to shoot the wall clock make it stop, better yet, keep backing up slowly
It’s not so comic the way that clocks race themselves with us in fragile tow and it’s not enough to say “What are we waiting for?” or “Why are we holding back?” though that might occur to us later.
We are far less capable of those radical emotional moves advocated by magazines that specialize in puddle-deep psychologisms, the usual seven steps to a victorious emotional life, as if we could put ourselves on a figurative grease rack or automated assembly line for overhaul.
It was all so ordinary though I wanted to shoot the wall clock, over and over. Anything to make it stop or, better yet, keep backing up slowly.
From True North by Jim Harrison (New York, Grove Press, 2004).
I woke from a dream the other morning where all was as it was when I was a kid on the shore of Lake Michigan.
It was a disappointment when I woke and realized it was a dream.
It was all so ordinary though I wanted to shoot the wall clock, over and over.
Anything to make it stop or, better yet, keep backing up slowly.
You can’t can you?
It’s not so comic the way that clocks race themselves with us in fragile tow and it’s not enough to say “What are we waiting for?” or “Why are we holding back?” though that might occur to us later.
state is stronger with vibrant parties, stronger when have clash of ideas
“I believe that our state is stronger with vibrant parties. I think we, as a whole, are stronger when we have a clash of ideas. I think that’s true at the national level. I think it’s true at the state level. We are stronger when we have a clash of ideas and we can discuss those policy goals,” Massey said at the time.
“Republicans are stronger when the Democrat Party is vibrant and viable.”
The split is about where the agent lives, not what it does
Strip away the branding, and Spark and OpenClaw do roughly the same job. Watch an inbox, draft the status update, browse the web, run the recurring task. Both are converging on MCP for tool connectivity, though the implementations differ in maturity. Both promise the assistant who does things rather than answers questions.
The substrate decides who holds your context, who sees your credentials, and who can change the terms later.
The difference is the substrate. OpenClaw runs on the metal you bought. Spark runs on metal Google rents to you and never names. That sounds like a deployment detail. It is actually the whole argument. The substrate decides who holds your context, who sees your credentials, and who can change the terms later.
Convenience usually wins this fight, and Google knows it
The self-hosted version asks for real work. Buy the Mac mini, keep it awake, install a daemon, set up Tailscale, and rotate the key when it expires. The reward is control. Your credentials and workflows can stay under your own hand, depending on how you wire up models and integrations. That control is not the same as safety. A misconfigured local agent with shell, browser, and inbox access is its own hazard, and Chinese regulators have already flagged exactly that risk with OpenClaw.
Spark asks for nothing. It is already inside Gmail, Docs, and Sheets, with no manual wiring, because Google owns both ends. That out-of-the-box reach is the structural advantage no third-party agent can copy. The history here is fairly settled. Dropbox beat the home NAS. Gmail beat the mail server. Managed nearly always beats self-hosted for the median user, because most people will trade control for not having to think about it.
According to his bio on THENEWSTACK, Janakiram MSV (Jani) is a practicing architect, research analyst, and advisor to Silicon Valley startups. He focuses on the convergence of modern infrastructure powered by cloud-native technology and machine intelligence driven by generative AI. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he spent over a decade as a product manager and technology evangelist at Microsoft Corporation and Amazon Web Services. Janakiram regularly writes for Forbes, InfoWorld, and The New Stack, covering the latest from the technology industry. He is an international keynote speaker for internal sales conferences, product launches, and user conferences hosted by technology companies of all sizes. His previous experience includes Microsoft, AWS, Gigaom Research and Alcatel-Lucent.
I have been working in the online world since 1995.
I just read what Mr. Janakiram MSV wrote.
And I want you know, I don’t know what it means either.
At least I think I don’t.
After reading it 4 times, I am afraid a lot of what Mr. Janakiram MSV says seems to start making sense.
So, maybe, I do not think that I do not know what it means.
In a way, I find that just as scary.
But that one line ….
because most people will trade control for not having to think about it.
Somehow I think it reaches a lot more topics than just this one.
land and people hold memories they keep old things that never grow old
The land and the people hold memories, even among the anthills and the angleworms, among the toads and woodroaches — among gravestone writings rubbed out by the rain —they keep old things that never grow old.
Adapted from the poem, Cornhuskers by Carl Sandburg, as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace & Co: New York, 1950).
That’s $1.8 billion of your tax dollars potentially going into a slush fund to reward President Trump’s loyalists.
“Designed to provide payments to Americans who claim to be victims of what he describes as government weaponization.”
In one-dollar bills, that would stack more than 100 miles.
And if it were split evenly among the Jan. 6 rioters, each one would receive more than $1 million.
The administration says it’s just —— “Reimbursing people that were horribly treated ——” “Compensating Americans for the lawfare that we saw under the last administration.”
That is false.
The American people should be furious that Trump’s allies could get paid a pile of tax money that’s around the amount that the president cut from health research last year.
This is the opinion of the New York Times editorial board.
Lets be clear about one thing I have only lately come to understand.
Holding the office of President of the United States is just the means to which the goal can be achieved.
The Presidency is incidental to the plan of the people who maintain that man currently in office … in office.
I have LONG said, however, that I can only explain that the hangers-on of the man currently in office, hang on, hang on to the bitter end, only in hopes that by staying near to his universe, there may, someday, be a paycheck or a tip.
It is the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket WHEN BUYING A LOTTERY TICKET is possibly the best use of your retirement plans.
In that respect, I can understand the motivation.
I can understand the motivation, but I have to question the cost.
The sell out.
It is bad and its getting worse but DING DING DING, the long hoped for payoff is on the horizon.
As the Editorial Board closes their opinion piece, “Trump is showing that he will use his power to protect people who break the law on his behalf, and even reward them for it.”
AND BELIEVE ME, this is just the start.
I cannot imagine the extent to which further payoffs will be coming as that current man in office tries to buy his way out of the mid terms (if he becomes so inclined to save the republican party) or further problems for himself and his money.
He has already achieved immunity from the Supreme Court for anything he does while currently holding office.
He had now achieved immunity from the IRS.
You remember the IRS?
That was who finally got Al Capone for failure to pay taxes.
Well, that man currently in office has eliminated that worry for himself.
I am convinced that despite his name being plastered on everything, really cares nothing for his place in history.
Its his money money money.
If anything bothers him, its the headlines that that Musk feller may soon become the world’s first Trillionaire.
Besides that though, he loves money and he will use money to get more money.
The American people should be furious.
Yet for so many, betting on that current man in office is the best hope they have.
Despite the sell out.
Despite knowing better.
As Tom Sawyer said to Huckleberry Finn (and yes I have used this quote before and I will use it again):
“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.”
