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Reviewing the 14 books I read in June - Molly White's activity feed

2025-07-03T18:35:35.000Z

Reviewing the 14 books I read in June

So many good books this month, with Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents and Martha Wells’ Artificial Condition leading the pack for fiction.

@molly0xfff June reading wrap-up, reviewing the 14 books I read this month (no spoilers) #readingwrapup #junereadingwrapup #booktok #bookrecommendations #parableofthetalents #murderbot #spaceopera #litrpg #newtanddemon ♬ original sound - Molly White

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Process Vs Prejudice - Terence Eden’s Blog

2025-07-03T11:34:05.000Z

I recently read an interesting article about Accountability Sinks. In it, the author argues that part of the reason for having business processes is that they diffuse accountability.

Every one of us has tried to have an argument with an employee of a big company, and it always goes like this:

the human being you are speaking to is only allowed to follow a set of processes and rules that pass on decisions made at a higher level of the corporate hierarchy. It’s often a frustrating experience; you want to get angry, but you can’t really blame the person you’re talking to.

So should we give people more discretion in which processes they follow?

In some cases, yes! The article contains some compelling examples of when "breaking the rules" is the preferable outcome.

But there are some unacknowledged downsides to letting people decide which rules are applicable - and that's people's personal prejudices.

The article say some of the discontent with the modern world can be blamed on over-adherence to rules. For example:

The skepticism toward judges? It fits. They often seem more devoted to procedure than to justice.

Imagine a world without sentencing guidelines. Perhaps the judge is from a different tribe to the accused and punishes them much more harshly than a clan-member. Would that seem fair?

The customer service agent just doesn't like people of your gender, and refuses to process your refund.

You give the bank manager a firm handshake and he approves your loan - even though you don't technically qualify you look like a decent sort of chap.

And on it goes.

Look, there's no doubt plenty of bias encoded within processes. All processes should be regularly reviewed and updated. Breaking a process in extremis can be a good idea. When confronted with an inflexible policy, you may feel like a mere cog in a machine - but at least the machine is prevented from discriminating against your type of cogs.

A well-defined process dehumanises both sides.

Note published on July 3, 2025 at 2:44 AM UTC - Molly White's activity feed

2025-07-03T02:44:05.000Z

NYC, 1919: Perched on a towering pile of donated books, a librarian calls from a megaphone to request more book donations for American troops stationed in France. The American Library Association’s campaign sent up to 55,000 books each month to military camp libraries.

(via Library of Congress)

Finished reading Buried Prey - Molly White's activity feed

2025-07-02T21:09:05.000Z

Finished reading:

Lucas Davenport series, book 21.

Buried Prey

by John Sandford.

Audiobook.

Published 2011. 390 pages.

Started June 30, 2025; completed July 2, 2025.

What are we actually for? The Mamdani case for positive resistance - Werd I/O

2025-07-02T20:31:56.000Z

I’m on vacation this week, which means I’d taken some time away from the internet to breathe. The Oregon coast is beautiful; if you’ve never had a chance, I recommend that you visit.

Let me amend that: if you’re not already within the United States, I recommend that you wait to visit. Incidents of visitors being detained at the border are on the rise. When I reconnected, I learned that we’ve opened a concentration camp in South Florida and that a funding bill that will serve to create, among other things, an unprecedented surveillance state has been passed by the Senate and sent back to the House for approval. Meanwhile, a Supreme Court decision stripped courts of the ability to block executive actions nationwide, making it much harder to pose legal challenges to the ongoing descent into fascism at the hands of the current President.

I know, I know. We’ve all got dystopia fatigue: the stories are relentless and more people are turning away from the news in order to protect their mental health. The temptation is not to say anything about it at all, because what could we possibly add to the conversation? And how can we say something about the current moment that doesn’t sound like something from a paranoid science fiction novel? But at the same time, silence is acquiescence. The overwhelming narrative is one of racism, nativism, and bigotry; by not raising our voices to counter it, we effectively help it along.

The government knows this, which is why it’s attempting to create a chilling effect on free speech, in part by demanding to see the social media accounts of immigrants and flagging people who might be critical of the current administration. Surveillance always creates a chilling effect on speech and organizing: clearly, immigrants who want a visa but know their social media profiles may prevent them from obtaining or maintaining one will watch what they say.

