Smalltimore

Rest in peace Om Malik

From his family:

Om Malik passed away on June 24, 2026, at Stanford Hospital after a long health journey with his heart. He was surrounded by family and friends.

I’ve been reading and listening to Om for the better part of 2 decades. He was always a grounded, rational, and passionate voice regarding in tech journalism. His writing was something I made it a point to set aside time to read. This news puts his last post about taking some time off in a new context.

He seemed like a kind and genuine human and my condolences to his friends and family.

I have an iPhone 14 Pro. It serves me well. I have had no issues with it. It’s purple. I haven’t thought about upgrading until at least next year, but with RAMageddon causing everything to get more expensive, do I bite the bullet and upgrade to a 17 Pro?

Watched: Widow’s Bay Season 1 📺

We finished season 1 of Widow’s Bay last week and I thought the season was enjoyable. The premise of the show it fun and the cast is great. I wasn’t expecting such a big cliff hanger to end a season, but looking forward to season 2.

Watched: Happy Gilmore 2 🍿

It was 2 hours of cameos and enjoyable silliness. Just what I was looking forward to watching tonight.

There’s a lot to be critical about the New York Times and their reporting, but I’m a big fan of the multimedia articles they do. Here’s one illustrating just how much more deadly cars have become to pedestrians.

I’ll admit that during the first Trump administration I was disappointed in his ability to get elected, but figured he wouldn’t get much accomplished due to our institutions. There’s still two and a half years left of Trump 2.0 and I’m terrified about what we could have at the end of it–if it even ends.

We’re in the middle of a rolling coup. That’s not hyperbole. It’s not being dramatic. It’s not Trump Derangement Syndrome. It’s the truth. It has been carefully planned and is being systematically executed to slowly destroy institutions that have been meant to protect our Democracy. Any other explanation is from someone with their head in the sand.

From the article:

On September 25, 2025, the president signed a directive called a National Presidential Security Memorandum known as NPSM-7 (titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence”). Its language designates as targets of federal counterterrorism authorities Americans whose sponsors are labeled “anti-American,” “anti-capitalist,” “anti-Christian,” or “hostile to traditional American views on family, religion and morality.” No statute authorizes the federal government to treat protected political speech as terrorism; NPSM-7 does it anyway.

and

…he is seeking yet more funding for what appears to be his private army of ICE and Border Patrol agents to be deployed in numerous target states, at airports, and at urban polling places in the states he lost in the 2024 election, where he has now begun to seize voter rolls and ballots.

and

Political prisons, a domestic army, control of the military’s legal apparatus, the seizure of voter rolls, and much more presage the potential declaration of a national crisis and the implementation of various of the President’s Emergency Action Documents (PEADS).

We’re all frogs slowly boiling in ultra conservative, christo-fascism water and probably much closer to that boiling point that the vast majority of us realize. Scary times.

At the end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked what had been created. “A republic, if you can keep it,” he answered.

I’m not so sure we have the political will or want to keep it anymore.

✅Signed up for pride event
✅Signed up for league
✅Signed up for Urban Open
✅Bought axe raffle tickets for charity

This has been a very expensive week for axe throwing.

*Insert Tiger King meme*

Post-voting stop at Ale Mary’s for some natty bohs. 🍺

AI Economics for Dummies - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Number 4 is all MBAs.

I’m an Apple Music user for 95% of my music listening needs, but at work I use Spotify. The names for the daylist mixes are always something. This morning’s is one for the books: