Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 20hRest in Peace, Margaret Hamilton. The coder who saved the Apollo 11. Without her pulling overtime to fix problems her bosses told her to ignore, the Eagle would not have landed. Seen here, standing next to printouts of the Apollo's programs. 010
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026We need camp counselors. The big idea is basically just a reboot of Amish-ness, just set 4 centuries later. Instead of saying, "Pause befote industrialization" it's before the Notification Economy. And accepting that it's a tourist attraction from the start. So there's precedent for the idea. 010
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Endless Saturdays where you go over to your friend's garage and play D&D, or ride your bikes around, or play in a treehouse, without interruption. 000
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Summer camp is great. Kids get to learn the skills from pre-industrial society, and all the resilience that teaches. I'm thinking it would be fun & useful to also give them a summer from before most anyone had heard of the Internet, and you didn't have 20 competing distractions in your pocket. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Kids walk or ride bikes, unsupervised, to see their friends. They get to experience GenX childhoods, as latchkey kids with parents still away at the office. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026It's 80s shows on the TV and 80s songs on the radio. The new hit song is "When Doves Cry" by Prince, and the "Ghostbusters" theme is getting plenty of play. The camp counselors read newspapers over breakfast. Televisions show the news from 1984. Reagan is president. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026One of the camp houses (like a camp cabin) has an IBM PC with a 4 color monitor, and the only games it has are Wizardry and Zork. The last month of camp, it gets a memory upgrade and you can play Balance of Power. An ad for the Apple Macintosh shows up, but no one has one yet. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026One camp counselor has a cell phone. It's a brick-phone with a fanny-pack battery pack. He role-plays a coked-up executive. Everyone else has landlines, and that's fine, because robocalls haven't been invented yet. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Everyone checks in their smart phones, modern clothes, and everything else at the start, and those stay in a locker until camp is over. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Idea: 80s camp. Like summer camp, but instead of cabins in the woods, the kids go to a town that's frozen in 1984. 220
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Crowning this year's champion of Fat Bear Week.youtube.comBackpack crowned this year's Fat Bear Week winnerYouTube video by NBC News 000
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Late reply; one hopes and trusts you're not still ill, a month later. But it's times like these I give into the guilty pleasures, guilt free, that I don't allow myself normally. In my case, that's an all-day computer gaming binge, like I'm a kid again. 101
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Jack Smith's opening remarks are simple, powerful, and to the point. 5 minutes of congressional testimony actually worth hearing. There's nothing here you didn't already know. It's the unwavering courage it's presented with that merit your time.youtube.comWATCH: Jack Smith's full opening statement in Senate Judiciary hearing on Trump investigationsYouTube video by PBS NewsHour 010
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Your adorable news for the day: A new species of wild cat has been found in the Bolivian Cloud Forest. It wants to claw your face off in the cutest way possible.youtube.comFirst new cat species in 100 yearsYouTube video by 4 News Now 010
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Follow me for more tips on how I am less stupid this month than I was 2 months ago, and maybe you can be too? Or whatever random nonsense pops into my head right then. 010
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 04/09/2026I cut my power bill almost in half. How? I stopped cooling the entire house during a heat wave, and installed window AC units in the specific rooms I was spending time in. While it's 99 outside, my thermostat is set to 89 for the house, and 76 only in the one room I'm in. 120
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 22/07/2026Monday's Penny Arcade is to the point:penny-arcade.comApples and Trees - Penny ArcadeVideogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary. 000
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 17/07/2026Well, this is even more concerning than usual. Among countless other revelations, former DOJ employee reports that Blanche sent armed men to her house to attempt to stop her from testifying.youtube.comWATCH: Former DOJ official Elizabeth Oyer makes opening statement in Blanche confirmation hearingYouTube video by PBS NewsHour 010
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 14/07/2026Compared to current recruitment rates: Russia continues to recruit 24,000 - 30,000 new soldiers each month, during this year of the Ukraine conflict. 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 14/07/2026Compared to American Wars: Vietnam: ~1,300 casualties per month. Afghanistan: ~92 casualties per month. World War 2: ~21,600 casualties per month. If you look U.S. wars after WW2, Russia's losses in Ukraine _per_day_ resemble American losses _per_month_. 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 14/07/2026Compared to The Battle of Stalingrad: It lasted 200 days. Russian casualties were estimated at 1.2 million. About equally split between deaths and serious injuries, same as the current Ukraine war. Russian soldiers were becoming casualties at 6.4X the current rate, during Stalingrad. 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 14/07/2026Compared to the overall birth rate: In a typical day, 3,000 - 3,400 children are born in the Russian federation. 28,000/30 days in June was 933 deaths or serious injuries, per day. For every two boys born in Russia, one adult male was crippled or killed in Ukraine during June. 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 14/07/2026Russia's suffered 28,000 casualties in Ukraine last month. Putting that in perspective. 🧵 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 14/07/2026Meanwhile, Hokusai was studying the dutch masters. The chemistry of blue pigment he used in his most famous print, "The Great Wave", was something he got from studying western artists. Cross cultural inspiration makes us all richer. 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 09/07/2026So the other parties refuse to run candidates, in a collective show of "Get on with it." Leading to this being his #1 opponent:youtube.comCount Binface: I'll take on Farage in by-election | BBC Radio 4 TodayYouTube video by BBC Politics 000
