How to explain modern American politics in one chart

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-billionaires-war

#USPol

In 2015 I was on a beach in Hawai'i helping build the prototype of what became Signal. I argued that the app needed pseudonyms because abusers know their victims' phone numbers. I lost the fight that day. History proved me right, and Signal would move to usernames under @Mer__edith's stewardship.

In this new essay, I trace the line from Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace through smart-home forensics, metadata killings, and Archive Team's non-consensual Tumblr scrape to ask: when did we decide that a jpeg is a photograph, that a profile is a person, that storage is memory?

The answer involves a boat off Honolulu, the early days of Signal, Iran's missiles over Amazon's Dubai AWS facilities, and the communities already building for a world where the server goes dark. This is an essay about infrastructure, memory, archiving without consent, and what we lose when we mistake the filesystem for memory.

It is also the angriest and most personal text I've ever written. I'm furious, and you should be too. We bet an entire civilisation on a brutal and unreliable stack. Now, fate has come to collect that wager.

California has a lot to fucking answer for.

https://newdesigncongress.org/en/pub/who-will-remember-us-when-the-servers-go-dark/

Google: app developers, pls follow our icon guidelines 🥺

Also Google: lol we’re replacing your designers' work with AI slop 🖕

https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/devices/pixel/march-2026-pixel-drop/#:~:text=Generate%20custom%20icons%20that%20suit%20your%20home%20screen

#Android #slop #AIslop #iconDesign #design

YES! This is AMAZING! 🎉

Keep pushing against abusive practices, and keep fighting for your privacy rights!

IT WORKS! ✊🔒

https://9to5mac.com/2026/02/24/discord-just-canceled-its-planned-age-verification-rollout-for-now/

Edit: Just to be clear, I still encourage everyone to move to better platforms and delete your Discord accounts (even if there was no age verification at all). Discord isn't a privacy-respectful platform.

But this small victory means we should keep pushing for better privacy practices, everywhere.

This means they are listening. This means you have the power to make things better, for yourself and for others.

Celebrate that. And keep pushing back.

#Privacy #AgeVerification #Discord #PrivacyWin

RE: https://vis.social/@infobeautiful/116109430224379547

So let me get this straight:

- Solar panels are more efficient and easier to install.
- They're becoming shockingly cheap, like TVs.
- They last much longer than expected.
- They provide unexpected environmental benefits.

That's a done deal.

#Solarpunk

Wow...

Feb 14, 2026
- a NYT front page for future history books.