As China moves forward with EVs, the rest of the world finds themselves in battle for second place with legacy ICE cars. Good luck with this Detroit (and Stuttgart and Wolfsburg).

China floods the world with gasoline cars it can’t sell at home

Was thinking about the Japanese Fifth Generation Computer Systems project of the 1980s. It was a very large project aimed at producing an AI Supercomputer. It is all but forgotten today. It did shake up the US computer industry, which feared the Japanese would do to the computer market what they had done to the automobile market in the 1970s (produce a better, cheaper product). MCC in Austin was formed as a direct reaction to the Japanese FGSC.

Has anyone questioned Kristy Noem about this?

Rio Rancho dog shot 5 times during daily walk, suspect at large

I am a big fan of the writer Denis Johnson. His novella Train Dreams has been made into a movie. While I haven’t seen the movie yet (I have read the book) it comes highly recommended. A good review from Slash Film.

Train Dreams Review: One Of 2025’s Best Films Needs To Break Free Of The Netflix Algorithm

Often called Balcony Solar, small scale (1kW) systems can make a real difference to individuals and to energy grids. From Clean Technica.

The People’s Solar: How Plug-In Solar Could Bring Affordable Energy To 60 Million Americans

I woke up this morning with the name Ed de Castro in my head. Edson de Castro was the founder of late 1970s minicomputer company Data General. It was in the Boston area, where I did my undergrad in the early 1980s, so it was a familiar corporate name. I believe Ed de Castro even gave a large donation to my school when I was there. Years later, I learned my lab tech was a Data General employee and stayed in touch with Ed de Castro. But I didn’t really have any personal connection to him.

De Castro and Data General are mostly remembered for being the subject of Tracy Kidders Pulitzer Prize winning book The Soul of a New Machine. It documented the strange new world of tech start-ups, where vast new fortunes were being created and the world was being changed. We all read Soul of a New Machine as undergrads.

I googled Ed deCastro this morning and saw that he died recently. I didn’t see any mention of his passing.

But I did run across the short memoir from and early Data General employee, the former head of software and founder of Stratus Technologies. Not much was really written about the reality of these early rocket ride companies. I really enjoyed this bit of history.

Data General: The Fair Bastards

Was taking the trash out and noticed a faint red glow in the sky. Once my eyes adjusted to the dark, it was definitely a glow. Noticed some green on the side. It went away but came back around 10pm when I took a few photos.

From Scott H. Young.

102 Lessons from the 102 Books I Read This Year

Do you wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep? It might be the “normal” way humans sleep.

The forgotten medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’