Jonathan Owens

they should invent a vacuum that picks up pet hair

Proposed new media idea: The Recanter, a publication consisting entirely of people arguing against their own former positions, and/or admitting error in some way. I think that would be a huge market for this. We’re all tired of reading people who are always right.

If it were enough to be a powerful man, powerful men would be happy

When it comes to the landscape of the discourse, I believe that you should always lead with principles. Not because people are principled but because it's easier to reiterate core principles than policy, which can be complex and confusing.

that's why you bring the US flag to protests, folks

My dad first signed up for Twitter to follow live sports and he’s a freak about U of I. One day he said to me “Twitter is abuzz about Illini golf,” and I was like dude you only follow Illini sports accounts. And that’s how every reporter feels Charlie Kirk was the most important person in the world.

It turns out that protecting hate speech did not create the conditions to protect other kinds of speech; instead, it protected hate and allowed hate movements to take over all the institutions of that might have defended the rest of us.

Fun fact: air conditioning takes less energy than heating and no less important. The belief that it's "decadent" is puritanism.

Probably not his usual beat, but I picked up these wipers from the dealer yesterday and immediately thought of @cabel.panic.com. Fantastic packaging that probably hasn't changed in 30 years.

Did you know someone reverse-engineered the Weather Channel computer system from the 80s/90s and now you can generate your own private weather channel for your location? weatherstar.netbymatt.com

Tomorrow is May Day, when everyone in the world—except in the US—celebrates worker’s rights based on something that happened in the US. Literally all your civil rights and freedoms exist because someone sometime said “fuck this shit” and fought to make it better. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymark...

A lovely post by @henrikkarlsson.bsky.social on learning people: www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/friends-mi...

It's not everyday I find a piece that resonates that hard with me. buttondown.com/monteiro/arc...

Costco is a really popular subject for business-success case studies but I feel like business guys kinda lose interest when the upshot of the study is like "just operate with scrupulous integrity in all facets and levels of your business for four decades" and not some easy-to-fix gimmick

I was raised with eschatology central to my life and I really can't emphasize enough how life-denying it is, and how much it infects every aspect of how you address the world.

Does anyone else think it’s weird all the domestic manufacturing jobs obsessives don’t seem that interested in producing housing? The thing you absolutely have to make in the U.S., there is a severe shortage of it, a ton of pent up demand, and opportunities for good paying jobs producing it?

So … I’m really hoping the recent chaos and stupidity doesn’t interfere with the arrival of Lyme disease vaccine in 2026. It has become endemic throughout the maritimes, especially if you do anything in the outdoors

Bret Victor's dynamicland.org meets hygge energy yarn art. Delightful.

Let's Create "Town Hall Night in America" washingtonmonthly.com/2025/03/07/l...

one thing I've become very convinced of is the need for the civil service to do waaayyyy more propaganda. like you should know about how NOAA makes the weather app on your phone work. you should know that Uncle Sam runs GPS. you should know how impressive the US census data collection effort is, etc

SEEING LIKE A TECH BRO HOW CERTAIN SCHEMES TO MAKE THE HUMAN CONDITION WORSE HAVE FAILED

I wrote about this a few years ago. As someone who joined a cult in my 20s, I strongly believe a big draw is how utterly banal much of life is in many democracies. Far right groups provide purpose, community, and identity. This is why solving extremism goes deeper than just fighting against it.

hey for anyone who might want to actually own their kindle books instead of renting them, or who might be thinking of switching to kobo etc and will want to convert them to epubs, you now only have one week before amazon kills your ability to download its ebooks www.theverge.com/news/612898/...

This is a good idea. A daily Democratic press conference with a consistent, skilled spokesperson who covers two things: 1. What DOGE and the Trump administration did to the American people today 2. What Democrats are doing in response

One thing Democratic leadership could do right now is to name an alternate HHS secretary--someone to provide ongoing public updates and health information. And do it for other departments too. Start showing voters what a Democratic government would look like--press conferences, speeches, all of it.

This shit drives me nuts and I'm glad to see someone finally addressing it. Government economic stats don't measure what you think they do. If you're skeptical of them, you're right.

There's an excellent and very bittersweet @viennateng.bsky.social song about this idea, btw youtu.be/0RCIdOp5GHg

Shimon Peres' prophetic insight--and recollection what he told Putin: "Why is America great? America is giving; people think it’s because they are generous. I think it’s because they are wise. If you give, you create friends. The most beneficial investment is making friends."

me too apple should make a gadget… they should be making a digital camera and / or an eink device the trend is getting away from screen time, it’s aspirational but it’s growing all the time the youths want better lives

The most aggravating thing to me about Democrats at this moment is that they spent the whole campaign talking about Donald Trump as an existential threat to democracy but then after the election decided that apparently everything is fine. It really did validate the GOP saying it was just for votes.

From Johnstone's classic "Impro": Give your fictional out-groups happy endings. The story is what happens, not what is said.

For the record: I think the best thing Something Awful did on the internet was implement a "We can just ban you if your vibes are off" policy, and I hope that's what we're seeing here.

I don't know much about martial arts but I enjoyed this article about seeking the truth MMA-style: us7.campaign-archive.com?e=9a7cfc1274...

Thinking of possibly the greatest joke in movie history, when in LA Confidential the gossip rag tabloid writer who has been haunting Hollywood for years is found beaten to death, and the cop there says "We got it narrowed down to about a thousand suspects"

Not Saeed's main point, but I wonder how much of U.S. cultural resistance to doing the reading/homework and getting smarter in general (note: not resistance to good grades—those are 2 diff. things) is a response to the pain it brings. Humans have done some bad things, and it hurts to learn about it.

The Dems tendency to water down their principles shows a fundamental confusion Most people vote based on vibes in their community rather than policy analysis Those vibes originate in a fiery minority core and disseminate outwards By watering down your principles you douse the fire of your core

This was a really good article www.liberalcurrents.com/the-plutocra...

ODOT's finest hour

Would also like to feature request shareable mute word lists with @bsky.app