Adam Rogers

@jetjocko

Journalist and author. Ex-Business Insider, ex-Wired. Hosted a podcast about an Alien TV show. Wrote a book about booze and a book about colors. Signal: @jetjocko.15

934 Folgt15.399 Follower22.919 Posts

Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir jetjocko.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· 29d

Wow ok

Screen from the Primary showing that I, supposedly a journalist, ain’t even indexed.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jul 10

Lotta space for just one guy and his team.

satellite image of the Washington DC area—river cutting from top left to bottom middle, pentagon-shaped building at the bottom, swath of green cutting across the middle (the Mall)—and a big black rectangle covering what would be the Ellipse, the White House grounds, Lafayette Park and the adjacent WH affiliated buildings. It's like 15 blocks of city, walled off.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jul 7

Our hero has learned that his brilliant design for the famous Citibank building in Manhattan, with the main support columns at the center of the faces instead of the corners, combined with too-few bolts holding it together, means this career-defining building will fall down in hurricane-force winds.

On the island, LeMessurier considered his options. Silence was one of them; only Davenport knew the full implications of what he had found, and he would not disclose them on his own. Suicide was another, if LeMessurier drove along the Maine Turnpike at a hundred miles an hour and steered into a bridge abutment, that would be that. But keeping silent required betting other people’s lives against the odds, while suicide struck him as a coward’s way out and—although he was passionate about nineteenth-century classical music—unconvincingly melodramatic. What seized him an instant later was entirely convincing, because it was so unexpected almost giddy sense of power. “I had information that nobody else in the world had,” LeMessurier recalls. “I had power in my hands to effect extraordinary events that only I could initiate. I mean, sixteen years to failure—that was very simple, very clear-cut. I almost said, ‘thank you, dear Lord, for making this problem so sharply defined that there’s no choice to make.’ ”

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jul 2

Yeah I just can’t tell when someone is kidding anymore. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/02/a...

The president holding an image of the gilded ballroom with the words “As evident now in Washington, President Trump’s aesthetic taste S a builder can run toward the regal”

“And 40 years ago, a little discussed harbinger of that taste—“Trump Castle.” Picture of a building model, it’s like four tall skinny cylinders with conical tiops and banded collars. Like a castle. A bit phallic frankly.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 29

And it’s bleakly funny that the new Obama Library is on the grounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Buildings by Burnham and crew, grounds by Olmsted. Mostly neoclassical and whitish, the way Trump designers like stuff. But it also had this banger from Louis Sullivan.

A riotously colored building with a golden arch for a front door—the Transportation Building

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 20

Phishing texts have much to teach us about the use and recognition of idiom across languages

A text that reads “Hi there, sorry to trouble you. My schedule is exceptionally flexible. If you're open to it, maybe we could grab a drink by the coast sometime?”

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 18

Bruno Latour, “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern,” Critical Inquiry 30, no. 2 (2004): 225–48, doi.org/10.1086/421123.

"entire Ph.D. programs are still running to make sure that good American kids are learning the hard way that facts are made up, that there is no such thing as natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth, that we are always prisoners of language, that we always speak from a particular standpoint, and so on, while dangerous extremists are using the very same argument of social construction to destroy hard-won evidence that could save our lives."

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 18

Obviously they might spend less just paying the tax, but now I think this is like nascent-competitor syndrome. When you get big enough, almost anything is a potential existential threat you *must* crush. If they don't stop this one tax, more might follow? www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...

A chart showing California billionaires donating millions to "Building a Better California," a group primarily focused on defeating a state tax on billionaires.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 16

Wait wait wait. “Algae?” “ALGAE?” Like “AL G.”? Robin, I know who the culprit is! The clues lead only one place: to that fiendish defender of the environment

Old white dide with silver hair and a blue suit and tie. It’s Al Gore.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 15

Sniping at historians of technology, but tech journalism catches a stray

The study of the relations of technology and society must necessarily deal with technology which is in widespread use. However, most writing on the history of technology and on the relations of technology and society is concerned with innovation, with the emergence of new technologies. It fails to distinguish this from the study of technology in widespread use, which is necessary old, and is often seen as out-of-date, obsolete, and merely persisting.

(More from David Edgerton, “From Innovation to Use: Ten Eclectic Theses on the Historiography of Technology,” History and Technology 16, no. 2 (1999): 111–36, https://doi.org/10.1080/07341519908581961.)

