Mine went something like this.

0. Morbid curiosity

"Seriously? This is a joke, right?"

1. Initial fascination

"Hmm, in fact this appears to deliver the kind of text editing power I've always dreamed of possessing. I must explore this further."

2. Down the rabbit hole

"Wow, there's so much here. It's complex and often seems counterintuitive, but it's completely intoxicating! My previous text editor now seems hopelessly inadequate, even though I keep returning to it like a child reaching for its blankie."

3. Cutting the cord: Vim citizenship

"Having read the transcript of Andrei Zmievski's 2009 presentation 'VIM for (PHP) Programmers', I'm converted. Vim is now an indispensible part of my life."

At this stage it was no longer possible to return to using less powerful text editors, even though I experienced occasional urges to do so.

4. Text editing freedom

"Normal mode is like flying over a landscape wearing a jetpack. I can go anywhere and do anything! Wheee!"

Appendix A

Possible humorous responses.

1. "Actually, Stage 1 should be 'Rejection: Horrified, you run to emacs'"

2. "You're missing Stage 5 in which you learn how to exit vim."

etc.

Bibliography

Andrei Zmievski, Vim for (PHP) Programmers, 2009

Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading (and the creator of the warming stripes) has posted on twitter this animation of sea level rise between 1900 and 2023. It's a crucial range of data, but personally I find this complementary graph posted in the replies to be a more helpful visualisation.

Some pseudo-sceptic in the replies posted a de rigueur "Plymouth Rock" jibe: Here's a short thread about that by Rob Larter, a polar marine scientist*.

*I've linked to the last tweet in Rob's thread to prevent twitter truncating it with a "Show replies" link. Please just scroll up to see the thread in its entirety.

Filing under "Quelle surprise". CarbonBrief has the story

Now this is cycling and walking infrastructure!

The longest tunnel specifically built for biking and walking

Apparently it's the Fyllingsdalstunnelen in Norway.

This is a pretty jaw-dropping exposé of the extent to which automakers are tracking their customers driving behaviour and sharing that telemetry data with insurance companies.

Anyone buying a new car needs to read this.

Automakers are Sharing Consumers' Driving Behaviour with Insurance Companies

(Tip of the hat to Dan Gillmor on Mastodon for the 'gifted' link ).

Cory Doctorow picks up the topic in an expansive and well referenced essay in which he links this latest piece to broader consideration of corporate behaviour, regulation, personal privacy and consumer rights.

Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies

There's a lot to unpack here. Meredith Whittaker & Camille Francois discuss the recent AI hype, the nature of AI, who controls it, whose interests it serves, to what uses it's being put, what its impacts will be on politics and society, and more.

The AI series: AI and Surveillance Capitalism