justin․searls․co

I joined Twitter in 2007 and my brain slowly morphed over the next 15 years from hopelessly verbose to nihilistically pithy. I've kicked the Twitter habit, but the takes keep flowing. That's why I post them here and format them as a social network of one. They're also cross-posted to my Mastodon account. You're welcome to bookmark any of these takes, though I'm not sure why you would.

By the way, the hearts and like counts are fake. They're just there to make you feel safe.


My ability to predict which tasks will turn into life-rending quagmires has gotten a little too good. I pushed off everything that I feared would become a multi-day nightmare into October so I could wrap up betterwithbecky.com and Rails World, and… the check has definitely come due.

One reason why economic health indicators are less politically salient today than, say, the 1992 presidential election is that families no longer sit down at the dining room table outside Thanksgiving and hardly anyone has a checkbook to balance anymore.

I’ve had a bunch of friends and colleagues ask for my advice on how to best learn Japanese this year, and since (1) the last time I started learning it was over 20 years ago and (2) Tofugu’s entire business (via Wanikani) is teaching it to people efficiently, my best advice is to just start with their guide: tofugu.com/learn-japanese/

Heaven:

  • Groceries are delivered by Amazon
  • Social media is run by Facebook
  • Phones are made by Apple
  • Search is indexed by Google
  • Games are published by Microsoft

Hell:

  • Groceries are delivered by Microsoft
  • Social media is run by Apple
  • Phones are made by Facebook
  • Search is indexed by Amazon
  • Games are published by Google

Thanks to the broad assortment of folks who reached out to wish us safety today. As it turns out, we bailed outta Orlando and drove to Savannah in order to escape Milton. ✌️

iPhone 12 and later contains a barometric altimeter, so it knows when you're at high altitude and the accelerometer knows when you're traveling at high velocity… so why can't the iPhone just enable Airplane Mode automatically? Why do I have to do it?

Whenever I remark positively to something out of a sense of obligation, I lower the opacity of the text before hitting send.

Not a lot of people know this, but that’s actually where the phrase, "damning with faint praise," came from.

Had a dream last night that Apple (finally) announced a lightweight 12” MacBook Pro with M4 next month and I was so mad when I woke up and remembered they’ll never actually do this.

Inflation is the top economic issue in this election:

2020 iPhone 12 Pro: $999
2021 iPhone 13 Pro: $999
2022 iPhone 14 Pro: $999
2023 iPhone 15 Pro: $999
2024 IPhone 16 Pro: $999