I collect books among other things and I sell many books (mostly modern ttrpg related ones) on eBay. Occasionally I’m reminded however of the value of physical objects as time travel devices.

That image is the front inscription of a book I might sell. It’s hard to read but the book is a report on the 50th anniversary reunion of Gettysburg (yes the civil war battle)

That inscription - the notes of a civil war veteran who fought at Gettysburg when he was 20 and was at the reunion aged 70

I’m in the midst of a move. Going thru more than a decade of stuff at this current house (and many many decades more in the stuff we moved here) it’s stressful but also freeing - shedding stuff we don’t need and finding good homes for it feels likely literally reducing our weight (may indeed make the move easier)

Lots more to go - move doesn’t happen until Friday - between now and then days of packing.

But did find one treasured possession

So I do know where my towel is

Small datapoint - something I have rarely seen an event here in Silicon Valley marketing another country as a career option for technologists here - in this case Korea is holding an event with HR folks from major Korean companies recruiting people from Silicon Valley to consider moving to Korea for their career opportunities.

I cropped out the meeting details and the url of the sponsored post as I don’t know the org - this was a sponsored post shown to me in Facebook

My block has become one of “those” blocks where people coke nightly for weeks ahead of Halloween to look at our street. Literally hundreds of people walking or driving slowly each night looking. On Halloween I expect thousands (not exaggerating - last year we had about 1500 kids + as many adults)

Drawn here by the care many neighbors take to decorate (seen below the handcrafted animated skeletons of one neighbor complete with water features)

But also the simple cheap arches with lights

A great surprise at home this evening got a package of books from a Bakerkit project I backed for The Adventures of Lion Man by John Jennings, Bill Campbell, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu & David Brame along with some other books from Rosarium Publishing.

The Day & Night Books of Mardou Fox by Nisi Shawl

Gender Studies: True Confessions of an Accidental Outlaw by Ajuan Mance

Mothership Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond edited by Bill Campbell and Edward Austin Hall

#bookstodon

My son and I had long made plans today so didn’t go in person to any of the #nokings protests today. But we saw three of them while out here in the Bay Area. All peaceful and well attended (along bridges over 101 and in Los Altos at El Camino and San Antonio.

While in San Carlos today I saw this chalk on the sidewalk.

This whole AI everywhere experiment is getting kinda crazy and useless.

This is a real post from FB minutes ago (cropped to not show my friends who also follow the account). Note Meta AI’s eh “helpful” suggested searches for LA snow…

And yes this is an account that posts cryptic slightly coded content and humans understand the context here. But this is just one of many many many examples where the AI is not in the least intelligent and is actively unhelpful.

#enshittification

A great quote from a unique (literally) book Tristano A Novel by Nanni Balestrini translator Mike Harakis (copy number 13229)

“All this does not have very much to do with our story but it doesn't matter. We are not obliged to read everything that it is possible to read. A book is endless books and each of them is a slightly different version of you. It's written here.” page 34 of my edition

Every copy of this book has the paragraphs of each chapter in a different order.

#bookstodon

The High Line NYC NY on April 13th 2025

Captured this moment on our recent trip to NYC. This is unedited and taken with an iPhone 11 Pro Max.