Robin

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.

[Stereogum @stereogum]

Mosswood Meltdown host John Waters introducing Pavement, “the cock and balls of indie rock”:

“These soft-liner, lo-fi, slacker-scuzz headliners cause more mayhem in ticket sales than any other band we've ever announced in 10 years. My phone has been ringing off the hook like the day Kurt Cobain died and my scheduled MTV profile got canceled due to his television tributes.

“I'm from Baltimore and they're from Stockton. So we share a history of living in cities that are often battling each other for the most miserable or violent. But be glad, think who's lived in Stockton: Chris Isaak, Janet Leigh in ‘Psycho,’ and yeah, Squeaky Fromme. I tell the politicians in Baltimore, be proud of our notoriety. Put a new bumper sticker out that says "The Wire: It's Even Worse Now." This band has been called the cock and balls of indie rock. And they practically invented the term alternative.

“They toured with Sonic Youth, played Lollapalooza, and even starred in a very cool meta mockumentary film about their tour. Yes, they're smart, they're witty, and they took the suburb out of suburbia and made it sublime. The 1990s: I was already old then, but you weren't. But now you are. "Cut Your Hair." ‘Crooked Rain.’ Oh, youth. But guess what? You'll never get it back. But here's the next best thing. Pavement!”

[Chef Joe Gera 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇮🇹 @redhotnerd]

Dave Portnoy

[The Editorial Board @johnastoehr]

Krugman: "there is no legitimate use case for crypto. They’ve had 18 years to come up with one. ... Every one of them has turned out to be baseless. The only real use for crypto is tax evasion, money laundering, and crime."

https://t.co/pkJlTjs8dW

[J.C. Bradbury @jc_bradbury]

Back-to-back World Cup games held at 40 and 50-year-old stadiums, one of which was privately built. Remember that the next time a politician tells you they need a new taxpayer-funded stadium to attract world-class mega-events. It's bullshit.

[matt bernstein @mattxiv]

KEEP BULLYING TECH COMPANIES INTO REMOVING USELESS AND INVASIVE AI FEATURES!!!!!!!!

[Jason, @jasonc_nc]

Look, all people want is

Housing to be affordable, with the promise that it will steadily increase in value immediately after their purchase.

The taxable value of their home to be low, but the market value when they sell to be high.

The government to not dictate use of their property, while letting them dictate other’s use of any property they live near or see during their weekly routine.

[Melissa & Chris Bruntlett @modacitylife]

The world’s best cycling city isn’t an accident of geography or nationality. Utrecht is a product of vision and investment.

The blueprint isn’t just Dutch. It can be applied anywhere. Culture doesn't create infrastructure. Infrastructure creates culture. https://t.co/C7GfSz8Ozl

[Phil Pothen 🇨🇦 he/him @pothen]

@stats_feed 2025:
Toronto, Canada: 1.4
Vancouver, Canada: 3.7
Boston, US: 4.7
New York City, US: 4.8
San Francisco, US: 6.1
Seattle, US: 7.2
LA, US: 7.9
Mexico City, Mexico: 9.2
Miami, US: 11.4
Dallas, US: 14.2
Houston, US: 15.4
Philadelphia, US: 16.5
Atlanta, US: 22.1
Kansas City, US: 34.8

[Dan O'Dowd @RealDanODowd]

The road to becoming a trillionaire is paved with false promises, taking other people's money, and failing to deliver:

[Warren Gunnels @GunnelsWarren]

Elon Musk Wealth
2012: $2 billion
2026: $1.1 trillion

Jeff Bezos Wealth
2012: $18.4 billion
2026: $262 billion

Mark Zuckerberg Wealth
2012: $17.5 billion
2026: $202 billion

Tipped Minimum Wage
1991: $2.13 an hour
2026: $2.13 an hour

5 words: Tax oligarchs out of existence.

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

I think a lot of people are exhausted because it feels like every beautiful or useful thing eventually gets monetised, privatised, extracted, or bulldozed.

[Gebo @GeboMpls]

Car dependency is a mandatory tax on your freedom and bank account. True fiscal conservatism is living in a walkable neighborhood where you don’t need a $40,000 depreciating asset just to buy groceries.

[MJdowntheshore @MJdowntheshore]

And that's the truth.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate or even simulate, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational, and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. #MagnificaHumanitas

[CONSEQUENCE @consequence]

Conan O'Brien used his Harvard University commencement speech to argue that humility and the human connection matter far more than any diploma.