But this climate of intimidation affects more than just immigrants: it’s designed to make everyone think twice before speaking out. For the rest of us who might find staying silent more comfortable, we need to understand that the bystander effect is real:

In this study, when a person is alone in a room that begins to fill with smoke, three-quarters raise the alarm within minutes. Yet, when surrounded by others who remain passive, only 10% take action. This is the “bystander effect”, identified by Latané and Darley in the 1970s, which reveals how a silent, unresponsive crowd can stifle our instincts – even when our own lives are at stake.

It’s not just about speaking out: a resistance with no message of its own is doomed to repeat empty slogans. The hashtag resistance movement of the first Trump administration is a joke for a reason: it was largely performative, with few actions or real alternatives to back up its words. There needs to be something to say beyond, “not this guy”. Beyond what we’re against, what are we for?

This moment demands a robust counter-movement, but the formal opposition has been profoundly disappointing. I don’t know what established Democrats are doing. In response to the Republican spending bill that will give funding superpowers to ICE, Senate Minority Leader forced the bill to change its name and claimed a victory for it on social media. Meanwhile, the game remains the same: pass measures and repeal regulations to give as much wealth and power as possible to the ruling class, stripping it from lower income people, while scapegoating immigrants for their misfortune.

Much of Trump’s support this time around was about the cost of living. For some reason, Democrats insist on messaging that supports “the middle class”, leaving low-wage earners and the working class behind. To be clear, this was reason number two; reason number one was racist anti-immigrant sentiment, but that can also be tied into the economy when you consider how immigrants have been scapegoated for high costs and job losses. Removing the name from a terrible bill isn’t going to help here, but some inroads have been made. Many of Trump’s social media posts over the last few days have highlighted the price of gas, food, and taxes on social security.

This week, Zohran Mamdani won the NYC mayoral primary over Andrew Cuomo by a landslide, with more votes being cast than in any NYC mayoral primary since 1989. Voters were excited, and many precincts switched their allegiance from the Republican Party. (His video about why he won is a masterclass.) His core policies are progressive answers to cost of living problems: things like expanded childcare, cheaper groceries, and free public transit that will benefit people on lower incomes more than anyone else. They’re based on working policies from elsewhere or pilots that yielded great results.

We need to clearly oppose the cruelty of the second Trump administration, from unconstitutional deportations and detentions without due process through unprecedented surveillance and his anti-trans crusade to ethnic cleansing in Gaza. This goes far beyond partisan politics to simply being a position that fascism should always be opposed.

But we also need to have our own vision: one that addresses the core issues felt by ordinary people who are struggling to live in an increasingly cruel American society. I think Zohran Mamdani has clearly shown a road ahead: one that is embraced by a coalition of voters across cultural and ideological barriers.

I think Trump does too, which is why he posted:

As President of the United States, I’m not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York. Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards. I’ll save New York City, and make it “Hot” and “Great” again, just like I did with the Good Ol’ USA!

It would be better if the Democratic Party embodied its current role as an opposition force and embraced a progressive approach to the financial hardships faced by many Americans. Instead, both Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have declined to endorse Mamdani and other major figures have expressed concerns, in part because big-dollar donors favor a more centrist approach. But that approach is entirely at odds with what the electorate wants and needs — and the path forward is now clear. Establishment Democrats need to adjust accordingly or get the hell out of the way.

Republican Budget Bill Signals New Era in Federal Surveillance - Werd I/O

2025-07-02T14:59:47.000Z

Link: Dean Jackson and Justin Hendrix at TechPolicy.Press.

TechPolicy.Press looks at Trump's big bill from a technology-enabled civil rights perspective. This much has become very clear:

"The current form of the Republican budget bill commits as much as $175 billion to enforce President Trump’s anti-immigration agenda. While the final number will depend on reconciliation between the chambers of Congress, the next budget will almost certainly include billions of dollars for administration priorities, such as new technological capabilities for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and ICE."

What's important to understand is what this bill enables in terms of aggregation between data stores owned by individual states and departments. Trump's executive order to “ensure the Federal Government has unfettered access to comprehensive data from all State programs that receive Federal funding, including, as appropriate, data generated by those programs but maintained in third-party databases” is hugely important - not only have local government databases like this never been aggregated before, but that mention of third-party databases may require unfettered access to private services.

