Notices by Andy Baio (andybaio@xoxo.zone)

@annika

Nilay Patel frames The Verge’s endorsement of Kamala Harris around collective action problems: issues that require curbing the selfish behavior of individuals/companies for a greater good. Climate change, vaccines, school shootings, income inequality, tech/AI harms. https://www.theverge.com/24282022/kamala-harris-endorsement-presidential-election-2024

“Our Silicon Valley billionaires … are all trying to protect or create their very own empires, and they are funding, supporting, or at least accepting of Trump’s strongman instincts because they each understand how it will benefit them individually, even though it will cost us all much more.”

@clarity 100% accurate, I was in the bathroom

Holy crap, @xoxo starts today?! Opening party and Arcade tonight, doors open at 7pm! See you there, #xoxofest! https://xoxofest.com/2024/schedule/

✨ it’s happening ✨ #xoxofest

Kind of Bloop is getting a surprise vinyl edition for its 15th anniversary this week, the weird little chiptune album that sparked a big legal fight, but also led to meeting @andymcmillan and starting @xoxo together. Preorders start Saturday 9am PT. https://waxy.org/2024/08/kind-of-bloop-15th-anniversary-vinyl/

The last XOXO starts two weeks from today! After five years, time to break out the ol’ #xoxofest hashtag.

I just caught a scammer! I listed an old couch for free on Craigslist, and some guy responded right away saying he wanted it. He kept changing the pickup times (not that unusual for CL) but then said he was on his way. At the time he was supposed to arrive, he said he couldn't pick it up after all. "Hey, so we couldn’t pick this up so we ended up finding someone to pickup, just charged them a finders fee. We told them they could pay us after it’s picked up through Venmo / Zelle!" What? No. [1/2]

@clarity

@clarity Isn’t it great?! So clever.

Hank Green posted a video today about why outsiders with little experience in governing should not run for President, even if they're famous and they can win. It's a good video, but the reason I'm posting about it is a short exchange I saw in the comments... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYA3hOzxYeo

Isn't it weird that there are no requirements to run for President besides being at least 35 years old, a natural-born citizen, and a U.S. resident for 14 years? The screening process to become a U.S. citizen is far more rigorous, but anyone born here that's rich and famous enough is somehow qualified to run the country, even if they don't know how a bill becomes a law.

In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the Electoral College would act as a safeguard against unqualified candidates becoming president. He thought it'd be possible for a rich famous asshole to leverage their popularity to become a governor or state legislator, but surely they wouldn't be able to fool enough electors to become President! Whoops. https://ballotpedia.org/Federalist_No._68_by_Alexander_Hamilton_(1788)

Cloudflare launched a one-click option to block known AI bots, crawlers, and scrapers. https://blog.cloudflare.com/declaring-your-aindependence-block-ai-bots-scrapers-and-crawlers-with-a-single-click

Wow, @mwichary's Config presentation about the history of pixel fonts is so great, with some of the most impressive visuals I've ever seen in a conference talk. Don't miss the live demo where audience members design a thousand new pixel letters using a custom browser tool loaded from a QR code, which Marcin then manipulates and visualizes real-time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDI8ubVZi7w

I last updated my LinkedIn in 2014 and it continues to pay dividends.

This captcha used by FinCEN at fincen.gov is so convoluted, it's almost art.

I don’t know how else to describe this, but parts of downtown St. Louis smell distinctly like a used bookstore. Like a room stuffed full of musty aging books and yellowing magazines.

if you have any theories why, I’m all ears.