Rob Shearer @RedHatRob

"Turning loose agentic coding with AI agents is like strapping a weedwhacker to your dog to see if it will end up cleaning the overgrowth in your backyard." "If that dog jumps the fence and ends up damaging cars on your street, you wouldn’t shake your head and lament about how the dog/whacker system had “gone rogue”; you would instead concede that dogs are unpredictable, so it was dumb to attach something dangerous to one." - Prof Cal Newport, Computer Scientist, Georgetown U.

"AI has destroyed Kenyan jobs because American college students no longer hire them to write fake college essays" is not a framing I expected even the NYT to have

I honestly have NO WORDS!!!🔥😳 If you are an American... And can watch this without getting chills... Or tearing up just a little... You might wanna rethink life! ABSOLUTELY FCKING AMAZING!!!🔥🔥🇺🇸👇 #MAGA #Trump2024

"We are to rest on the sabbath in order to understand that the providence or the productivity of the living world, the most essential work, continues while we rest. This work is entirely independent of our work, and is far more complex and wonderful than any work we have ever done or will ever do. It is more complex and wonderful than we will ever understand." - Wendell Berry, from This Day (2013)

To mark the 53rd anniversary of Tolkien's death, here's one of his poems. I'm not a fan of most of his poetry, but I think this is beautiful. My mother-in-law was a big Tolkien fan; I read this at her funeral last year.

I just read the most fantastic article on how to improve your use of AI by Jeff Childers. It was a large section of his daily newsletter (Coffee & Covid), which I subscribe to and whole-heartedly recommend. Far better than a blanket prohibition and avoidance of AI is a thoughtful, rational approach to how to use it to get better results, with a clear understanding of what its capabilities and limitations are. I HIGHLY recommend this article. coffeeandcovid.com/p/its-all-abou…

And the coolest drone usage award goes to…

For some reason, Spotify is delaying the publishing of my viral Fake News Blues single. First, they did not like the artwork where Trump's face was visible; I switched it with another one where it's slightly covered, but the track has still not cleared. Anyway, here is the full 5-minute version of it on Bandcamp. Listen for free, or buy it for just 1.47$. The link is in the comments. And here is also my full YT version, which is a bit more cinematic.

🚨🇩🇪🇪🇺 Alice Weidel encara o político de esquerda, dá um sorriso lento de quem já viu esse filme mil vezes e dispara, quase como quem oferece um convite para o reality show mais desconfortável da temporada: “Meu querido defensor das fronteiras abertas… se você realmente acredita nisso com o coração, e não só com o Twitter (X), então prove. A próxima família afegã enorme que desembarcar, aquela com onze pessoas, três gerações e um primo que ninguém consegue explicar direito, manda direto para a sua casa. Quero ver ao vivo como você vai conciliar o seu estilo de vida LGBT com a convivência diária. 😂 Imagine a cena: você acordando de pijama de glitter, eles já de tapete no chão rezando. Você tentando explicar o que é um desfile de drag queens no Pride, eles tentando explicar por que aquela bandeira arco-íris na sala precisa ir para o fundo do armário. Vai ser emocionante. Tipo um Big Brother cultural, só que sem direito a desistir e com direito a chá da tarde recitando versículos que não combinam muito com ‘love is love’. Diversidade de verdade, não aquela de foto no Instagram. Vamos ver quem sobrevive primeiro: o seu brunch vegano de domingo ou o seu tapete persa. Eu, particularmente, já estou fazendo pipoca.”