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Meanwhile, over in the UK: Parliamentarian Nigel Farage, facing an ethics investigation, steps down. This triggers a new election. This lets him say the people still want him, when he gets re-elected. But if he gets elected again, the ethics investigation just restarts. 120
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 10/06/2026This scans.youtube.comAn honest workshop tourYouTube video by Simone Giertz 000
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026Just stuff I can't help noticing, as someone who encounters this firsthand. 010
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026It's the EU. There's a named list of countries, and it's the individual members of the E.U.. Plus Ukraine. Source: www.cbp.gov/travel/inter... Search down to: "Items from Certain Countries" 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026Surely it could only be our enemies, to discourage travel to those countries. To discourage Americans from spending money there. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026The administration has added a 100% duty to anything travelers bring back from specific named countries, once it's over the personal exemption. Which countries are we targeting with this crushing duty fee? 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026And that's just one side of the new hassles I'm noticing, personally, as someone who flys out of country most years. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026As you'd expect, the Japanese explanation sheet was unfailingly polite in its phrasing of "The US Government told us to do something that has no rules, and is sure to lead to disagreements. So we've just suspended service to the US instead." 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026But Trump wants the SENDER to pay into American taxes, so he told every other post office in the world, "You collect the taxes before you send something to the U.S.. And the rest of the world said: What? How? Um... no? 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026And then you'd have to turn around and get the taxes from them. And have a way of agreeing that they'd collected the right amount and sent it over. And for settling disagreements. Because of course as soon as someone else is collecting money for you, you're going to be wary of getting it all. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026The entire accounting system for collecting tariffs is based around the country who gets the tariffs collecting the tariffs. You don't make another country collect your country's taxes. Why would they do the work to collect your taxes for you? Why would they care if they got it right? 120
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026In short: The Trump administration has told foreign post offices that THEY are responsible for collecting tariffs on goods sent into the U.S.. That's not how tariffs work. They're collected at the port of entry. Always have been. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026Likewise, this year, I tried sending some gifts back, while traveling. This time in Japan. Again, the post office refused. But the attendant had a page of information in English, to explain. 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026Last year, while in Amsterdam, I tried sending a package back to the US. The post office just said no, and the most explanation they offered was, literally, "Because Trump." I finally got an explanation of everything that meant from the Japanese Post Office. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026It's gotten noticeably more troublesome to travel, during the current presidency. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 17/05/2026I want to think this tech helps versus jet lag. But to be frank, this trip jetlag hit me harder than most any other I've ever taken. So from my one data point, I can't say it helped. Still felt quite gentle at the time. 100% looking forward to giving it another go on the return flight. 000
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 17/05/2026I didn't even notice that it was actually still day outside, until I looked back across the cabin and saw one window where a passenger had overridden the night settings. (And then checked my own to see.) 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 17/05/2026It feels natural: Much, much better than trying to balance full-daylight down to just a sliver. Better than the airline crew telling you when you really ought to lower your shades, so you can start adapting to your new time zone. Night just comes when it's supposed to. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 17/05/2026Clever quality-of-life tech on Japan Airlines: The windows have a (liquid crystal?) brightness and color filter, instead of shades. The window stays open the whole flight, but the plane sinks into artificial "nighttime" by gradually fading all the windows darker and bluer, on schedule. 100
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 10/05/2026This isn't even an invent-a-new-strawberry problem. Making new breeds is hard. This isn't that. The good strawberries are still out there. Buy the fancy strawberries in Japan, to taste for yourself. This is a branding and business alliance problem. And we're good at those in the U.S.. 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 10/05/2026More likely that brand coalition. Every change starts with one person. But the great new apples you get in stores are being pushed by coalitions, now. 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 10/05/2026The strawberry grower who can bring back the ancestral breeds that still have flavor, who can secure a brand name, and build that brand: That person will make a small fortune. 110
Sam Brown @baudot.bsky.social · 10/05/2026Plenty of people will pay for quality, if you can prove it to them. If you, on the producing side, have a way of measuring for it and keeping up your standards. 110
