A Superwholock for every news cycle:

But it’s not that Gamergate never ended, it’s that no news cycle, if viral enough, ever actually ends now. The merge that has happened over the last decade between virality, news content, social platforms, and fandoms has created cultural pockets online that never fully die. Social platforms are full of zombie communities that were forced into existence thanks to the short-sighted incentives of corporate engagement quotas and now they light up when anything remote aligned with their initial reason for being comes across their feeds. It’s happened with the Gamergaters who became anti-Last Jedi activists who became Snyder Cut truthers who became Depp v. Heard watchers. And it’s happening with the pandemic expert LARPers who became lab leak conspiracy theorists who are now obsessed with monkeypox.

(Via Ryan Broderick)

It’s my sense that the Emacs “ecosystem” is growing and innovating at a very healthy clip. The richness of ELPA, the frequency of new releases from the core developers, and the adoption of Emacs/Org in places like academia — all these are examples.

This appears to be happening in the world of professional coding too, despite very capable competitors like VS Code. Here’s a recent quote from Jon Sander’s blog, irreal.org: “The fact — as evidenced by Org-mode and Magit — is that Emacs is at the forefront of editor/IDE development.” 

Ponder that: “at the forefront.” 

I have no data on the actual number of Emacs users, or on the rate of production of new packages or counts of new lines of code, but it’s my anecdotal sense that Emacs is modernizing and thriving. Not least, its reach is extending beyond the English-speaking world. 

Is this the golden age of Emacs? Was it ever better than now?

(Via u/tdavey on Reddit)

I’m using Emacs more than ever. I’m at that stage where I resist making more than modest changes to my config as it is a daily driver for me – and I am not in a technical role any more.

I liked Cloud Atlas, a movie I hadn’t seen before. The intertwining stories worked for me. The acting was top notch. I like that the Susan Sarandon — Jim Broadbent — Keith David Venn Diagram overlaps on this motion picture.

Let’s do a thought experiment!

Albert is in a car accident. Albert might die. Albert has an advance directive that states his doctors must not be vaccinated for COVID-19, must advocate for the horse dewormer Invermectin (sp?) as a treatment for COVID-19, and all medical treatment options must go through Mehmet Oz’s team first. Let’s say Albert’s family agrees.

How does that play out?

In another scenario, Albert sets up tests to ensure such a doctor as described above does not treat him while he’s out of it. Let’s say Albert’s family agrees.

How does that play out?

What happens if the directive and the family don’t agree?

What happens if the directive and the family agree but the assigned doctor doesn’t?

To be clear about me, my organs should be donated. I want all of my health care staff fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and everything else appropriate for where I’m getting treatment. No celebrities should be involved in my case. All of my medication must have scientific backing for use in people and none of it should include horse de-wormers.

If my organs become tainted because someone deviated from my wishes I will terror haunt them brutally until they have no choice but to shuffle off their mortal coil. And then I will hire a demon to haunt them in purgatory because I’ll be that pissed off.

I’ll find a lawyer to put that into actionable language.