I won a 5 boxes of mac & cheese as a bingo prize (https://www.cafe-aurora.com/events/bingo-night-e364y).

now fully prepared to host a horizontal mac&cheese tasting.

(best name and box design goes to "Goodles Smokey Dokey" gouda: https://www.goodles.com/products/smokey-dokey/)

#OrcasIsland

hi from Eastsound on Orcas Island. highlights so far: Zumba at Oddfellows Hall (https://lifeonorcasisland.com/i-love-zumba-with-alyson-stephens/), pinball with Tony at Tiltshift (https://tiltshiftorcas.com/pinball/), and field research for my forthcoming monograph "Breakfast Burritos of the San Juan Archipelago."

#OrcasIsland

learning to harmonize a song in A Aeolian, with a little help from Claude

I'm a completely satisfied #FastMail customer. the company culture that led to this policy and blog post is a good example why: https://www.fastmail.com/blog/not-written-with-ai/

Ask me about submitting FTC complaints back in 2016-2018 when I tweeted these screenshots of Amazon darkpatterns: https://x.com/troyd/status/765560428663443456, https://x.com/troyd/status/902673505157648384

did complaints that long ago make any difference? I have no idea. in 2023, the FTC sued Amazon, and today they settled: "Amazon to Pay $2.5 Billion to Settle Claims It Tricked Prime Customers" https://archive.ph/Y5fPd

#darkpatterns #ux

My friend Lee rafted down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Here's what that's like: https://leelefever.com/rafting-the-colorado-river-in-the-grand-canyon/

when Trader Joe's changes the Mediterranean hummus recipe:
https://old.reddit.com/r/traderjoes/comments/1k8hrw2/please_tell_me_they_havent_changed_the_recipe_for/

https://old.reddit.com/r/traderjoes/comments/1k6jsnh/they_changed_the_mediterranean_hummus/

(yes, the new recipe sucks. seems like it contains a lot less tahini - I assume to keep the cost down. hummus enshittification is a thing…)

about to finish my "collectable vintage ice cream" - Frankie & Jo's seasonal Salty Lime & Watermelon, best by Jan 30, 2022.

looks like I bought this pint August 2021… and have been eating it for 4 years. tastes the same.

Frankie & Jo's only made this flavor once. now they tend towards overly-sweet flavors like everyone else.

Does anyone in Seattle still make truly weird ice cream flavors? Kryse's weekly concoctions were my favorites: https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/handcrafted-experimental-flavors-of-ice-cream-debut-each-week-from-new-pop-up-business/

#seattle #icecream

good explanation of Reddit platform manipulation at scale: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheseFuckingAccounts/comments/1kvzeit/how_paradise_media_hijacked_10_top_subredditsand/#mudfjq3

(also see the parent post: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheseFuckingAccounts/comments/1kvzeit/how_paradise_media_hijacked_10_top_subredditsand/ . plenty more examples in r/TheseFuckingAccounts)

Reddit is just as manipulated as any other social media site, it's just harder to spot - and harder to get Reddit to act.

#privacy

while I'm dreaming of #Firefox features (https://mas.to/@troyd/114541174025895562), how about "Copy visible link"?

Firefox has "Copy clean link" (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1924493). That requires Mozilla to maintain a list of query parameters to strip. It's already outdated; it doesn't even strip Google's "srsltid" param.

I'd settle for a "Copy visible URL." On sites like Google Images that use JS to display one URL when hovering, yet actually link to a different URL, it would copy the URL visible in the status bar.

Anyone know how #Cloudflare avoids blowback from proxying web sites for so many scammers and spammers? Nearly every phishing scammer or spammer links to a Cloudflare-proxied site.

CF makes it all but impossible to report these via their abuse@ alias (weeks later, your report *might* be read) and annoying to use the web form.

More than that, it's the same scammers misusing CF on different throwaway domains. Their service & onboarding creates a negative externality for the rest of us.

"From Nobel buzz to hiring halt: Trump funding cuts hobble UW protein design startup machine": https://www.geekwire.com/2025/from-nobel-buzz-to-hiring-halt-trump-funding-cuts-hobble-uw-protein-design-startup-machine/

#seattle

Rudy Boysen's granddaughter's farm is holding its annual online sale of boysenberry plants today: https://www.rudysoriginal.com/bare-root-boysenberry-plant/

3 for $25. they'll sell out in the next 24 hours.

these are the most vigorous boysenberries I've seen. if you love berries, can plant in full sun (6+ hours/day), and can tolerate the thorniest of thorny plants, these are for you.

#boysenberries #yoloberryfarm

my picks for canned, unsweetened sparkling water, in no particular order:

La Croix Passionfruit

Polar Ginger Lime Mule

Polar Tart Cherry Limeade

La Croix "Curate" Múre Pepino (Blackberry Cucumber)