"I always recognize the enormous role of luck in my life. Refusing to see how luck has played a role in anyone's success is simply ignorant. Many people are happy to mistake a lucky poker hand for their own brilliance, and fighting that human instinct has kept me sane.

"I honestly believe that community, spontaneity, and a real commitment to humility has helped me build a rich life that means much more to me than any diploma. And believe me, I'm not saying the goal is to renounce accomplishments, but rather to metabolize them. If you carry your victories lightly, other qualities –- kindness, originality, courage, humor, and humanity –- have room to emerge.

"Maybe the greatest lessons I've learned along these lines have been through my 24 travel shows. I have degraded myself in Cuba, Ghana, Korea, Armenia, half of Europe, Argentina, Thailand, Mexico, and Greenland, where I visited a real estate office and tried to buy the country. When I travel to another land, every quality I have discussed -- community, adaptation, and a sincerely humble approach -- are all necessary. When you don't speak the language, no one truly cares where you went to college, and you have no choice but to make friends.

"It's on these travels that I learned a great lesson: let yourself be bad at things. I have been a bad dancer in every country I have visited. But the people laugh because it turns out everyone everywhere is related to at least one terrible dancer. For me, humility on these trips can easily lead to humiliation, which is also a useful tool.

"Three weeks ago, I visited Amsterdam, dressed up as Van Gogh, and forced my way into the Van Gogh Museum, where I started loudly demanding a cut of the merchandising because I made no money during my lifetime. Guards forcibly ejected me. I was roundly mocked by patrons for my pathetic display. But I did see a lot of smiles. And not one person said, now that's a Harvard grad.

"In Tokyo, I met with a teacher of Japanese etiquette who volunteered I wasn't her type. And when I asked her why, she just said, 'face.' In Ghana, after accepting a royal invitation, I was kicked out of the Ashanti Palace by the Queen Mother, because her favorite soap opera was starting.

"I understand that I am preaching modesty and connection at a time when this is not in style. We are living through a period of extreme narcissism. Our current leadership in Washington believes that empathy is a weakness and that our nation stands supreme and alone. Add to that, everyone here today has a phone in their pocket that is algorithmically programmed to celebrate you and you alone by making you the protein-maxing hero of your own special journey.

"Much has been written about how isolated and siloed we've become, but for me, the antidote is quite simple. By de-emphasizing what makes us special — in your case, a prized degree — we can really find one another, not as an exercise in virtue, but as a path towards greater laughter, love, and real growth."

[Alex Veremeyenko @alex_verem]

Let me trace the timeline here because nobody's connecting it.

Step 1: Scrape the entire internet. Every book, every article, every conversation, every piece of art, every forum post. Do it without asking. Do it without paying.

Step 2: Train a model on all of it. Call it "artificial intelligence."

Step 3: Go to BlackRock's Infrastructure Summit and announce: "We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter."

Step 3 is where you sell people's own knowledge back to them. On a meter.

They took the collective output of human thought, compressed it into a model, and now they want to charge you by the token to access a version of what you and everyone you know already created.

One Reddit user put it perfectly: "They stole all this data from us, the people, our life's work, creativity, art, by devouring the internet and blowing through all copyright laws. Now they want to sell it back to us in the form of a utility."

Imagine if someone photocopied every book in the public library, burned the library down, and then opened a subscription service for the copies.

That's the metered intelligence business model.

And they're pitching it to infrastructure investors as though they invented water.

[Cav Senpai @cavannastan]

Keep the page perfectly still, then the exact moment he's about to tap the screen, load an ad and shift everything down half an inch.

[Jim Stewartson, Decelerationist 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇺🇸 @jimstewartson]

Let me explain.
JD Vance is Peter Thiel’s personal android.
Gavin Newsom announced a 5% billionaire tax which triggered Thiel into leaving California in a snit.
This has nothing to do with fraud. This is Thiel’s retribution. Making people get sick and die.

Psychopathy gone wild.

[Warren Gunnels @GunnelsWarren]

Can't stop thinking about Elon Musk, the wealthiest man alive worth $828 billion, spending $290 million to elect Trump, becoming $563 billion richer since Trump was elected and ending humanitarian aid that will lead to the deaths of 4.5 million of the poorest kids on the planet.

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

Your chances of being able bodied your entire life are slim to none. It is always in your best interest to advocate for a more accessible world.