Life and times of Jason since 2001
The real “capitalist achievement,” however, isn’t Graceland. It’s the fact that compared to the stuff of the average person’s day-to-day life in 2023, Graceland just isn’t that impressive.
— Read on thedailyeconomy.org/article/economic-growth-makes-graceland-less-impressive/
Reading something already confirms your existing worldview, highlights every piece of information in precisely the right format to re-confirm your existing identity, and takes no effort or discomfort, no revision for any mental model. You finish whatever book, whatever blog post, feeling a good deal smarter than you were when you started (because look! There was content, and now it has been consumed!) but nothing has actually happened.
You’re the same person.
You had no reason to change.
Challenging yourself is incredibly uncomfortable – nobody expects training for and running a marathon to leave you feeling as refreshed and relaxed as a hot bath with a glass of Prosecco. Challenging yourself mentally is no different. You have to hold competing thoughts in your head and let them duke and duel it out, and moderate them for all your life’s worth. Most folks aren’t willing to do that.
Which makes the market for comforting, conforming ideas far more lucrative than the market for ideas with a fighting spirit.
Nearly one in three EU websites sets analytics cookies before consent. Nearly one in five sets marketing cookies. The legal position on these is unambiguous: the EDPB has repeatedly confirmed that analytics and marketing cookies require consent under Article 5(3) ePrivacy. The CJEU’s Planet49 ruling made clear that consent must be an active, affirmative act — and it cannot be affirmative if it has not happened yet.
The practical implication is that by the time a visitor sees a cookie banner and considers whether to accept or reject, their browser has already been fingerprinted, their visit has already been logged by analytics platforms, and in many cases their browsing profile has already been updated by advertising networks. The consent choice, when it arrives, is partially retroactive — and retroactive consent is not consent at all.
We Scanned 97,000 EU Websites for GDPR Compliance. Here’s What We Found. – GDPR Privacy Monitor
What makes another person’s gaze so powerful? According to Sartre, we exist in two radically different ways.
In our own minds, we are a “Subject.” We are a limitless current of intentions, possibilities, memories, and dreams. We are not a fixed thing; we are a constant process of becoming. When you are alone, you experience this freedom most purely. You are the author, director, and star of your own reality.
The moment another person looks at you, however, you are ripped from that role. Under their Gaze, you are instantly transformed into an “Object.” You become a thing in their world, defined by external properties they assign to you: “tall,” “serious,” “well-dressed,” “nervous.” Your infinite inner world collapses into a finite, external label. And the most terrifying part? You have no control over what that label is.
The greatest value in writing (to me at least) is not necessarily this finished product, but rather, the process the author goes through to create that work. Putting a word down on paper or pixels forces a coherence and clarity that is typically unavailable until the writing is done. Perhaps the best observation on this predates AI by decades and comes from former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin, who said, “I write to figure out what I think…”1
The written word is the most visible work product, but it is not the most valuable part of writing – the process is…
— Read on ritholtz.com/2026/08/the-written-word-is-not-your-work-product/
O’Neill oversaw many sensitive operations during his time in New York, including deterring suspected plots ahead of the 2000 ball drop in Times Square. He was active in the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force and was in attendance when the task force marked its 20th anniversary atop the North Tower at Windows on the World in September 2000.
But after being passed over for promotions, and amid internal tensions at the bureau, O’Neill retired from the FBI on August 22, 2001. The next day he started a new job—chief of security at the World Trade Center. He was recruited to the role by New York–based security firm Kroll Associates, which had advised that security at the towers be revamped after the 1993 truck bombing.
In late August, just days before the attacks, O’Neill spoke with a friend, ABC News producer Chris Isham, about his new World Trade Center security job and the threats posed by terrorists to New York. Isham remembered jokingly telling O’Neill that “at least they’re not going to bomb it again,” to which O’Neill replied: “They’ll probably try to finish the job.”
Just two weeks into his new job, O’Neill was in his office on the 34th floor of the South Tower when a plane struck the North Tower.
McNamara, who owns and operates the multi-use restaurant, event space and rooftop in Scott’s Addition, received a $58,486.76 water bill last week, according to records reviewed by Axios.
Her typical monthly water bill for the 2816 W. Broad St. space is roughly $1,500.
Most of the increase appeared to be connected to the building’s fireline meter, which serves the fire sprinkler system. The bill showed usage jumping from zero to 9,989.83 CCF for July — and a line item cost of over $55,000.
McNamara says DPU officials told her Wednesday that the spike stemmed from a meter-reading issue that the department should have caught.
— Read on www.axios.com/local/richmond/2026/08/19/richmond-dpu-water-bill-autopay-harrys-hofheimer
Tech executives like Mr. Zuckerberg don’t talk about their own families often. When they do, however, they usually make clear their wariness of tech. For their children, tech does not play the same role it does for the rest of society: teacher, babysitter, all-purpose distraction and, increasingly, constant companion. It seems barely there at all.
The executives’ comments are generally off the cuff and are snapshots of a moment. Mr. Zuckerberg, for instance, talked about his children seven years ago and has said little since. A Meta representative declined to say anything more.
Peter Thiel, who was the first outside investor in Facebook and a longtime board member, said he limited his children — then 3½ and 5 — to “an hour and a half a week” of screen time. When he mentioned this at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2024, the audience gasped. Many children that age experience that amount of screen time in a day, or even a morning.
But Mr. Thiel said he was a typical Silicon Valley parent.
“There are probably a lot of people in tech who do something quite similar for their own families,” he said, adding pointedly, “There’s some questions that that might lead you to ask.” Mr. Thiel did not respond to emailed questions.
Silicon Valley Executives Are Tech Fans. Just Not For Their Own Kids. – The New York Times
Tugboat’s seemingly unimpressive heater might not light up the radar gun, but batters insist it feels much faster than it actually is. It even gives the illusion of rising.
That’s because Tugboat throws from an unusually low angle that opponents aren’t accustomed to seeing, with mechanics that allow him to effectively hide the ball. Paul Quantrill, Tugboat’s pitching coach with Team Canada at the World Baseball Classic earlier this year, said the pitch looks like it “comes out of his jersey.”
The result is a fastball that Quijano describes as “a short little bazooka at 90 miles an hour.” Jeff Duda, Tugboat’s longtime coach at the Okotoks Dawgs Academy in Alberta, said his fastball feels more like 94. He turns to the “Invisiball” about 60% of the time.
“Maybe our algorithms say this isn’t going to play,” Quantrill said. “But apparently that f—ing hitter didn’t get the memo, because he’s not hitting it very good.”
His Name Is Tugboat. He Throws an ‘Invisiball.’ And Now He’s a Major-Leaguer. – WSJ
The hospital is not providing many details, but NewsChannel 5 Investigates talked with one of those families. Here’s what we can tell you.
Last Friday, at least four people went to Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown in Nashville for joint replacement surgeries, and a drug mix-up led to things going horribly wrong in the operating room.
The family of a Centerville woman who was there for a knee replacement told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that she is now permanently paralyzed from the chest down.
She was supposed to have had an epidural for pain, but the wrong medication was injected. She was not the only one. There were at least three others.
Drug mix-up during surgeries at Nashville hospital leaves at least one paralyzed