Dolly Parton y Carl Dean se conocieron en 1964, cuando ella tenía 18 años, en una lavandería de Nashville. El iba en el coche y lo vio salir del establecimiento. Inmediatamente paró el coche y la siguió. Ella diría más tarde que se quedó sorprendida de que él la miraba directamente a los ojos en lugar de mirarle a la delantera. Se casaron dos años después, en secreto porque la compañía de discos de Dolly no quería que se supiera que estaba casada, y permanecieron juntos durante casi 59 años. Él murió en marzo de 2025, a los 82 años, y Dolly reconoció después que aprender a vivir sin la persona que había estado a su lado durante prácticamente toda su vida adulta estaba siendo muchísimo más difícil de lo que imaginaba. Dolly Parton escribió el tema "I Will Always Love You" en 1973 para anunciar su salida del programa de televisión de Porter Wagoner y poner fin a una relación profesional que había durado siete años. Quería iniciar su carrera como solista y emprender su propio camino. Porter estaba enamorado de ella y ella, en cierto modo, también sentía algo muy profundo por él, pero quería permanecer fiel a su marido. Dolly le cantó la canción directamente en su oficina, como una forma de agradecerle todo el apoyo que le había dado y, al mismo tiempo, explicarle que necesitaba marcharse y continuar sola. Porter Wagoner se emocionó muchísimo al escucharla y le dijo que era la mejor canción que había escrito. Carl había permanecido siempre alejado de la fama. Era un hombre extremadamente independiente, reservado, feliz viviendo en su granja y sin ningún interés por aparecer en público. Dolly decía que precisamente por eso habían funcionado tan bien: él no necesitaba formar parte de su mundo, pero era el punto fijo al que ella siempre regresaba. Llegó a decir algo muy sencillo sobre su matrimonio: «Sin Carl, yo no estaría aquí». Después de su muerte explicó que el duelo no consistía únicamente en echarle de menos. Después de sesenta años juntos tenía que aprender de nuevo cosas aparentemente insignificantes: cambiar rutinas, costumbres y hábitos construidos durante toda una vida. Los primeros meses se refugió en el trabajo, pero había proyectos que era incapaz de afrontar porque sabía que la obligarían a conectar con emociones que en ese momento no podía soportar. En una ocasión, después de un desfile en Dollywood, se metió en una furgoneta y rompió a llorar durante mucho tiempo. Llevaba semanas conteniendo todo lo que sentía. También contó que durante la enfermedad de Carl había estado tan pendiente de cuidarlo que dejó de cuidarse a sí misma. Y después llegó lo que ella llamaba «el año de las primeras veces»: las primeras fiestas sin él, el primer aniversario de boda sin él y finalmente el primer aniversario de su muerte. Cada una de esas fechas significaba enfrentarse otra vez a su ausencia. Pocos días después de perderlo publicó " If You Hadn’t Been There" una canción dedicada a él. Decía que una parte de ella sentía alivio porque Carl había sufrido mucho durante sus últimos años y por fin estaba en paz, pero que la otra parte sabía que iba a echarlo de menos y a desear que estuviera a su lado todos los días durante el resto de su vida. Dolly definía lo suyo como «una gran historia de amor de las de antes». Se habían conocido siendo prácticamente una niña y habían pasado sesenta años juntos. Y quizá una de las cosas más bonitas que dijo después de perderlo fue que las grandes historias de amor en realidad no terminan: continúan existiendo en la memoria, en las canciones y en todo aquello que una persona deja dentro de la otra. x.com/CollinRugg/sta… x.com/CollinRugg/sta…

Rockin' til the cows come home.

1989 CMA awards. Dolly chose Peter's song.

Amanda OTC Fan @RomanMoxFan2010

2 weeks ago

This was the most powerful song that Dolly sang IMO. Makes me cry every time I hear this.

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I have lived in America long enough to learn one absolute rule: Americans will argue about everything. They argue about barbecue sauce. They argue about the weather. They argue about which truck brand can pull a heavier oak tree. In Tennessee, I once watched two men debate mayonnaise brands with the intensity of two samurais preparing for a duel at sunrise. So yesterday, when I entered a diner off the highway and saw complete, heavy silence, I prepared for battle. Every truck driver had removed his baseball cap. The TV in the corner was playing a message from a nephew. Men with beards down to their chests were quietly staring at their coffee cups. "Charlene," I whispered to the waitress, keeping my hand near my side. "Has a foreign king declared war upon the republic?" "No, honey," Charlene said, her voice shaking slightly as she wiped the counter with unusual slowness. "Aunt Dolly passed away. She went to rest on a bed of cotton." I did not know this Aunt Dolly. But as I listened, I learned this woman gave over two hundred million books to children with no castle of their own, wrote songs that healed entire valleys, and spent eighty years wearing fifty pounds of shiny rhinestones so that everyone else could feel joy. When a great feudal lord passes in Japan, the province weeps for forty days. Here, Charlene just put on a record called '9 to 5,' and fifteen grown men softly sang the chorus while staring at their hash browns. I stood up, bowed ninety degrees to the television screen, and recited my deepest respect for the Queen of Tennessee. Charlene gave me extra bacon and told me that Dolly would have liked my armor, though she would have probably glued glitter on the helmet.

Dolly Parton @DollyParton

2 weeks ago

A message from the family of Dolly Parton.

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Here's the scene at Dolly Parton's house tonight as we and many others stopped to honor her and show our respect.

This is it, this right here is how it happens. Sci-fi into reality. This spaceport will be built before our eyes over the next few year. Then we can, for the first time ever, become a multiplanetary, spacefaring species. This is how we win. x.com/SawyerMerritt/… x.com/SawyerMerritt/…

Elon Musk @elonmusk

2 weeks ago

Starbase Louisiana will ultimately have over a dozen launch towers, enabling more than 30 Starship flights per day and making it the biggest launch site on Earth! SpaceX makes sci-fi real.

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What a wild coincidence. The next tropical storm name up on the list for the Atlantic Basin is... Dolly.

⚡🇩🇪 Alice Weidel exposes the state of modern Germany: “Mass migration, exploding crime, high taxes, silenced dissent. The regime wants to ban the strongest opposition party-us, the AfD. This is grotesque. This is authoritarian. But they will not prevail.” x.com/RMXnews/status…

In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy. She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid. The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%. She handed out the checks herself. In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college. When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months. You've probably heard that part. Here's the part you haven't: The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top. Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave. She built her county an entire hospital. She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it. In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees. Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal. In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release. And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it. She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway. She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did. Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸

Not kidding when I say this is Appalachia’s version of the death of Queen Elizabeth.