Dan Smith

@volts.wtf we need a podcast!

By treating it as a standard deduction, not an exemption, it also effectively increases mortgage interest rates and disincentivizes charitable donation for a lot of middle-class people.

Fun fact: the canon is that “a long time” was 18 years ago. Condaleeza Rice was replaced as Secretary of State more than 17 years ago.

SHOULD THE U.S BLOT OUT THE SUN AND USHER IN AN AGE OF ETERNAL DARKNESS? - Gallup 2/20/26-3/5/26

NO - 41%
YES - 38%
UNSURE - 21%

Some people will say this is a perception or communication problem, but—hear me out—what if it's a morality and ethics problem?

So software devs made a tool that recommended military targets, and it recommended bombing a children's school, and no safeguards intervened to prevent it, so now 150 kids are dead.

Among other things, that's a fundamentally broken software tool, and the public outcry should shut it down forever.

Update: we did it!

Make your own music library like it's 2005

The screenshot of the release notes reads: A new version of TeX Live Utility is available! TeX Live Utility 1.55 is now available-you have 1.54. Would you like to download it now? Release Notes: Changes Since 1.54 • Fix bug 137, homepage link in Help Book. • First release in a long time, since I don't use TeX anymore and resent the very idea of paying Apple annually for the privilege of giving away free and open-source software. Also, I'm really lazy. Please accept my apologies for all the annoying issues you've encountered in this mission-critical software. • Updated mirror list, which was three years out of date. • Added missing legacy mirrors, which was even more out of date. • Added an alert on startup when user tries Homebrew's lobotomized MacTex, because those lunatics left timgr but removed its database. Thanks for nothing, guys. Bug 142 and 144. • Use a custom user-agent to work around the Anubis bot trap on texlive.info. Can't wait to see what else breaks because of this, thanks to the profusion of degenerate Artificial Insemination fetishists scraping websites to feed their models. • Lists of countries in Repository/Continent are now sorted. No idea how you people let me get away with that one for the last fifteen years.

There's a "is anyone even reading this" sort of honesty you get in the software update release notes from a project that's been around for a long time.

“I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love!”

Literally.

my local park is full of hundreds of snow sculptures and someone has been adding museum labels

Doesn’t count until the @fiftyplusone.news average reaches “Disapprove +20”.

We voted for this *8 years ago*. It’s just so exhausting.

A visualization:

All the nations of the world nearly getting lapped as they wait for someone else to go first—it's a metaphor.

But see the problem with this method is it weights all gold medals equally, when really a hockey tournament championship has got to be worth at least as much as winning 2 or 3 speed skating races. 🤓

"Justice"

The "law and order", tough guy response is right there, teed up.

Christina Carreira's ice dancing costume as a murder victim was A+.

Every time I see one of these lately, I have two thoughts:

1) But Shakespeare doesn't share your values (McKellan, 4 Feb 2026). What's more white/western than Shakespeare?

2) Wouldn't we all be happier if we stopped participating vicariously in the X discourse via screenshot?

Writing is thinking.

It's not some marginal boring task you can skip. It's the heart of it.

a werewolf in front of a house wearing a ‘BE MINE’ heart and holding a sign that reads ‘THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE’ above a photo of bad bunny

a neighbor set up this werewolf for halloween and instead of taking it down they just update it with seasonal outfit changes. now it’s dressed for valentine’s day and holding a sign with a picture of bad bunny and his super bowl slogan. i love him.

I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS.

I feel like e could make snowball fighting a thing.

Livigno Snow Park on February 12, 2026 with more than 100 images of snowboarders on the halfpipe placed in for effect

Really photo editing here by Hector Vivas of Getty Images. Composite of the women's snowboard halfpipe final, depicting all the female Olympians who competed.

Yesterday morning kids were sent running from their bus stop in panic because ICE showed up. This guy at today’s ICE Out of Lindenwold protest is a must watch 😭. @maddow.bsky.social

Nobody in the 2010s names their kid Steve. Should be Jackson or Liam.

They need to add some combat sports. There are like 30 different head-to-head combat disciplines in the Summer Olympics, and they couldn't think of one involving ice or snow?

When someone tells me how old their child is I say "that's such a fun age" even if it's 37

More opera in the Olympics please