I wonder when someone will recreate Plaxo or something like it. I have wondered this a lot. Contacts are another thing that continue to be an absolute mess, even in 2025. I use Obsidian as my personal information manager. As I meet people I make notes about them to help me remember things about them, when I met them, connections to other people, etc. Maybe I need to get working on an app for myself that can read and write to my contacts base in Obsidian. Hmmm.
I took the kids to the No Kings protest in Culver City. It was great to see friends and so many people turn out. What’s happening, especially in Los Angeles, is absolutely terrible and scary. Feels like it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
I installed the developer betas of iPadOS 26 and macOS 26 and boy do I dislike the new interface. It’s such a fucking mess, especially from an accessibility standpoint. Not good.
20 years ago (on my 31st birthday!) Steve Jobs gave his now-famous Stanford commencement address. I’ve taken to watching it at least once a year, usually on or around my birthday. This year, The Steve Jobs Archive posted a “newly enhanced version” of the address along with some related relics. High recommended, even if you’ve seen it before. Stay hungry, stay foolish.
It’s 2025, we have lots of AI, but my photos are still a fucking mess.
Clone is pretty cool. Link quality feels a little mid or too mainstream a lot of the time. I want weirder links from non-mainstream sources. I visit daily though and can’t say that about a lot of sites.
Worth reading Sam’s latest post, The Gentle Singularity. The challenging thing, at least for me, is not to roll my eyes too much. I can have doubts. How much of what he talks about will really come to pass by 2035? Maybe some. Maybe more. It doesn’t matter if you agree, disagree, drink the Kool-Aid or not. What matters is whether you are capable of catching your cynicism and instead engaging your imagination. How difficult is that for you? Because that is a reflection of how you see the world. You can choose. And your choice won’t have any bearing on the outcome, but it will impact how you live the rest of your life.
Most apps all look the same and have been stripped of any and all whimsy. There are exceptions. Carrot Weather is one such example. !Camera is such a wonderful camera app. Been playing with it the last few days.
Linking to Gruber’s post on Bill Atkinson’s passing. Certainly one of the most important minds in tech. Pancreatic cancer is awful. It took my dad at 61. I really hope it’s one of the cancers we can start detecting earlier.
Pleasantly surprised to learn that Black Moth Super Rainbow has a new album out today!
There is a genre of YouTube videos that I cannot get enough of. I think they’re simply called reaction videos, but the premise is that people listen to albums for the first time ever. There are tons of these videos on YouTube. I think it all started with turning the tables for me, though I think they’ve kinda jumped the shark at this point. I just finished watching a bunch of stoners listen to In Rainbows for the first time and was laughing so hard I was crying. Do yourself a favor and watch them listen to the first few tracks.
Apparently the roof is off limits 🤷♂️
I went to an event last night. There was a lot of AI Kool Aid consumed. It was an impressive crowd though – pioneers, luminaries, legends even! As is often the case, I ended up spending most of the time with a single person. This person told me about a company called Bronze, who seems to be doing some really cool work at the intersection of AI and sound. After talking to this person, I left with a long-time personal friend for deep conversation while we walked on the beach, eventually making our way to a late (for me) dinner.
We took the kids to see Kendrick and Sza at SoFi Stadium on Friday, May 23. It was a great show, but the sound was absolutely awful. You would think in a venue as new as SoFi is, they would have worked out all the acoustics. The kids didn’t care though. Their minds were blown and that’s all that mattered. Getting to see two artists at the top of their game was really special. I’m grateful we could give that to them.
My friend Chris was in town last week and we got together on Saturday for a hike before he went back to New York. We hiked the Grasslands Trail in Malibu Canyon. It was perfect weather and great to commune with nature while we caught up in person for the first time in while. We saw some turkey vultures hanging out on dead tree at the beginning of the hike, the wild flowers were popping, lizards were everywhere.
I couldn’t remember the last time I ate at Genghis Cohen. I think it might have been with Ted Cohen, of all people. But last week Nicole, who had never stepped foot in Genghis Cohen, was in town and since it was Memorial Day there was almost nothing else open. Bob made a late dinner reservation. Some screamo band was playing in the live room. It was the only stage I’d ever played on. It was a Wild Gift show in the early aughts. Joel invited me up. Anyway, we shut the place down. It was one of those times when you’re deep in conversation (or just listening to Bob talk), when you look up only to notice everyone else has already left. We walked outside, the staff left one-by-one and we ended up hanging out and talking in front for another hour. Fairfax was dead and it would be the last time any of us would step foot in Genghis Cohen. It’s been there since 1983, but as of today, the location is no more. Kind of a bummer, but so it goes in Los Angeles.
There is some cool stuff in The David Lynch Collection auction.
Scenius is the gateway from Yancey.
I added cozy.surf to my domain portfolio today. $6 seemed like a modest gamble that I would do something with it.
I knew the day would come, but it really bums me out. rc is such a great browser. I dunno, maybe Dia will be too, but I don’t (yet) have a reason to go all-in on AI in my browser. I guess I’m still rooting for The Browser Company, but I don’t think AI is particularly good for the web.
I’ve really been struggling with this feeling (is it a feeling? A sensation? A vibe?)… For those of us playing with AI all the time, we’re developing an overly sensitive OMG-THAT’S-AI alarm. It’s like once you see it, you cannot unsee it. You see AI-like patterns. Then you think you’re crazy. But are you? OMG, WHAT IS REALITY?! 🙃
Omg. Not again.
Chat spam is getting weird.
I listened to this great episode of the Ezra Klein Show with Rebecca Winthrop over the weekend.
I have a feeling this post from Dustin Curtis is going to get some attention. I use AI a lot, though maybe not as much as he does when it comes to thinking. I do that less than I used to do. I’ve actually been writing more and doing so with pen and paper, if you can believe that.