Data brokers already provide warrantless access to the information we're sharing with online services for a low price. It'll all be connected and - you can put money on this - used to train AI models that will supposedly provide information about us to law enforcement, ICE, and other agencies, but will also hallucinate and be subject to systemic biases.

It's fair to assume that all data that is collected anywhere will be eventually used by the worst possible actor. The best way to avoid this kind of surveillance is to never collect this kind of data in the first place. Failing those needed restrictions, we need stronger controls on how data is stored, used, and redacted.

That ship has now completely sailed. It's all out there, being used by the worst possible actor to enact policies that have the potential to lead to the worst possible things. Just as the civil liberties violations of the PATRIOT Act never really went away, the cat is out of the bag forever. Even when this administration is behind us, we can never really go back. For that, we can blame the failure of imagination of every system designer, every digital policy leader, every decision-maker who led us here.

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Artemis Changelog #6 - James' Coffee Blog

2025-07-02T14:54:00.000Z

Artemis, the calm web reader I maintain, has a few new features. Below is a summary.

You can now use break mode, holiday mode, and night mode to pause your feed.
Catch-up mode lets you review posts published in a specified number of days grouped by author.
You can show up to 30 days of posts on your main feed, up from 15. This is configurable in your account settings.
The settings page has been split up into several sub-pages. All sub-pages are accessible from the sidebar navigation on your account settings page.
- Login-related settings (i.e. change your password, enable two-factor authentication) are now on the Login Settings sub-page.
- Developer-related settings (i.e. your API key) are now on the Developer Settings sub-page.
- Keyword filters are now on the Keyword Filters sub-page in your settings.
Substack feeds are working again.
The private API that lets users retrieve posts from their feed as JSON is working again.

Designing calm software with breaks in mind - James' Coffee Blog

2025-07-02T13:20:00.000Z

I refer to Artemis as a “calm web reader”. I have designed the software to avoid common triggers that cause people to periodically check a piece of software. There are no notifications. All post titles are on one page; there are no folders. There is a “read” state, but this status is indicated by whether or not you clicked a link. Link colour changes for read links is a behaviour sufficiently common in browsers that this functionality feels like it’s in the background rather than a state to manage (in contrast to an email inbox where “read” is a state where you can toggle between).

Because one’s Artemis feed may update daily with new links, I have been thinking about what a piece of software designed with breaks in mind looks like. There are many reasons why someone may take a break from the software. The user may be on holiday; they may be studying; they may be going through a life happens moment; they may just want some time away from following the blogs. Whatever the reason, with this in mind I have to ask: what, if anything, can Artemis do to design with this behaviour in mind?

I have been thinking about the idea of breaks from three perspectives:

A user may want to take a break, and the software should facilitate this;
When a user returns from a break, they may want to catch up, and;
A break may be prolonged over a period of days, or be scheduled at a particular time (i.e. to prefer not to read after a certain time in the evening).

These led me to develop three features:

Holiday and break mode.
A catch-up mode.
Night mode.

Holiday and break mode

The holiday and break mode disable your reader interface until you disable each mode. You can still manage your Artemis account. This is intentional because I realised that I may find a cool website I may want to subscribe to while also wanting to pause my feed for a while.

Both modes do exactly the same thing: the reading interface is disabled until you exit each mode. The difference is that holiday mode shows a different message to the user than break mode. I figured customising a bit for both use cases would be ideal.

Here is what holiday mode looks like:

The holiday mode message reads:

🌴

Your Artemis reader is paused.

Enjoy your time away!

You can disable holiday mode at any time.

Disable holiday mode [link] Close Artemis [link]

Here is what break mode looks like:

The break mode message reads:

🧇

Your Artemis reader is paused for a break.

You can disable break mode at any time.

Disable break mode [link] Close Artemis [link]

The “Close Artemis” links take the user to the blank about:blank browser page.

Notably, both modes have a button to disable the mode on the user’s home page. When clicked, the button disables holiday or break mode. The reason for this is that I don’t like using modes that fully restrict my use of software. I may be on holiday but want to read Artemis because, for example, I have a few hours on a train that I want to spend reading blogs.

Catch-up mode

I am back from a break where I mostly skimmed my reader rather than actively reading posts. The prospect of reviewing my reader in reverse chronological order to read posts was a bit daunting; there would be many days to look through. This made me think: what would a specific “catch-up” mode look like that helps me review all the posts in my reader?

