fire leakers in leaked memo, John Gruber observes that “company cultures are infused by the personalities of their founders. Meta employees have no scruples surrounding the privacy of internal communications because, by definition, they’re the sort of people who never saw any problem with Meta’s… Continue reading

“The single most ridiculous aspect of human history is how much of it has been driven by the goal of allowing a tiny portion of a large population to live in luxury.“ Continue reading

Selections from The New Anarchists. It’s no longer new; David Graeber wrote it in 2002. • “The phrase ‘anti-globalization movement’ is a coinage of the US media and activists have never felt comfortable with it. Insofar as this is a movement against anything, it’s against neoliberalism, which can be defined as a kind of market… Continue reading

You know what I’m talking about. What I want to make very clear is that I think it’s most reasonably referred to as a “what” and an “it” rather than a “who.” It doesn’t operate like a person; a human. It’s never been part of our social fabric, as you can see by reading Lucky… Continue reading

In the US, we are too often unaware of the rest of the world, particularly the details about the rest of the world. This is a serious problem, because the rest of the world is figuring out a lot of things that evidently utterly stump us. Could it be the political forces that have eviscerated… Continue reading