Mastodon nelson tech. Thai Boys Love shows. Tearoom NSFW. Nevada County water shortage. Wrong about GPUs. Gorton font. Little Sisyphus. DOGE team. Atkinson Hyperlegible Font. Heat pumps in US. Kottke on uspol. Pearblossom Hwy. David Hockney's A Rake's Progress. Special government employees. Alley Cat video game. Two: NSA is remarkably competent at spying, using big data and Internet technologies effectively.
A competent spy agency with no effective public oversight fundamentally threatens American freedoms. Ken and I just took a nice trip to Germany, focussed mostly on the northeastern corner on the Baltic Sea. The biggest revelation for us was the Baltic sea resorts, 19th century spas and hotels. The town of Binz has a terrific collection of nice hotels and restaurants.
Also nearby is Nationalpark Jasmund with its famous chalk cliffs, the bizarre Prora a facist beach resort built in the 30s , and the Rasender Roland beach steam train.
But the best Baltic sea experience was a last minute decision to go to the Grand Hotel Heiligendamm and its amazing gourmet restaurant Friedrich Franz. Really lovely overnight, fantastic cooking. Heiligendamm is interesting for being one of the first ever beach resorts, founded in and popular with various royalty.
Up to and including the G8 summit in Also another steam train, the Molli Bahn. And a trip down to the lake region to Schwerin. Lots of beautiful brick buildings dating from a wealthy past in the 15thth centuries. The trip was bookended by visits to Berlin and Hamburg. Berlin is amazing, particularly right now since its relatively low cost of living has attracted a vital core of artists and entrepreneurs. I think we may try to go back to spend a month living there next year.