I thought about a web page where posts are grouped by author, and sorted alphabetically by author name. I could then skim through the list with the context of everything each author has published over the specified time frame, rather than seeing posts by each author split up by publication date as is the case in the reverse chronological feed.

Catch-up mode is designed with the philosophy that catching up with posts published over several days (or weeks) is a discrete action from checking in on your web reader.

Here is what catch-up mode looks like:

You can specify the number of days over which to catch up, too.

When you disable holiday or break mode, you are asked whether you want to enter catch-up mode.

Night mode

I sometimes find myself staying up too late on my computer, during which time I read the internet, catch up with friends, and watch television. Artemis isn’t a reason I stay up late. But it is certainly one more thing I can check. Because it is designed to work well on mobile, it’s easy for me to pick up my phone and check Artemis before bed.

I created a “night mode” that lets you disable Artemis after a specified hour in the evening, until a specified hour in the morning.

This mode, unlike break and holiday mode, doesn’t show a “disable” button on the home page. The mode can be disabled from the settings, but this is sufficiently far from my main path that I am unconcerned about its impact right now (and use of the feature comes at a time when I am probably ready for bed and don’t want to manage settings).

Here is what night mode looks like:

The night mode message reads:

It’s night time.

Your Artemis reader will be ready again in the morning.

Close Artemis

Conclusion

Collectively, these three features are explorations in the idea of software explicitly designed around taking breaks. Break and holiday mode let you disable your reader while you are away. Catch-up mode helps you catch up after you have been away for a while. Night mode lets you configure your account in such a way that your reader is disabled until morning if you want.

One concern I have is that a feature that can be disabled will be disabled when the feature is an inconvenience, even if the feature is designed to help me have a healthier relationship with the tool. With that said, I want to use software where I can set preferences that adjust to how I want to use the software, and that make it easy for me to change and disable preferences when I am ready. I personally have wanted a break mode, catch up mode, and night mode. That’s good enough for me as a tool maker to experiment with these ideas!

These features are available in Artemis for all users.

Book Review: The World According to Cunk - An Illustrated History of All World Events Ever, Space Permitting by Philomena Cunk ★★★★★ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2025-07-02T11:34:17.000Z

There are some characters whose tone of voice is inimitable. You cannot fail to read this without Diane Morgan's languid cadence echoing in your big empty head.

The book has been written with a very specific pace - one chuckle per paragraph, a big laugh every page, and a set number of uncontrollable giggles per chapter. Somewhat formulaic, but highly effective.

I kept highlighting bits of it and showing them to my wife. After the 8th or 9th time she grabbed her own copy and started showing me the bits she found funny.

It's just endlessly quotable. "The emperor eventually died and was buried with a load of clay figures – like Nick Park will be." and "a sort of naughty typewriter called the Enigma machine" still keep me guffawing.

The long-running callbacks are perfect, as are the inclusion of a few fan favourite jokes.

Even the fucking index of this book is hilarious.

Buckle up, Buttercup, AIxCC’s scored round is underway! - Trail of Bits Blog

2025-07-02T11:00:00.000Z

Our CRS (Cyber Reasoning System), Buttercup, is now competing in the one and only scored round of DARPA’s AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC) against six other teams to see which autonomous AI-driven system can find and patch the most software vulnerabilities.

Read "SCOTUS's parental rights messages: Protect anti-LGBTQ views, ignore LGBTQ people" - Molly White's activity feed

2025-07-01T21:40:36.000Z

Read:

“SCOTUS's parental rights messages: Protect anti-LGBTQ views, ignore LGBTQ people”.

Chris Geidner in Law Dork. Published July 1, 2025.

The court protected religious parents' rights in a case over LGBTQ-related books in classrooms. Days later, the court turned away requests from parents of trans kids.

📝 1 July 2025 at 20:42 - Long day …... - Kev Quirk

2025-07-01T20:45:00.000Z

Long day in the office resulted in me feeling tired and lethargic. Went for a run, the endorphins started pumping and I knocked 45 seconds off my time. Feel great now! 🏃‍♂️💨

Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️

Reply to this post by email ● Sign my guestbook

Published on Citation Needed: "Issue 87 – SO ORDERED" - Molly White's activity feed

2025-07-01T19:21:53.000Z

Published an issue of Citation Needed:

Issue 87 – SO ORDERED

Trump’s crypto empire attracts more foreign millions, the FHFA pushes crypto on mortgage lenders, and Mamdani’s mayoral primary win makes billionaires sweat

Finished reading Gathering Prey - Molly White's activity feed

2025-07-01T17:47:35.000Z

Finished reading:

Lucas Davenport series, book 25.

