¶I can’t share every photo here so I’ve decided to select 25 images, one for each day that is my favorite of that day but I highly encourage you to browse through the album linked above.

¶I’ve struggled for years with the question of whether or not to add a concept of photo albums to Daystream. As I’ve envisioned it, this hypothetical feature would allow a user to upload a group of related photos that would appear as a group in a day view. All your photos from a birthday party would appear as a single entry on a day view, as a mosaic or behind a cover image, for example. Adding this feature would be relatively easy from a technical standpoint and the processing and storage resources that would be required don’t appear to be deal-breakers (at least with our current number of users). So my struggle on this is not a technical or economic one.

¶I’m not sure I knew the real cause of hesitation, though, until it hit me this morning after reading this post from Adam Chandler. Turns out, it’s pretty simple — I want to be a reader, not an editor. I like reading stories that include a relatively small number of photos selected by the author as favorites (as Adam did) or representative of a point being made. Adam’s post here, which includes 30 of his favorite photos that he selected from thousands he took during his trip, allowed me to read (and view) his story, as told by him. I didn’t have to sift through a digital pile looking for photos I liked. I read his story; I didn’t have to edit it or assemble it myself. And I loved it.

¶That’s true on the other side of the story, too. As a teller of stories, I want to tell the story I want to tell. Period.

¶That being said, Adam also uploaded all of his keepers to a Flickr album, giving people the option of sifting through the pile. I suspect few people will but the people who do probably greatly appreciate Adam’s decision to make the album available.

¶So, for now, I’m not adding an album feature to Daystream. I love photography and the power of story as told by text and still images, one after another. That type of storytelling is at the core of Daystream and photo albums seem to add an extra layer that hinders that a bit. Maybe I’ll start linking to Flickr albums in a “if you’re interested, here’s the entire pile” sort of way.

¶As an aside, the WSJ article I posted about yesterday is a nice piece that uses text and a small number of snapshot-like images in an effective way to tell an interesting story. It’s well done.

¶My initial thoughts on seeing this headline were somewhat negative, wondering who controlled the decision on flag-bearers. I felt a little better after reading the actual article, learning that Lebron “has been voted by his fellow Olympians to be the Team USA flag-bearer at the opening ceremony on the River Seine on Friday in Paris.” I still have questions about how the process works, though. Was any other male athlete nominated? I really wonder if Steph’s nomination of Lebron chilled the process. Does each Olympian get one vote? How many Olympians actually voted? How is the winner selected after the vote - highest vote total?

¶Come on, ESPN. Sports journalism needs to do better.

¶China accounts for about a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. A recent drop in emissions (the first since relaxing COVID-19 restrictions), combined with the decarbonisation of the power grid, may mean the country’s emissions have peaked.

¶“With the power sector going green, emissions are set to plateau and then progressively fall towards 2030 and beyond,” CEF China energy policy analyst Xuyang Dong said.

¶This is encouraging and motivational. China appears to be doing a great job here, which is good for all of us. And we need to do better.

¶Cuba has immense potential, boasting abundant natural resources and a well-developed tourism industry. Establishing diplomatic relations between South Korea and Cuba offers substantial political and economic benefits. However, I have come across articles suggesting that these relations signify ‘isolating North Korea’ or ‘winning a system competition against North Korea,’ which is a misinterpretation. The concept of ‘competition’ between South Korea and North Korea is not applicable.

¶This interview, with a former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea from his post in Cuba, is insightful on both North Korea and Cuba. Countries seem to be lining up to establish or strengthen ties with Cuba, while our efforts to do so stalled years ago. I’m still hopeful that someday I’ll be able to travel to Cuba.

¶“Some people shy away from the word ‘motel,’ because it has a connotation of Super 8 and Motel 6,” Mr. Blood said. “But the Brooklyn crew is not afraid of a good motel,” he said referring to what he calls “young hipsters.”

