Hey ho, geeks. Music, with Zeal and Ardor.

On the news:

• [fr] Science étonnante #57 - Une IA peut-elle être créative ?
• Derek Sivers: Benefits of a daily diary and topic journals.
• Reminder: H&R Block and Intuit lobby against free and simple tax filing (2017). Via HN.
• A cool collection of 4th wall-breaking comics, via Kottke.
• Kottke: Aero Mexico trolls xenophobic americans with “DNA discounts” commercial, fucking great marketing here.
• SMBC: Sociologists should never be allowed to make movies.
• Tech stuff:
  • Daniel Glazman: WebExtensions v3 considered harmful, good summary.
  • Bryan Cantrill: Is it time to rewrite the Operating System in Rust? Cool OS history lesson, entertaining presentation, and good observations on Rust. Talk in r/rust and HN.
  • Bloomberg: Google urged the U.S. to limit protection for activist workers. HN.
  • Gizmodo - Kashmir Hill: I tried to block Amazon from my life; it was impossible. Via Kottke. The level of convenience-o-dependence of a lot of americans on Amazon is batshit crazy:

    Like millions of other Americans, we use a lot of Amazon products in our house. We have an Echo, an Echo Dot, two Kindles, two Amazon Prime Chase credit cards, Amazon Prime Video on our TV, and two Prime accounts. (Note to self: Why are my husband and I each paying Amazon $119/year?)

    So, suffice to say, Amazon is getting a good chunk of my money and a lot of my data. I alone average about $3,000 a year in purchases on Amazon.com. I’ve become such a loyal shopper that I barely know where else to go online to buy things. It’s the first place I head when I need something, anything—sheets, diapers, toilet paper, a Halloween costume, Bluetooth headphones, roulette cufflinks for a friend who likes to gamble. Basically, anytime I need a random material object, I open up the Amazon app on my phone.

    That is a continuing revelation for me this week: Amazon is deeply embedded in my life. I use it repeatedly every single day whether I realize it or not. Without it, I cannot function normally.