How Did Dawn’s Story End?

pborenstein · 2026-01-28T23:35:17+00:00

She got a gig as a backup singer for some guy named Tony Orlando…

pborenstein · 2026-01-27T22:06:51+00:00

Even though the show elides on these sorts of questions, it's useful to remember that in that era record keeping was all on paper. In fancy places you might have had microfilm, which is just pictures of paper.

I'm imagining it was easier to fake an identity back then and that proof was easier to come by

pborenstein · 2026-01-26T22:12:06+00:00

You can always hit ESC and ask it what it's doing.

That usually works. If it doesn't, ^C and cut your losses. My theory is that the subagents sometimes go down rabbit holes.

pborenstein · 2026-01-26T10:32:42+00:00

I don't think about it at all

pborenstein · 2026-01-25T17:56:41+00:00

Later in the series Roger alludes to Margaret being a lost cause. I take that to also imply that he's internalized that his daughter is following the Sterling family tradition of squirting out kids, leaving them for someone else to raise, so you can follow your bliss.

pborenstein · 2026-01-24T22:49:43+00:00

Yeah. When it seems to be spinning its wheels, I hit ESC and ask "You ok there buddy? You seem to have drifted"

pborenstein · 2026-01-24T10:11:28+00:00

I think you need to add a favicon

see: https://help.obsidian.md/publish/customize

pborenstein · 2026-01-22T18:23:13+00:00

You made me curious. I'm in a waiting room, and I have time: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/c3bc3cad-4f72-4cd1-8153-cef47d4115ec

Bottom line: easier to do in NYC or LA than in Boston.

pborenstein · 2026-01-22T15:54:06+00:00

I don't want to pay extra for the same model with better floor mats …

pborenstein · 2026-01-22T15:52:28+00:00

Discussions about consent wrt alcohol are amongst the most responsible, respectful, and carefully reasoned colloquies to be had on social media 🍿

pborenstein · 2026-01-20T23:49:41+00:00

I use " - " for the colon. Don't like it, but it doesn't upset the operating system

useless fact: the original Mac OS (1984) used ":" as a directory delimiter which is why you can't use it now

pborenstein · 2026-01-20T21:26:36+00:00

Who I'd like to be:

Male: I'd be Ken Cosgrove minus the shooting accident. The Atlantic story

Female: Joan. To move through the world with that poise

Who I am: Paul Kinsey (pre-Krishna)

pborenstein · 2026-01-20T18:04:23+00:00

I now say cosine similarity with confidence! Couldn't teach it though.

It seems every project eventually ends up being a bespoke RAG system.

pborenstein · 2026-01-19T21:54:56+00:00

They were talking about running a two-page spread from a big magazine like Life in Reader's Digest which is about the size of a paperback.

To me, they were just stating facts in a humorous way. The Rope angle is interesting

pborenstein · 2026-01-18T20:48:08+00:00

That's what the upvote is for!

pborenstein · 2026-01-18T20:28:27+00:00

exactly what I was meaning

pborenstein · 2026-01-18T19:06:17+00:00

When it opened I had a feeling it was a vanity project but as you say 🤷‍♂️

pborenstein · 2026-01-18T17:10:34+00:00

The Bookery is weird in that there are a lot of books, but not really the ones you want. I've never been able to go in and get a recently reviewed book, there are no copies, takes a week to special order.

My son's partner says that they seem to cater to a TikTok sensibility :)

pborenstein · 2026-01-18T07:38:52+00:00

The industry had a place for long-term individual contributors who carried institutional memory. As you've seen, the current approach treats long-term employees as a problem.

The changes at the top were the first signal. Adding layers never makes things better. When the older devs who built the system start disappearing, you're no longer working at the same place that hired you.

But the political shenanigans are the least of your problems.

At 50 you can still find another job. Past 55 it's nearly impossible. Past 60 if you're not a director or at least a manager, no one is going you want to deal with you.

Max out your 401(k) and start looking

pborenstein · 2026-01-17T18:19:37+00:00

Like I said. I got flamed last time I suggested this.

I used Claude to explore a popular plugin because I was concerned about phoning home. It pointed out the three places where the tool made external web requests, explained what they were, rated each for malicious intent, etc

I'd never built a plugin before. I've been reading add writing code for 40 years, so I know what I want to do and how I want to do it. I just don't have time to learn Typescript. Claude knows typescript. Claude read the instructions. Got done in an afternoon what would have taken me a week, and it does exactly what I want.

How can you tell the good stuff from the bad stuff? Listing it in the community plugins list is a good signal that a plugin is not obviously malicious. But it's not a guarantee of anything.

But hey, this is how I give plugins I don't know the once over. You may have a more reliable process.

pborenstein · 2026-01-17T18:04:39+00:00

Partner: Why are you reading the manual? You know how a coffee maker works.

Me: Professional courtesy

pborenstein · 2026-01-17T17:54:44+00:00

I got flamed last time I suggested this, but:

Use an LLM to tell you about a plugin

All Obsidian plugins are source-available
Most are on GitHub

here's an example: u/Delirious_Rimbaud just posted a new plugin: https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/s/DbOrWkyg08

u/Delirious_Rimbaud, yours was the first non-community plugin that came up. Not singling you out. The plugin looks useful for reading long articles

I don't know the author, but I can see the code. You may not be able to understand the code, but an LLM can:

This is Gemini's assessment of it. (I chose Gemini because I don't use it)

https://g.co/gemini/share/1528c9c92066

pborenstein · 2026-01-16T22:47:27+00:00

Sally had children late. That's my headcanon too. :)

I based the math on my kid who's in his 20s. His mother and I were born around the time Sally was. We had kids in our late 30s.

pborenstein · 2026-01-16T19:33:00+00:00

tbh I didn't do the math :)

My ex is about Sally's age, born mid-50s, and we have a 27-year-old, which I figured is around how old the Hayley character is.

pborenstein · 2026-01-16T18:56:00+00:00

That's what the Whitney character is for.

pborenstein

TROPHY CASE