Gathering Prey

by John Sandford.

Audiobook.

Published 2015. 407 pages.

Started June 23, 2025; completed June 29, 2025.

Grammarly to acquire email startup Superhuman in AI platform push - Werd I/O

2025-07-01T15:03:34.000Z

Link: Krystal Hu in Reuters.

I have to admit that I didn't see this coming:

"Grammarly has signed a deal to acquire email efficiency tool Superhuman as part of the company's push to build an artificial intelligence-powered productivity suite and diversify its business, its executives told Reuters in an interview."

I loved using Superhuman before moving to ProPublica; it helped me develop more efficient email habits, but its use of AI agents to process email was not compatible with our security stance. (We don't allow any third-party email clients, so this stance is not anti-Superhuman as such.)

Its AI features were not the selling point for me: it was the design of the email client itself, its reliance on common keyboard shortcuts, and its optimization for getting through my inbox quickly. (I'm terrible at email, and this didn't completely help, but it helped a lot.)

Grammarly is clearly trying to turn into an alternative productivity suite - one that operates as a layer over other software - and it has every opportunity to. Lots of people already have its grammar software installed; fewer have Coda (which they previously acquired) or Superhuman, but it's clear how they might work together. I'm not at all sold on the AI aspect of this, but presumably it's helped them raise more funding than they otherwise might.

[Link]

Schools serving undocumented kids go underground - Werd I/O

2025-07-01T14:45:50.000Z

Link: Jo Naplitano at The 74, published in The 19th.

It's heartening to see educators take their responsibilities as stewards of children's wellbeing seriously in this environment, potentially to their own detriment. But it's undeniably depressing to be in a place where public educators feel they need to hide from the government to keep their students safe:

"Schools and other organizations serving undocumented students are taking their activities underground, fearful of revealing all they do to help newcomers navigate life in America — lest they be targeted and shuttered by the Trump administration."

The result is a curbing of their democratic speech outwardly - no criticisms of Trump or advocacy for diversity - while using end-to-end encrypted apps like Signal and not putting anything in writing.

These needs are common across a whole swathe of organizations that seek to avoid scrutiny from the administration. It's a place where the cloud is not serving organizations: the fear is that data and communications can be seized without an organization's knowledge. But self-hosted, encrypted apps remain too hard to install and maintain, and often too hard to use. Some cloud services offer third-party key encryption, but those offerings are designed for large enterprises and cost more money than these organizations can afford, while often not providing the complete security they need.

As the article notes, some services are taking note and adapting:

"As for the written footprint, Marler, who has attended numerous conferences on how best to serve multilingual learners, has observed a telling shift in the types of in-class translating applications marketed to teachers. These tools were long promoted for their ability to keep records, allowing educators to go back and examine communications over time to learn more about students and families.

Now, Marler said, those same companies are marketing privacy."

But they undeniably need more help.

[Link]

Are Brother's Insecure Printers Illegal in the UK? - Terence Eden’s Blog

2025-07-01T11:34:15.000Z

Another day, another security disaster! This time, multiple printers from Brother have an unfixable security flaw. That's bad, obviously, but is it illegally bad⁰?

Let's take a look at details of the vulnerability:

An unauthenticated attacker who knows the target device's serial number, can generate the default administrator password for the device.

Recently, the UK brought in some laws aimed at strengthening consumer protection - the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure act (PSTI). There's a readable summary on the National Cyber Security Centre's website.

There are three interesting points to note in that blog post. The first is about passwords:

The law means manufacturers must ensure that all their smart devices meet basic cyber security requirements. Specifically:

The manufacturer must not supply devices that use default passwords, which can be easily discovered online, and shared.

Secondly, is a question of jurisdiction:

Most smart devices are manufactured outside the UK, but the PSTI act also applies to all organisations importing or retailing products for the UK market. Failure to comply with the act is a criminal offence

Thirdly, what is actually covered:

The law applies to any ‘consumer smart device’ that connects either to the internet, or to a home network (for example by wifi).

