I'm considering all the time Abraham Lincoln spent reading in his youth (one of the more documented examples of his time). That was offset by splitting fence rails, tending livestock. and generally getting done all the things that pre-industrial life required on a daily basis. Even as one famous for his bookishness, Abe spent very little of his day consuming media, for fun or otherwise.

Compare that to the amount of time spent on media consumption today. Seriously?!?

I think the main complaint here is that "books" are not being read, ignoring all other forms of media. That's fine, I prefer reading to watching myself. I read hundreds of actual books a year, and have for decades. Almost all are for fun, and the form nowadays is almost always an ebook.

While I do agree with Mark Twain ("A person who does not read has no advantage over one who cannot read"), I would substitute "learn". Whether learning from a well-researched and written book (fiction or non), or from an artfully-crafted entertainment video or documentary, learning should be the result.

Yes, most "content" is garbage. We get what we ask for, after all. If you doubt that, create a new online persona that inquires only about classical literature, and see what kind of suggestions populate your news feeds.

Reading for Fun? Absolutely my preference. But then, I never got hooked on TikTok. Crack either, for that matter, as though there were a difference.

So all the passengers in the US Administration Clown Car are now required to cancel previous footwear contracts.

New shoes will be single-sourced from "a great American Company.".

In other news, the Trump Family Foundation has announced a major investment in the Hey Dude shoe company.

With 20+ years in US Federal Court IT, I can confirm that there were a couple of times when serious 'data loss' did occur. However, in no case did it take more than a few days to be restored and back in service. At the same time, I know there have been multiple cases of unrecoverable data loss in local courts, as well as the (unconfirmed by me) rumor of a serious incident in one state court system.

In the past, each federal court district was entirely self-contained data wise, with nationally managed backup systems. Over the past decade, it has become just another cloud-based service-by-contractor, with the best security and resilience promises can buy.

Given the constant budget cuts and increasing federal fondness for outsourcing and contractor reliance, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before headlines are made. With the entire federal court system now in a single (replicated) basket, the risk of data loss or exposure is greatly magnified. While a previous problem might have affected only the Northern District of North Dakota, for example, it's now all or nothing.

Microsoft is also providing these same sensitive data management 'services' to 100% of the Federal Judiciary, and many of the Executive branch departments.

Yes, including the department of Commerce. Nothing to see here, pay no attention to the helpful manager.

All your base are belong to us.

My favorite of the genre (OK, I've only been to two) was Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale. Between them and Halted Supply Company, there was so much to imagine making use of.

Both of those are gone now, of course.

I bought a console table with an embedded 8" trackball (from an old radar station) and spent weeks trying to make use of it. Never found a way to, but I enjoyed the attempt. For all the chatter about 'maker culture' and such, I think the earlier comment about technology moving too fast for surplus to be pretty telling.

OTOH, people are clumping 2Gb flash drives into a "Terrabyte external SSD" by wrapping them in a plastic case, so I guess there is life in some surplus, even today.