Good morning. Hello. How are you? #538

Good morning! Hello. How are you? What’s shakin? Thursday, is it? That is cool. I only have one meeting today. Wait, two. Ugh that’s too any meetings for a Thursday, Thursdays are supposed to be “get shit done” days. Booo. Oh well, we persevere.

Programming note: Holiday cards! Fill this out! Today is the last day.

https://www.postable.com/thewebbles

Yesterday, after I left you, I went upstairs to get Jane out of bed, and she was so sad. Like in this morose, lackadaisical state, where she just didn’t want to do anything, didn’t want to move, didn’t want to say anything. It’s not the first time, but it was definitely the most extreme time. She didn’t want to get out of bed, didn’t want to say hi to Grammy’s house, didn’t want to pick out clothes. After she got out of bed, she laid right back down, face down on the floor, and didn’t move. It was a hugely impressive display of existential angst, fit for a seventeen year old. I was in awe. I would get her almost motivated, and she’d say “maybe we’ll try again,” and move a little bit, then just go “nope.” We ended up sitting in the chair with her flopped on my lap in a hug pose with her not moving for, like, 20 minutes. I mean, we all get this way from time to time, just waking up and thinking “nope.” But seeing it in a four year-old was somewhat disconcerting, I’m not gonna lie. And of course my brain goes into hyperdrive and I think “oh my god, I totally gave her my depression and she’s got it worse than me and it’s already starting.” Not a pleasant train of thought at all, let me tell you. I don’t rationally believe this, I think my depression has environmental roots primarily, or in any case would have been much, much better had I grown up in a different environment. And in any case, I think she has just as much of Emma as of me in there in this regard, and Emma’s rock solid. But, yeah, your mind goes to dark places in these situations.

But also, oh man, how adorable, just laying there in my lap hugging me because she was sad. I had to maintain this serene, happy composure to encourage her mood but it was definitely a struggle to keep the tears out of my eyes.

Anyway, she slowly came out of it through the day. Was kind of off all day, definitely a greater number of stubborn fits and sudden shrieks of “no!”, but by and large in a better mood by the end of the day. Bedtime was downright pleasant, aside from some new, unique stalling tactics.

Wet Leg did a Tiny Desk concert yesterday and it was really great. They also announced further March dates for their US tour. They are not coming to Chapel Hill. Emma and I were talking about how great it would be if they came to Cat’s Cradle. Alas. No such luck. Closest they’re coming is DC and Nashville. No Atlants, even. No Boston, either. They are playing Music Hall of Williamsburg, though.

Also somewhat exciting is that Mercury Rev are touring. They’re playing Brooklyn Steel with Brian Jonestown Massacre in March, which is VERY exciting. And that tour IS playing Cat’s Cradle and oh my god I am so excited. I mean, BJM, sure. I still buy every album and they are great but they’re so spotty live I wouldn’t hold my breath. But Mercury Rev? At Cat’s Cradle? OH MY GOD. That is so insanely exciting I cannot even fathom it.

That’s also happening at some place called Roadrunner, in Boston. What is Roadrunner? Is it new? I don’t like all these new Boston venues they make me feel like I don’t live there anymore.

SO, the UK told Facebook they had to sell Giphy. Like two years after the deal has closed. Because Giphy was, like, an innovator in advertising and, you know, controlled the “gif market.” I am really of two minds of this. Like, yes, Facebook is too big and maybe shouldn’t be allowed to buy things that could potentially stifle innovation. Absolutely. But that is so, so not Giphy. I’m sorry, it just isn’t, it doesn’t matter what the EU is saying now, it just isn’t. There is absolutely no way, two years after the fact, anyone can pick up a set of facts about Giphy and plausibly, straight-facedly say that it had any real advertising plans, any snowball’s chance in hell at making an ad market that would have shaken Facebook or changed the industry in any way. God, I know that sounds belittling, and I don’t mean it that way, I think Giphy was a pretty good company, but come on. If the EU wants to announce “We think Facebook is too big and we are not going to let them buy anyone anymore, then just say that.” Don’t pretend.

Also doing this two years after the fact is problematic. You should have done it then. Like yes, good for you UK, for writing a report saying you have been too weak on tech antitrust and you’re going to do better. Hats off. But to take that report as justification for undoing past actions that you’ve already approved? BS.

