We finally have a real May-appropriate day in Chicago, with a breezy 26°C under clear skies (but 23°C closer to the Lake, where I live). Over to my right, my work computer—a 2017-era Lenovo laptop I desperately want to fling onto the railroad tracks—has had some struggles with the UI redesign I just completed, giving me a dose of frustration but also time to line up some lunchtime reading:
- Both Matt Ford and David Firestone goggle at how stupidly US Rep. George Santos (R-NY) ran his alleged grift, considering he had so many legal ways to scam his constituents thanks to the Roberts Court.
- In a desperate bid to win over Fox News viewers, CNN attempted a Town Hall with the sexual predator XPOTUS yesterday, which went about as you'd expect.
- Julia Ioffe looks at how much Russia and China are enjoying our own-goal-producing debt ceiling crisis even as neither has any chance of supplanting our currency dominance in the near future.
- Chicago-based Groupon, the Internet darling of 2009, has started its final death rattle after issuing a "going concern" warning to investors yesterday.
- A pop-up bar in Chicago will raffle off Taylor Swift tickets that one hopes they didn't buy on Ticketmaster.
- Bruce Schneier sees a tremendous market for trustworthy AI, but large corporations won't build it because of the inherent conflict of interest.
Finally, today marks the 30th anniversary of Aimee Mann releasing one of my favorite albums, her solo debut Whatever. She perfectly summed up the early-'90s ennui that followed the insanity of the '80s as we Gen-Xers came of age. It still sounds as fresh to me today as it did then.