Doug Cook

@dbasch Interesting. It's also a thing to build data centers near nuclear power plants, presumably because energy is readily accessible, and power plants are often built in depressed areas without the political power to resist them, just like data centers.

Random people know what data centers are, and even have opinions on them. What a time to be alive.

@robertjoseph Antoinette, in Lyon

One of the rules of living in France is to have a favourite boulangerie that you *swear* is the finest in the quartier, even if you have to go out of your way to shop there. Louis Lamour's @Bouboulam on Rue Ravaz in Bordeaux ticks those boxes for me.

@wblakegray There hasn't been a single time when LeBron James has come up to me at a party and hasn't said that.

Last night I had a cocktail for the first time in more than 2 months (I was sick and couldn't drink). It was a single Negroni. I went to sleep & dreamed I was at a party in Miami and LeBron James came up to me, stuck his finger in my chest and said, "You're drinking too much."

@ntoddpax Definitely for the house with the pool, can't remember for the big house with the loft...

@ablegrape I'm trying to remember the ancient times, but I think number portability was very limited back then (w/in exchange). Was that the same number for the house with the loft and the one with the pool? (That's how things show up in my mental meta catalog.)

419 represent!

@ntoddpax That number rings oddly familiar, as does (419) 666-7708

I wonder who has the phone number I grew up with. (419) 874-1344. I do not know my children's phone numbers, but I'll never forget that one.

@dbasch @audible_com Try Storytel - don't know about their watch app, but they have been a great audiobook service in general.

So @audible_com, I canceled my subscription and I'll tell you why. I like to listen to audiobooks while I run. For years I've been trying to sync books to the Apple Watch. In 2026, it stills download only the next few minutes. It's worse than nothing because I have to pause mid-run when it stops, and find something else to listen to. Please let me know if/when you fix it for good. Until then, you've lost a customer.

This is absolutely infuriating and completely idiotic. An estimated 95,000 scientists and researchers have left federal agencies since Trump returned to the White House. These are the people tracking hurricanes, studying pediatric cancer, and modeling the climate tipping points that determine whether we can still prevent catastrophe. We lost them because this administration defunded their work, shuttered their offices, and made clear that finding out the truth is no longer a government priority. NASA’s own administrator just said studying climate change isn’t part of NASA’s mission. The agency that first warned Congress about global warming in 1988 now treats that work as a distraction. Meanwhile, China and Europe are recruiting our scientists, funding their labs, and making long-term bets on the industries of the future while we gut the research infrastructure that took generations to build. We are surrendering global scientific leadership voluntarily, deliberately, and one resignation letter at a time. nytimes.com/2026/03/25/cli…

@ntoddpax @TiminTX1967 Just hoping the species will be around in centuries to study it.

@TiminTX1967 tbf, it likely will be studied for centuries, just not for the reasons he thinks.

@EricAsimov @wblakegray It's rare, but it happens. I still remember the somm at (Michelin-starred!) Terra, in Saint Helena, who insisted a bottle of corked wine was fine, refused to replace the bottle, and when I politely insisted, refused to taste the (delicious) replacement bottle next to the first.

@wblakegray I can’t remember having a sommelier like that, in this country, at least.

They're going to hate me but ... depending on the somm, AI might be better. I'm sorry. AI will never be as good as a Master Sommelier, but they're never on the floor. I love a good somm's personal touch. But if I get some dismissive know-it-all who doesn't listen ...

@ntoddpax @iamAtheistGirl I think Lawrence pretty much wrote the story because he couldn't resist the prurient double-entendre of the man saying "I have arisen!"

@ntoddpax @iamAtheistGirl In the fiction of DH Lawrence, anyway: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Escap…

bringing jesus into a conversation about vibrators blaming the women for their husbands inability to please her christians are insufferable

@dbasch Knew you were going to say that

I think the world has never been more unpredictable. Trying to predict 2036 is like trying to predict 1980 in 1950.

He took the greatest military force in world history, lost a war to a middle power in a week, begged the world to save him, and demanded that the media lie about this and everything else. I try, but at a simple human level I do not see how anyone can mistake this man’s almost supernatural weakness for strength. His weakness is something negative, gravitational, so deep that it can draw in a whole country. But only if we fail to see it. Only if we let it.

In an attempt to explain just why it is that some 77 million Americans voted for the dumbest man alive to be their president for a second time, I’m absolutely delighted to present you with the expanded list of US food that you cannot legally sell in Europe!🧵

Donald Trump is the worst president we've ever had.

@bruceschoenfeld Need a button other than "heart" to respond to that. Why can't we have a button that means "I agree, it's totally f--ed up?"

The guy who wants the Nobel Peace Prize renamed the defense department the Department of War, killed innocent fishermen before invading Venezuela, and now, after illegally started a regional war without justification, dropped a bomb on an Iranian school and denied it.

@wblakegray Let me know next time you’re out this way on a wine junket, and I’ll keep you posted when I am next on the west coast!

@ablegrape Jealous! Hopefully one day I'll meet you there for some frog legs.

I spent all last week in the hospital, being mistreated by young doctors who saw me as nothing more than a "user of alcohol." Something needs to change about alcohol/health messaging. Their indifference to my pain nearly killed me. wine-searcher.com/m/2026/03/alco…

@wblakegray Might be a while, as I’m in Lyon these days!

@ablegrape I miss you too! Let's have lunch when you're out here. I haven't had lunch in a restaurant since this happened, but I'm hoping for next week.

@BillJelavich @Hmitchell French vanilla is vanilla, but when you use your tongue?

@Hmitchell Vanilla. Or French Vanilla

What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?