"Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus," Jonathan Rauch argues. "'Fascist' best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse." theatln.tc/wVq7MFaa
Mark Davis
@macchiato.com
Unicode/CLDR/ICU Co-founder. Google i18n. Travel, food (incl. pastry crawls), film, SFF, stealth video games. Fan of Switzerland (there 10+ years)
Tell me you don’t understand risk pools without telling me you don’t understand risk pools
I'll be doing an AMA at this year's Unicode Technology Workshop (www.unicode.org/events/utw/2...) on Thursday, Nov. 13. I'd welcome any questions at forms.gle/7HXm4u7J8TPs... — Unicode encoding, properties, algorithms, localization support (CLDR), code (ICU) — anything but politics!
Unicode Technology Workshop 2025
Event program for the Unicode Technology Workshop 2025, Nov. 11-13, hosted at Microsoft at its Silicon Valley campus
unicode.org
Some news: Psyched to announce that I'm joining @thebulwark.com as economics editor next month. I'm currently still on mat leave, but will return to co-hosting @theweekendprime.bsky.social as well soon. crampell.substack.com/p/nu-news
Nu, News
I'm joining The Bulwark as Economics Editor.
crampell.substack.com
My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.
Looking forward to finding out more about this www.npr.org/2025/07/05/n...
How this long-lost Chinese typewriter from the 1940s changed modern computing
The concepts in the MingKwai typewriter underlie how Chinese, Japanese and Korean are typed today. The typewriter, patented in 1946, was found last year in an upstate New York basement.
npr.org
Fun to be on the panel with Teresa, Roy, and Anushah at the Computer History Museum. Good discussion, good questions — www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcuy...
CHM Live | Character Building: Bridging Code and Culture through Unicode
YouTube video by Computer History Museum
youtube.com
So happy for @marthawells.com and all the rest of us that Murderbot the TV series is now out in the world!
Excited to be speaking at the upcoming event (May 13, 2025). There are always good questions about Unicode and language support. computerhistory.org/events/chara...
Character Building
While many of us can seamlessly text and type in our native language, millions around the world lack that ability. Most living languages are not fully supported on digital platforms, raising a critica...
computerhistory.org
What’s happening in Los Angeles’s ports suggests that financial markets have yet to fully price in how much Trump’s tariff war is hurting the economy, @juliettekayyem.bsky.social writes. “The stock market goes up and down. Maritime indicators keep on sinking”:
Don’t Look at Stock Markets. Look at the Ports.
A drop in maritime traffic suggests that the worst is yet to come.
bit.ly
Very interesting evening, and surprisingly funny, especially when Klein was channeling a Nimby liberal. sfstandard.com/2025/03/27/e...
Ezra Klein groupies turn out in abundance for a night of hot wonk action
Hundreds of San Franciscans swarmed the Sydney Goldstein Theater Wednesday to think deeply about housing policy and deregulation — and to thirst after Ezra Klein.
search.app
Head to Japan on vacation; my wife's first visit. A long time since I've been there — my first extended visits were when we did the first Kanji Macintosh
Very kind words — and accent bombs as an added 🎁
🌶️ ennifer 🌒aniel@jenniferdaniel.bsky.social · 2y agoI owe so much of my second career in technology and communication to Mark Davis who is a true creative genius. He has done so much to make the Internet what it is today including but not limited to making it possible to do T̷͓̺̹̼̬̟̺̫͍́̆̈́̈́̒͆͑̀̏̈́̄́̏̌͛̊̚͝ͅh̷͖͈̤̖͊̈̉̚ï̷̛̖͚͖̝̖̰̘̭̲͖̟̦̩̟̯̘͇̐̊͐̍̊̿͒̌̔̾̔̅͆͘͜s̴̫̬͖̩̝͙̈͑̌̈́͂̈́̀̌̍̽̊̈́̽̓̊̃͌͋̅̓̆͘͝͠
Hard to pick out our waymo out of the 9 !! coming down the block at the same time.
Let’s take a quick look at LOTR from Sauron’s perspective, where it resembles nothing so much as a counter-espionage spy thriller.
“In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy,” Hitler destroyed “a constitutional republic through constitutional means,” writes Timothy W. Ryback. Read about how Hitler overcame democracy in just 53 days:
How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days
He used the constitution to shatter the constitution.
theatlantic.com
"…, there seems to be an agreement that the ‘90s were the zenith of prosperity and happiness." and later "When people say the ‘90s was a golden age, it’s possible they’re just stupid, but …" open.substack.com/pub/matthewy...
The '90s weren't that great
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be
open.substack.com
Having lived in both places, I've seen first-hand how much better the initiative/referendum process is in Switzerland. What California can learn from the place that invented the initiative - POLITICO search.app/bDKypMJw8wHv...
What California can learn from the place that invented the initiative
Our California ballot-measure reporter heads to Switzerland on the 150th anniversary of its first federal referendum to see what a state mad about direct democracy can take away from the country that ...
search.app
Someone, please, find me an article I can write where I can include this! I NEED to include this in something!
Crypto’s Legacy Is Finally Clear An anti-establishment technology for an anti-establishment age By Charlie Warzel via The Atlantic archive.ph/HR1Iy
Having experienced for 10+ years the medical system in Switzerland (one that is not single-payer), this makes a lot of sense.
Noahpinion@noahpinion.blogsky.venki.dev · 2y agoInsurance companies aren't the main villain of the U.S. health system
This proposed draft technical standard by my colleague @macchiato.com addresses long-standing interoperability issues with linkifying plain text. While discussing the draft, we kept running into them: in email the link was to ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/, and here アルベルト is needlessly escaped to %E3%82%…
Mark Davis@macchiato.com · 2y agoThere is a proposed draft UTS #58 Unicode Linkification, with the goal that links applied to plain text don't fail for non-ASCII characters, such as: "The page ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%... contains information about Albert Einstein." blog.unicode.org/2024/11/feed...
Finally someone who clearly explains the subjunctive in French and other romance languages — always a puzzle to me. I particularly like the section near the end with examples that could have either indicative or subjunctive, where it makes a difference in meaning. youtu.be/xdpvR3kaXaQ?...