Is a WiFi enabled printer a "consumer smart device"? One of the things that techies find confusing is that the law is not code. It usually doesn't enumerate a definitive list of what is and what isn't in scope. It gives a general outline and then allows case-law to develop. This means laws don't need to be updated when someone invents, say, an Internet connected tinfoil dispenser.

Let's move beyond the consumer-friendly summary and go to the actual law. The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (Security Requirements for Relevant Connectable Products) Regulations 2023

Passwords must be—

a. unique per product; or

b. defined by the user of the product.

Passwords which are unique per product must not be—

a. based on incremental counters;

b. based on or derived from publicly available information;

c. based on or derived from unique product identifiers, such as serial numbers, unless this is done using an encryption method, or keyed hashing algorithm, that is accepted as part of good industry practice;

d. otherwise guessable in a manner unacceptable as part of good industry practice.

How does this apply to the printers? Rapid7, who discovered the vulnerability, have this to say about how it works:

[The vulnerability] allows an attacker to leak a serial number via the target's HTTP, HTTPS, and IPP services. However, should an attacker not be able to leverage [the vulnerability], a remote unauthenticated attacker can still discover a target device's serial number via either a PJL or SNMP query

So, yes. The default password is unique but it can be automatically derived from the serial number. That serial number is available to anyone with a network connection to the printer.

But, do printers fall under the scope of this act?

The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 says:

4 Relevant connectable products

In this Part “relevant connectable product” means a product that meets conditions A and B.

Condition A is that the product is—

A. an internet-connectable product, or

B. a network-connectable product.

Condition B is that the product is not an excepted product (see section 6).

It goes on to define what Internet-connectable means, along with some other clarifying details. But is there a get-out clause here? Are printers an "excepted product"?

In this Part “excepted product” means a product of a description specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State.

OK, let's look at the regulations. I've expanded out the relevant bit:

Schedule 3 Excepted connectable products

Computers

Products are excepted under this paragraph if they are computers which are—

a. desktop computers;

b. laptop computers;

c. tablet computers which do not have the capability to connect to cellular networks.

Nope! The Brother printers don't appear to be exempt¹. What's the maximum penalty Brother could be subject to?

The greater of £10 million or 4% of worldwide revenue.

Ouch!

Of course, much like GDPR fines, these are headline grabbing numbers. The prosaic reality is that the enforcement policy is much more likely to suggest remedial steps. Only the most flagrant transgressors are likely to be punished harshly².

So, to recap. The law says an Internet-connected device (including printers) must have a password which is not "based on or derived from publicly available information". As I understand it, having a serial-number based password is OK as long as you don't publicise the serial number. I expect that if it were printed on a sticker that would be fine. But because the serial can be discovered remotely, it fails at this point.

In Brother's (slight) defence, unless the user has specifically connected the printer to the Internet this is only a local vulnerability. Someone on the same network would be able to monkey around with the printer but, similarly, they could plug in a USB cable for some illicit printing or break it with a hammer. Any damage is confined to the LAN.

Should users change default passwords? Yes. But manufacturers have a legal duty to ensure that people who don't are still protected.

I'm not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. This is just my interpretation of what's going on. If in doubt, consult someone qualified. ︎
With thanks to m'learned colleague Neil Brown who came to much the same conclusion ︎
You can see the actions they've previously taken. Because PSTI is so new, there aren't any actions against insecure IoT devices - so we'll have to wait and see how they choose to proceed. ︎

Ice Floes - James' Coffee Blog

2025-07-01T09:36:00.000Z

I saw Monet’s Ice Floes for the first time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It stood out among all of the Impressionist paintings in the room, in large part because of its brightness but relative lack of colour. The painting depicts ice on the river Seine, one of Monet’s many paintings of the Seine from different perspectives. ¹

I have to study Ice Floes to appreciate the detail; at first glance, my eye is caught up in the haze, trying to find grounding in details. With every moment I spend with the piece, I see more details: the trees in the background become clearer, I notice more ice bergs, I notice the reflection of the trees in the centre of the painting (and am reminded about how those trees remind me of home). I notice the light in the background.

My first impressions of the painting were that it was mostly white. Then grey came into view, and the colours of the trees. I only have the digital version of the painting as a reference now so it’s hard to comment on the colour, but I remember feeling like there was more to the colours as I studied it more.

I notice that the bank of the pond is in the bottom left, I think. Or is it more ice?