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 15

I remain, still, optimistic about the ways science and technology can make the world better. And yet: Yikes, palpable hit. (Edgerton, “From Innovation to Use: Ten Eclectic Theses on the Historiography of Technology,” History and Technology 16, no. 2 (1999): 111–36, doi.org/10.1080/0734...)

A revolutionary, future-oriented rhetoric has become the dominant mode of discussing technology. It has a very curious feature which is not sufficiently remarked upon: the revolutionary rhetoric is very largely unchanging over time: it does not revolutionise itself.91 The same bright new future is promised all the time, but will come about on the basis of a different technology. A good example is the extraordinary litany of technologies which promised peace to the world. On the one hand there are communications technologies, from railways, steamships, to radio and the aeroplane, and now the internet. These promised to make the world smaller, and bring people together, ensuring a perpetual peace. Similarly, technologies of destruction are supposed to bring peace: the great ironclad battleships, Nobel's explosives, the bomber aircraft, and the atomic bomb were so powerful that they would force the world to make peace. In order to be at all convincing there arguments must deny their own history, and they did so to a remarkable extent. In the middle of 1945 the bomber ceased to be a peace-creating technology; the atomic bomb took its place, and in doing so made an original-sounding argument. This obliteration of even very recent history and the present is continuous and systematic. It makes us ignorant even of the very recent past, and in doing so presents an entirely false claim for the novelty of new technology. New technology appears thus to challenge humanity in ever new ways, such that we suffer from a continuous `cultural lag'. When we think of information technology we forget about postal systems, the telegraph, radio, and television. Genetic engineering is made to seem radically distinct in its effects from animal and plant breeding or eugenics.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 13

Oh I was right www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/a...

But a gap in the tarps allowed a New York Times photographer to observe a worker pulling the letter “A” from the wall. (The signage had read “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”) There was no sound of power tools; the letter appeared to come off by hand.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 12

Huh. Seems risky. business.columbia.edu/sites/defaul...

Historical comparisons help place this magnitude in context. Railroad investment in the United States between 1865 and 1890 averaged approximately 2.4 percent of GDP, electrification between 1905 and 1925 about 1.1 percent, the construction of the interstate highway system between 1956 and 1973 about 1.6 percent, and the telecom and fiber expansion between 1996 and 2003 about 0.8 percent. The projected AI buildout between 2025 and 2032, at roughly 2.8 percent of GDP, would exceed these historical episodes.

The AI infrastructure boom shares key features with these earlier episodes: a general-purpose technology induces complementary investment in a large-scale physical network, whose returns depend on uncertain future demand and whose financing requirements are large.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 9

Comic book cover of Superman boxing Muhammad Ali in front of a crowd of thousands of famous faces

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 8

So you're saying the president is crashing into midtown New York, causing chaos among people trapped there, resulting in infighting among local leaders? That the situation may require further involvement from law enforcement agencies?

against a backdrop of the broken head of the Statue of Liberty and a dark, decayed city full of an angry mob, a man with an eyepatch and a gun leads a woman in a red dress (also with a gun) and a bald man in a white dress shirt with a briefcase handcuffed to his left arm.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 7

OK I’m not trying to overthink this bag of flavored tortilla chips but

Says “original seasoning” on a sign held by what I gotta say looks like it’s being held by a guy behind his rear end in a goatse type pose

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 5

I know we all have opinions about journalists and their papers, but I think we can agree that we all owe Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times a drink. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/u...

Pretty soon it seemed Vanilla Ice was the only one left.

He said in an interview with The New York Times this week it was a shame everyone couldn’t stop, collaborate and listen.

“I am so excited about this,” said the rapper, whose real name is Robert Van Winkle. “I figured everybody would be, and then a couple weeks go by, and then I see all these people dropping out, and I’m like, Why, why, why! Why would you drop out? This is a once in a lifetime thing.”

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 5

Huh. Unusual for San Francisco.

A gold hatchback type car with no rear window and gold, large wheel covers. A “cyber cab” Tesla robotaxi.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 3

Still on "heist or grift?" programming. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Josef Palermo:
Ric Grenell -- to oversee, in his words, getting rid of the artworks in the Kennedy Center ahead of the renovations. This was a directive that he gave me in his office shortly after Donald Trump made his TRUTH Social post about the closure.

