Dan Sinker/notes

Most of the time my thoughts aren't long enough for a blog post. My shortform notes get posted on Mastodon and Bluesky, and also wind up here.

Lolllllllllllllllllll A headline reports that Trump officials attribute a confrontation with Harvard to an unauthorized mistake by the administration's antisemitism task force.

posted at 9:10PM on April 18, 2025

Lol, we were like "Oh shit, that. What can we get at Walgreens?" Are Easter Baskets Getting Out of Hand?&10;&10;Social media is awash in images of lavish baskets overflowing with expensive gifts. Some parents are giving their children bikes. Others are pushing back.

posted at 7:53PM on April 18, 2025

There's just a couple hours left to vote for the Webbys. Please take 30 seconds and vote Rebel Spirit. vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVot...

posted at 11:20PM on April 17, 2025

Clone Wars getting real real over here. A television displays the text "The challenge of hope is to overcome corruption" in a room with some framed items and decorative lights.

posted at 8:10PM on April 17, 2025

from a pitch today: I like digging up bodies, especially when those bodies are old racists.

posted at 5:58PM on April 17, 2025

Sat down tonight, left my phone in the charger, and read an actual paper magazine cover to cover. A+, highly recommended activity.

posted at 9:38PM on April 16, 2025

I'm sorry they threw a what-themed wedding??? www.nytimes.com/2025/04/1... Amazon was the center of their life. They met at a conference for Amazon sellers in 2016 and had their first kiss at another Amazon conference two years later. They moved in together and grew their business, Treasures Gifted. When they married in 2022, they threw an Amazon-themed wedding, with guests assigned Amazon product numbers instead of table numbers.

posted at 12:15PM on April 16, 2025

being a parent of a nine-year-old means a lot of other parents ask you if your kid has read Harry Potter yet and so you get very used to the awkward silence that follows you saying "no because they were written by an anti-trans bigot, and besides there are a lot better books out there."

posted at 8:05AM on April 16, 2025

The nine-year-old has become obsessed with America's Funniest Home Videos which (1) still exists, (2) is now mostly people's doorbell cam footage, and (3) illustrates how we got into this mess more vividly than any NYT profile has managed.

posted at 8:12PM on April 15, 2025

wishing the last dude left at the IRS good luck in detangling my tax thicket.

posted at 5:44PM on April 14, 2025

So now it is demonstrably cheaper to import fully assembled Chinese-manufactured electronics than the parts to assemble them here. These are deeply unserious people.

posted at 4:51PM on April 12, 2025

"The world is a built environment, and I think understanding how it was built is key to being able to truly live in it." Yesterday I wrote about taking things apart and putting them back together. dansinker.com/posts/202...

posted at 4:34PM on April 12, 2025

Hey, I wrote a thing about how you can learn by taking things apart, about how geeky electronics were transformed by the global supply chain, and about how nothing happening in in the administration right now is about fixing broken things. dansinker.com/posts/202...

posted at 3:39PM on April 11, 2025

The administration adding fully-alive people to the Social Security "death file" in order to make their lives unlivable should be the mother of all red lines. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/1... The effort hinges on a surprising new tactic: repurposing Social Security’s “death master file,” which for years has been used to track dead people who should no longer receive benefits, to include the names of living people who the government believes should be treated as if they are dead. As a result of being added to the death database, they would be blacklisted from a coveted form of identity that allows them to make and more easily spend money.

posted at 8:25AM on April 11, 2025

Just end my life already please I am begging. I can not take how stupid this all is. "Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Makes America's Showers Great Again"

posted at 6:57PM on April 9, 2025

so how high will he go on China today before folding tomorrow? 200%?

posted at 1:53PM on April 9, 2025

I think what any company that wants to make a multi-billion dollar investment in domestic manufacturing that will take years to come to fruition and many more years that that to earn out is looking for is constantly-shifting decisions based on the ever-changing, chaotic whims of a mad king.

posted at 12:41PM on April 9, 2025

I think what any company looking to make a multi-billion dollar investment in domestic manufacturing that will take years to come to fruition and many many more years that that to earn out is the ever-changing chaotic whims of a mad king.

posted at 12:35PM on April 9, 2025

I have so many pals that in the last decade or so have gone into small-scale manufacturing: clicky keyboards, weirdo boardgames, hipster toys, niche electronics... every single one of them is entirely, 100% fucked right now.

posted at 8:17AM on April 9, 2025

I hope the me on the parallel earth where none of this happened is having the best fucking time.

posted at 7:26AM on April 9, 2025

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