This painting appeals to me both because of the use of colour but also because of its theme: winter. I wonder how cold Monet was when he painted this piece. Was it painted en plain air? I think about the cold of winter here at home. I don’t like the cold, but I do appreciate how pretty the landscape can be in winter – how the ponds and lakes become icy; what it feels like to look out and see a haze form which snow will soon fall.

I appreciate Monet’s interest in depicting the same subject in different ways: whether capturing different trees in the same place, or painting the same scene at different times of day.

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Tomorrowland (IndieWeb Movie Club) - James' Coffee Blog

2025-07-01T09:06:00.000Z

I have watched Tomorrowland several times. In the movie, it is revealed that a society of geniuses made another world: a place where they could go to invent and explore and wonder without distraction. But the other world – Tomorrowland – invented something they shouldn’t have: a machine that is not only predicting the future, but may be broadcasting it. Tomorrowland could destroy the world.

Casey, with help from the friends she makes – Frank and Athena – is tasked with saving the world, which they together accomplish. Toward the end of the movie, they both stop the invention that is destroying the world, and open up Tomorrowland to a new group of dreamers – the artists and engineers and mechanics and musicians of the world.

Tomorrowland raises interesting ethical questions: Why go to another world when there is already one here? Should the existence of a place for inventors like Tomorrowland be kept secret? What happens if you invent a technology that ends up doing harm? What are your responsibilities as an inventor? In my first draft of this post, I tried to explore these in more depth. Now, a month later, I realise that the questions need to sit in my mind for a while – indeed, these are not easy questions to answer.

These questions are further compounded by the prequel book, Before Tomorrowland, in which another problematic invention is created, although this time by someone with malevolent intent who absconded from the Plus Ultra group of scientists that invented Tomorrowland.

With that said, I see myself a lot in the attitude of Casey Newton, the lead character of Tomorrowland. Casey’s attitude is most aptly described by the succinct statement “I’m an optimist!” that she delivers early in the movie. When learning about uncertain and terrifying realities, Casey asks “I get things are bad, but what are we doing to fix it?”, a perspective I learned from this movie that keeps coming back to me.

The story of the two wolves is one that I think about a lot, too. It goes:

Casey: “There are two wolves“ … You told me this story my entire life, and now I’m telling you: There are two wolves and they are always fighting. One is darkness and despair, the other is light and hope. Which wolf wins? Eddie: C’mon, Casey. Casey: Okay, fine, don’t answer. Eddie: Whichever one you feed.

Frank is skeptical of Casey’s optimism. Perhaps rightfully so given the knowledge he has from his contribution to the problematic invention that they will end up destroying in the movie. But Casey continues – she asks questions and always keeps her optimistic attitude. I think about the two wolves story a lot. I try my best to feed the right wolf (although my anxiety makes that hard sometimes, I try!).

I keep coming back to this movie because it makes me feel more empowered. I feel like my optimistic attitude matters; that the world needs optimists. I feel like my perspective is meaningful. I feel grounded in my optimism.

With that in mind, I’ll end with another quote from the movie I love:

Nix: How would your jet pack make the world a better place?

Young Frank Walker: Can’t it just be fun?

This is my (late) contribution to the May 2025 edition of the IndieWeb Movie Club. Thank you Tantek for hosting, and for choosing such a fascinating film to watch and write about!

Bookaroo Sticky Tabs Review - Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed

2025-06-30T21:48:45.000Z

A few days ago I was looking for some new sticky tabs to use in my journal to mark the start of months and some important pages but I wanted something more interesting that the usual crap you can get at any stationery shop.

I'd almost given up, ready to order some boring Post-It branded ones, when I happened upon some from a company called If, who have a range named Bookaroo. Their website says they are a direct-to-retailer company but they do sell direct on Amazon. They have a bunch of stuff, including this list notebook which I'm definitely getting, but I started by ordering these sticky tabs.

There are 40 in a pack, ten of each colour. This particular pack is called "Pastels, White" even though there is no white and they have three other colour packs available. They have a cartoony folder page edge design and they are very sturdy, much thicker than I'd expected.

Having said that I prefer these to the much more flimsy tabs I've been using. I don't feel like I'm going to accidentally rip these out when flipping to a page marked by one. They're £4 for a pack which, given it's going to take me months to get through 40 of them^[1], seems like a pretty decent price.

Unless my wife steals them for her journal ⤾