Actually, things were at their best during the last year of my life when I had no responsibilities. COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/poof PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm... STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com

i feel like this follows a general pattern with things: republicans will find a topic to make a big lie about, hammer it repeatedly, amplified by a credulous, "balanced" media, and people start getting beguiled by it voter id. immigration. trans rights. abortion. dei. violent crime. health insuran—

Me: Okay, so they believe moral duties of care apply over body autonomy? Them: Yes. Me: So they are a communist who argues for the overthrow of the US government because duties of care certainly exceed property rights? Them: HEY YOU CAN'T ASK THAT SHUT UP.

would hogwarts hire a velociraptor? do you have to let a vampire inside your home - if he's your landlord? is a cop who fights crime as a werewolf by night technically a K9 unit who - deserves overtime? if they become partners, can they literally go anywhere and pull over whomever they want?

why is writing about my own ethical values and whether/how they match with my profession and current employer, for school, so difficult? some of it is probably the intellectualizing. these aren't things i reasoned my way into. they're a gut reaction to moral resonance and outrage. the ideas follow

What annoys me about takes like Billy's here is how damn stupid they are when their entire premise is granted. Say purely for the sake of argument, he's correct that libs are silly for humoring trans people and we're all just ugly crossdressers. HOW IS THAT THE SAME AS TRYING TO RIG A U.S. ELECTION?

the diarrhea is just the tip of the iceberg

see also: people who think writing is "getting words on paper" rather than "figuring out what you want to say by trying to write it all down, and once it's down reworking it to say exactly what you mean and nothing else." the words are the paper tape of cognition, and rewriting is metacognition

I also don't find "having my wants anticipated" to be exciting except maybe in the context of certain close personal relationships & situations. maybe it's like how I'm weird & impervious to streak marketing, but whatever - there's nothing seductive to me about a machine making intrusive guesses

search was an incredibly useful paradigm used mainly by specialists for decades (centuries?); it was made available to all through the web, then degraded by ads & SEO but still extremely useful. I don't trust companies who push something that useful aside

an idea's been rolling around in my head about how what we lose with assuming everyone wants "answers" & not search results is similar to what we lose when "route" is the only kind of map we encounter I won't get the academic terms right, but it's some version of skipping an essential abstraction

I am losing my mind. Chat isn’t a search engine. this isn’t normal. framing it as normative is slimy. Tone, vibes all bad.

I have 3 axioms that help me decide when to talk to people I disagree with: 1. To debate a subject is to concede that the subject is debatable. 2. To reason with a person is to concede that the person is reasonable. 3. To ask for evidence of a claim is to concede that the claim might be true.

The way my terminally online mind read this post in exactly their voice

If you see this, post an Archer

Today I found out that babadook wine party lady later went on to create Widow’s Bay. And it all makes sense.

how grim is it to report a deceased person who died more than a year ago to LinkedIn because they sent a notification about their work anniversary

"the governor" orders the use of force to end the bell riots nice that Gavin Newsom got to be governor of California in Star Trek too

americ anfootball

two dogs is great! but two dogs with very set routines having different things going harmlessly sideways to disrupt those routines and having to perform them three or four times in sequence before getting ready for the day is Not Fun Or Efficient

Ah, the freedom of choice in the marketplace of ideas… If you build a conservative think tank on campus & no students want to attend, just make a law forcing them to. 👀 #academicsky

We have a GMO rice that can cure blindness due to malnutrition. We have GMO bacteria that makes insulin cheaper and easier.

TERFs are about to meet the face eating leopard.

how is andy beshear passing a test that schumer is coloring all over with all ten crayons there's very low-hanging fruit for democratic leadership in demanding that they prove they have a majority, and in a house and senate rules package that demands presence on penalty of expulsion.

If Chuck Schumer were a real leader he’d be on TV demanding that Republicans prove they still have a majority

this is a fantastic star trek meme lmao im fuckin losin it

If students are simply uninterested in the core bargain of a class like this, it’s hard to know what to do. You teach the material because you think it’s important they know it; they don’t give a shit, but want the credential; and the university wants their money. Your main option is “pretend”.

victory lapping on this one

labrador retriever explaining himself to the x-ray tech at the emergency vet:

omg new Parts And Labor album, after fifteen years??

"England has defeated the Norwegians and is heading to meet the French"

Here’s the thing: I could probably come up with lots of creative, AI-proof online approaches. But finding the time to reflect an innovate comes at a premium. I often revamp my courses, but this is an order of magnitude much higher in redesign. AI is not a pedagogical crisis, it’s a labor crisis.

“Verify your age” motherfucker it’s on Wikipedia

We need Broken Windows theory but just for white collar crime.

My mom just called to tell me that she went to a museum about the Underground Railroad, where one of the exhibits talked about the locals having horns that they would blow to warn people when the slave catchers were in town “It’s just like your whistles!”

Dress for the job you want

Seeing as how the only horse I can draw is a stick horse (example pictured), I did my best front-facing version

"They basically just picked the town drunk in Maine and made him run for Senate." Had a lively chat with Lakshya Jain and @zacharydonnini.bsky.social on the latest GD POLITICS pod!

So when we say the ACLU will protect Nazis before it'll protect leftists, we say this with history on our side. The ACLU thinks being a communist is a bit too far. But being a Nazi is protected speech. In the United States, the most dangerous position you can hold is equality.

This is still my favorite one

Best STAR TREK captain. Wrong answers only

apropos of nothing, here's an old blog post i did about piracy and when/whether it's ok and things like that when the people who make the games aren't even getting to keep their jobs, far less profit from a game's success, pirate those suckaz tbh www.joewintergreen.com/one-time-a-g...

hmm is OHP or the moda center a bigger net benefit to the state economy