And in more tech fun, the day after losing his job as CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey took his other, bigger, more profitable company, of which he still has complete control, and renamed Square into Block. Not content to stop there, he renamed Square Capital into Spiral, elevated Tidal, Jay-Z’s music service which Jack purchased as a favor, up to an equal footing in this new conglomerate, and for a cherry on top renamed their Blockchain initiative TDEX into TBD54566975. Or didn’t. That one is hard to tell. Also maybe split Cash App and Square Capital — er, sorry, Spiral — off of Square? Very hard to tell on that one. Then he made a website that looks like something that a band would make, didn’t bother to plunder his non-profit for his new domain name and said “screw it, lets give it a .xyz TLD” and even gave us a media kit with animated logos!

(I have no idea if that gif works in your email reader but trust me it looks sweeeeet).

I… gotta say I am kind of into it? I mean, their logo is animated, and it’s all… pretty crazy. I mean, why not? If you want to be a conglomerate, don’t let me stop you. Don’t let the fact that America’s most famous conglomerate just gave up on being a conglomerate, and that US investors have historically treated conglomerate stocks harshly. It is so weird that so many of America’s tech companies are deciding to be conglomerates just as GE is giving up on being a conglomerate. I wonder what Jeff Bezos is thinking right now. I suspect not about conglomerates since he came up on Wall Street and is twelve years older than Jack Dorsey and twenty years older than Zuck.

And then we come to the Supreme Court, which is going to overturn Roe. It’ll be a little while before the arguments finish, they wait a suitable amount of time before issuing their decision, and then do it, but it’s almost certainly done. The only real question is whether they’ll do it explicitly, or just effectively. It is out of John Robert’s hands, I suspect, actually, he may well vote to uphold it. But the wingnuts rule the roost now. Susan Collins, who is as responsible for these events as any human on the planet, is, shockingly, tut-tutting and saying “gosh maybe we need to codify Roe.”

When you or I say “codify Roe,” we are saying “codify Roe.” When Susan Collins says “codify Roe,” she is a burglar who just robbed your house and says “gosh you should really get stronger window locks.”

I’m not the most imaginative man in the world, but I can’t see any way to get Roe codified under reconciliation (which would be impossible anyway since Joe Manchin, bless his heart, “identifies as pro life”), and under the gerryrigging of America, 38% of Americans get half the Senate seats. The Dems could run the tables in the next election and not get enough seats to codify Roe, and Susan Collins knows it. The Dems could win as completely as FDR did in his first election and it probably wouldn’t be enough, even though a very solid majority of the population supports it.

I don’t really know what there is to say at this juncture. It’s been obvious for years, Susan Collins knew it the whole time, we all did. Nothing to do at this moment but sit and wait and work toward not losing the house and senate next year, which is an uphill battle in the face of malevolence and gerrymandering, but, I think, not *quite* as impossible as conventional wisdom is telling us.

Also hey Stacey Abrams is running for Governor of Georgia. Fun fact! The governorship of Georgia is a fairly important position in the ongoing battle to save our Democracy.

Ok, okay, I am stopping. You hardly need me to panic in your inbox about American politics what is the point of that.

I did that Spotify thing and it was bad it was just, like, “hey these songs sit at the top of your ‘to investigate’ playlist, so whenever the playlist ends and starts from the top, we play them over again. Which, okay, fair enough I guess. The genre and artists ones were interesting, I guess, but Spotify’s genre tags are insanity. Anyway, here are all of them if you care about such things.

Spotify really did change something with playlists and they are no longer public without the link. It’s not documented in their support documents, I can’t find anyone complaining about it in any forums. On interesting! The command “make public” is still in the mobile app. Well that is weird. I guess I’ll change em all on there one of these days when I’m sitting around bored because the Mythbusters are doing another gun myth. Actually, we only have three episodes to go I think we are finally free of their gun fetish. I love that show but… too many guns, and it’s hard to watch without the build team. Last two seasons are rough.

OK playlist time. W Hotel Lobby playlist. God I am going to go stay in a New York hotel again in, like, three days. That is crazy. I shoulda stayed at the W just for the Lolz. But I am staying at my regular. God, I wonder if the staff is the same. I wonder if the restaurant is open. This is all so terrifying. Anyway, I threw a couple oldies on here to fill this playlist out - Spiritualized, Kelela… Oh I guess that’s it. The rest is new to me. Enjoy.

Talk to you guys tomorrow!