¶The old beachside, mom and pop motels in Florida seem to be having a moment, too. We’ve noticed several being renovated in St. Pete Beach and assumed they were being transformed into Airbnb properties. This article has me thinking that may not be the case.

¶Those restrictions are set up through the Robots Exclusion Protocol, a decades-old method for website owners to prevent automated bots from crawling their pages using a file called robots.txt.

¶Robots.txt for the win.

¶“Major tech companies already have all of the data,” she said. “Changing the license on the data doesn’t retroactively revoke that permission, and the primary impact is on later-arriving actors, who are typically either smaller start-ups or researchers.”

¶”…that permission.”

¶AI and tech companies in general have been gaslighting everyone for years now, skipping right past the question of whether the use of publicly available information for training is copyright infringement or not. This is not a settled question, legally, and their continued efforts to portray it as such is almost certainly intentional and orchestrated.

¶Mr. Longpre said that one of the big takeaways from the study is that we need new tools to give website owners more precise ways to control the use of their data. Some sites might object to A.I. giants using their data to train chatbots for a profit, but might be willing to let a nonprofit or educational institution use the same data, he said. Right now, there’s no good way for them to distinguish between those uses, or block one while allowing the other.

¶Yes, yes, and yes. Let’s add more granular control to the Exclusion protocol, somewhere between specific bots (which currently exists) and specific content (which also exists). Something like the ability to exclude bots crawling for a certain purpose (training an AI model v. updating a search index), or bots owned or operated by a certain type of entity (commercial entity v. non-profit, or even big tech v. small shop). Implementing any of these on a technical level would require bot operators to accurately disclose information about their bot, purpose, and entity. Seems like the province of Congress and a bit of a mountain to climb. But, figuring all of this out would certainly empower content creators.

¶Startups in the U.K. raised $6.7 billion in funding during the first half of 2024, helping dethrone China and propelling the U.K. to second place globally for funds raised, according to a new report.

¶First place for the first half of 2024? The United States, “with a combined $54.8 billion raised across some 2,654 funding rounds in the first half of the year.”

¶That’s an 8x multiple.

¶Police said Hazel was driving a Dodge Charger with Jackson in the passenger seat when their car was struck by an Infiniti Q50 attempting to change lanes at a high speed. The Charger left the road and struck multiple tree stumps....Neither the driver of the Infiniti Q50 nor her two passengers…was injured. Investigators believe alcohol may have played a role in the crash, police said, adding that charges are pending.

¶It’s hard to tell what happened here, and I suspect two points from that story – the 3:14 AM time of accident and the statement that “alcohol is believed to have been a factor” – leave the impression that the athletes were drinking and caused the accident. After our drive yesterday, I wonder if they were innocent victims of racing on the highway. After all, their car “was struck by an Infiniti Q50 attempting to change lanes at a high speed.”

¶Twice yesterday, in separate incidents with different cars, a pair of cars rushed past us, weaving in and out of lanes without signals and, seemingly, without care or concern. Both pairs were clearly racing and, by my estimation, were traveling at 90+ miles per hour while the fastest of the normal traffic was doing 75 (five miles over the limit). In the moment, this was more maddening than frightening – where are the cops when you need them? – but, after reading this story and that detail about the Infiniti “attempting to change lanes at a high rate of speed,” I now appreciate the danger those racers created.

¶Turning back to the Jackson story, everyone in the Inifiniti was unscathed, of course. “[C]harges are pending,” though, so there’s that.

¶If this was caused by racing, I hope it brings some much-needed attention to this problem.

¶Keeping the Rays won’t be cheap. Losing them, though, would cost St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay even more. The time has come to tie the Rays to the city for decades. It’s time to say yes to this deal.

¶I’ve watched the Rays stadium saga for literally decades. It’s been a slog, full of ups and downs and plenty of dramas. It finally feels like there’s real momentum for keeping the team in St. Pete and building a new stadium. I’ve got my fingers crossed.