Jeff 🏳️‍🌈
@tinmanic.bsky.social
880 followers 140 following 3.9K posts
NYC gay guy, legal editor, history buff, crossword nerd, Disney geek, ex-lawyer. There's almost always a book I'm reading. Married to https://bsky.app/profile/hitormiss.org. tinmanic.com
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tinmanic.bsky.social
I left Twitter two years ago and have been using Bluesky as my main social media account since summer 2023

I also saw Hamilton at the Public
tinmanic.bsky.social
Nick Offerman co-created tomorrow’s NYT crossword with veteran constructor Christina Iverson and it’s delightful, as are their constructor notes. (Spoilers inside)

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/c...
Sign of Justice
www.nytimes.com
tinmanic.bsky.social
A new volume of the Oxford History of the United States finally comes out next spring: Contested Content, by Peter C. Mancall, covering the origins of America from c. 1000 - 1680. This volume was announced years ago.

global.oup.com/academic/pro...
cover of Peter C. Mancall, Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c. 1000-1680 The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, two New York Times bestsellers, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. In the newest volume in the series, Peter C. Mancall recounts how North America was forged from the experiences of millions of Indigenous women and men as well as Europeans and Africans.

The first volume of the Oxford History of the United States series, Contested Continent is also the most ambitiously far-ranging history of North America concentrating on the period from c. 1000 to 1680, from the arrival of Norse explorers to an explosion of revolts that underlined the stubborn struggle to master the continent some two centuries after Columbus's landfall. This history spans the continent from the North Atlantic to the West Indies and includes the entire Atlantic basin. Mancall emphasizes the experiences of diverse peoples while, at the same time, telling a new story about the origins of major aspects of American culture. He illuminates the rise of a booming trans-Atlantic economy based on the extraction of abundant American natural resources; the central role that European migrants and their descendants played in the enslavement of Africans and the displacement of Indigenous peoples; and the spread of self-governing polities where many enjoyed religious freedom. None of these developments was inevitable. Conflicts broke out frequently as different peoples battled over precious resources. Europeans' appetites for material gain and expanding Christendom brought horrific consequences for those brutalized, enslaved, and vulnerable to infectious diseases.

This is a sweeping history of developments crucial to the eventual founding of the United States. Contested Continent underscores the titanic struggles between the peoples who had populated the Americas for centuries and the migrants from the Old World who initiated changes that created …
tinmanic.bsky.social
Really enjoyed this profile of Carol Burnett.

"She has developed a habit of texting her daily Wordle score to a selection of friends, including Allison Janney, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Charlize Theron."

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Carol Burnett Plays On
The ninety-two-year-old comedy legend has influenced generations of performers. In a string of recent TV roles, she has been co-starring with some of her closest comedic heirs.
www.newyorker.com
tinmanic.bsky.social
I consider myself one too. I grew up with it, it makes mistakes, I get mad at it sometimes. But it’s easy to notice when it get things wrong and to take it for granted when it gets things right.

Also: its mistakes get shared on social media. The normal day-to-day competence does not.
jayrosen.bsky.social
I am often told I should not read or pay for the New York Times. Just now, for example. @skyfog.bsky.social‬ said, "You shouldn’t be paying for that rag."

I consider myself a Times loyalist, and I explain what I mean by that here. pressthink.org/2019/08/bad-...
Reposted by Jeff 🏳️‍🌈
hitormiss.org
Oh, no! I missed the news that TiVo has gotten out of the DVR business. We're still using our TiVo Roamio, so I wonder how long we'll continue to get program data. We tried Yahoo TV a while back while I was repairing our TiVo and it was terrible :(

www.pcmag.com/news/times-u...
Time's Up for a Timeshifting Trailblazer: TiVo Discontinues Its Standalone DVRs
The company that saw its name become a verb has shifted its focus to connected TVs.
www.pcmag.com
tinmanic.bsky.social
It helped that you usually didn’t need to remember area codes, so it was just seven digits you were remembering.

And all the phone numbers in my town had one of three prefixes (the first 3 digits of the 7-digit number), so that also helped.

Anyway I still remember some friends’ childhood numbers.
bleary.off-the-records.com
If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.
Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?
tinmanic.bsky.social
Well, this movie is well done but parts of it were hard to watch
tinmanic.bsky.social
A good antidote to an episode of this show was an episode of English Teacher
tinmanic.bsky.social
Boots on Netflix has lots of hot male bodies but it takes place in like my nightmare environment, so, pluses and minuses.
tinmanic.bsky.social
My Playbill was cut wrong
Strangely cut Playbill
tinmanic.bsky.social
Today’s show

Starring Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock
Little Bear Ridge Road - Playbill
tinmanic.bsky.social
He should have literally texted “Hey Sarah, still laughing about [tiny shared moment/reference if you’ve got one] – good to meet you!” including the brackets
tinmanic.bsky.social
Diane Keaton died??? Holy shit. What a loss.
tinmanic.bsky.social
I’m enjoying the Outlander prequel series, Blood of My Blood, which had its first season finale tonight. It’s not often that a prequel series can maintain the spirit of the original and also be its own thing, but this one acquits itself well.
tinmanic.bsky.social
I need to read the words on the page… I’m a lingerer!
tinmanic.bsky.social
This thread and the comments are excellent
samthielman.com
Jenna would make Liz write jokes for her, Liz would write a bunch of feminist material because she’s mad at Jenna and then try to pull it at the last minute because she’s worried for Jenna’s safety. Jenna would ham it up so hard that the Saudis would love it as parody of shrill American women
suss2hyphens.bsky.social
which 30 rock character was most likely to headline the riyadh comedy festival, tracy or jenna
tinmanic.bsky.social
I know that the library solves the problem of cost and bookshelf space, but then you have to wait for a book (I usually want it NOW) and you also don't know what condition it will be in.
tinmanic.bsky.social
Sometimes I prefer reading ebooks, sometimes physical books.

ebooks:
-available instantly
-weigh less
-usually cheaper
-easier to read in bed with low light
-don't take up limited bookshelf space
-customizable font

physical books:
-sometimes more aesthetically pleasing
-easier to flip back & forth
tinmanic.bsky.social
For me it's the hyphen in place of an emdash in the fourth paragraph