I was told that we, the Kennedy Center, wanted new art to replace the outgoing art for the reopening. And so what I was tasked with was contacting donors, and, in some cases, that's foreign nations that made donations to the American people by way of the Kennedy Center, and asked them to remove their work or in some cases paid to remove it if it was a statue that was installed outside that had to be dug up.

Without my knowledge, the African Room, which is again one of these lounges, that was something like 30, 32 African nations came together at the time the Kennedy Center opened to gift this lounge. And inside that room were beautiful handmade tapestries from different tribes throughout the continent of Africa.

There was a sculpture from Ghana that represented the collective Africans' grief at the assassination of President Kennedy. And there were ornate hand-carved wooden doors carved from 700-year-old wood that contained scenes of Yoruban village life. That room is now completely gutted and emptied. I was not told where those items went.

Geoff Bennett:
The Kennedy Center told us in a statement in response to our question about this, they said: "There are currently no planned changes to art. Our archivist is working to properly catalog the art. We are working with conservators to inventory the artwork as we prepare for the closure and construction period.

"To preserve art during construction, some items may be covered, stored, or temporarily moved to ensure safekeeping."

How does that strike you?

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 2

Huh. Interesting.

Methodology
The Times analyzed Elon Musk’s posts, replies and quotes on X between December 2011 and January 2026, along with transcripts of Tesla earnings calls from December 2021 to January 2026. The Times used a large language model to detect “promises,” which were defined as concrete commitments to achieve a future goal. Reporters manually verified, researched and categorized the flagged statements, plus a sample of those the model rejected, to build a final dataset for analysis.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· Jun 2

I have been saving this old Mad Magazine cartoon for just such an occasion

A cartoon. A vast crowd of men in 1970s suits with TV cameramen behind them interviews other men in 1970s suits with cameramen. The caption reads "'60 Minutes' exposing '20/20' exposing '60 Minutes' exposing '20/20'..."

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· May 31

Could Emperor Palpatine save Yavin 4’s economy?

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· May 29

In 2015 Nick Bilton, recently named boss of "60 Minutes," wrote an article for the New York Times' Style section saying that cell phone use possibly caused cancer. After publication it got an editor's note and a correction: www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/s...

Editors’ Note: March 21, 2015
The Disruptions column in the Styles section on Thursday, discussing possible health concerns related to wearable technology, gave an inadequate account of the status of research about cellphone radiation and cancer risk. Neither epidemiological nor laboratory studies have found reliable evidence of such risks, and there is no widely accepted theory as to how they might arise. According to the World Health Organization, “To date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use.” The American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have all said there is no convincing evidence for a causal relationship. While researchers are continuing to study possible risks, the column should have included more of this background for balance. In addition, one source quoted in the article, Dr. Joseph Mercola, has been widely criticized by experts for his claims about disease risks and treatments. More of that background should have been included, or he should not have been cited as a source. An early version of the headline for the article online — “Could Wearable Computers Be as Harmful as Cigarettes?” — also went too far in suggesting any such comparison.

A correction was made on April 2, 2015: The Disruptions column on March 18, about health concerns stemming from wearable technology, referred incorrectly to research conducted by Dr. Lennart Hardell, a professor of oncology and cancer epidemiology at Orebro University Hospital in Sweden, that concluded that talking on a mobile or cordless phone for extended periods could triple the risk of a certain kind of brain cancer. The study was an analysis of two earlier studies that asked people with and without brain tumors to answer questions about cellphone and cordless phone use; it was not a longitudinal study in which patients were followed over time.

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· May 26

A giant stone carved lizard head in the side of a mountain, with glowing red light in the open mouth. A man in a green shirt stands in front of it, a man with red skin and white hair gestures at it, and onlookers in yellow, lie, and red shirts watch

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· May 26

A giant leonine head made of stone floats above a green grassland in front of a person on a horse in the lower right

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· May 25

Also all the places called Telegraph Hill or Telegraph Avenue were visual telegraphs, not the dot-dot-dot thing

A tall multi armed machine in a big white room

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· May 23

another star trek title card—the Enterprise orbiting a planet below the words "you can no longer google the word disregard"

Adam Rogers@jetjocko· May 23

The whole thing was kinda sketchy. DV Cicchetti, “The Paris 1976 Tastings Revisited Once More: Comparing Ratings of Consistent and Inconsistent Tasters,” Journal of Wine Economics 1, no. 2 (2006): 125–40, doi.org/10.1017/S193....