these are getting weird

When the AI you’ve been using to sound smart goes down.

i’m sure other people have said this, but Backrooms is such a resonant metaphor for the human experience of LLMs, generative AI, and the current wasteland of the internet

A Summer Book Recommendation Bonanza www.nytimes.com/2026/06/05/p...

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself” — William Faulkner

This is super cool.

The money was always there for the good things.

captain: you you got him to confess? me: yeah, we pulled the old goo cop/bad cop routine captain: you mean good cop/bad cop me, wiping vaseline off my hands: what

Later that same week... bsky.app/profile/tvmo...

Folks: This starts tomorrow w/Annette Gordon-Reed. The fee is for all of the classes together. (Library of America is a non-profit committed to keeping great American writings & letters in print. Full disclosure -- I'm on their board because I believe in their cause.) www.loa.org/news-and-vie...

I had not made this connection but the show is clearly an adaptation of this tweet, in case you have been on the fence about it.

Finally, cultural representation for black-owned furniture stores!

My dad (who at 85 still picks up copperheads with his bare hands) used to say it's the 3rd person in line who gets bitten. First person wakes the snake up, by the second person the snake thinks there's a problem, when the 3rd person comes along the snake is ready to solve the problem.

Part of being an AI user in creative works is convincing yourself that everyone ELSE uses it too, because otherwise you have to confront the reality that you're a faker and a fraud

Quick, summarize America in one headline

A self help book called "The Wolf Who Cried 'Myself'"

The idea of Stack the Week is that we try to collect news of the week that might have flown by and for those things that everyone was covering, STW (as no one calls it) seeks to add context and connection to larger themes. open.substack.com/pub/johnfdic...

Did you attend the legendary Parliament-Funkadelic concert featuring the very first P-Funk Mothership landing ever, in New Orleans at the Municipal Auditorium on October 27, 1976? I’m looking to interview attendees for an upcoming article. Let me know if this sounds like you or someone you know.

D11.2 Woman transforms herself into a bird and lends her female organ to a boy.

“Sorry I can’t be at your wedding, I have very important war stuff to be doing.” (HOURS LATER)

Another weird AI artifact: content sites that slap your name on slop articles. Apparently I’m a columnist on this site, and quite productive.

What a drama queen...

He makes some good points.

Hello! COOL MACHINE is coming your way July 21st. Perhaps I will see you at one of these clean and sanitary performance venues.

GUY WHO INVENTED SPRINKLES: they're sweet and great for lots of stuff! I'm going to call them sprinkles because you sprinkle them on, heh. yours are neat too! what are you going to call them GUY WHO INVENTED NONPAREILS: *flicking cigarette* you are a fucking joke

Live Skull Big Black Sun Ra Run DMC The Replacements Kraftwerk Schoolly D The Cramps The Smiths Pylon

On the tube

I’m on Amtrak and the conductor just made the best quiet car announcement I’ve heard yet: “This is the quiet car. If you’re going to feel some kind of way when people shush you, then you should not sit in the quiet car.”

i gave mine a little hat

This is the experience of being a Dungeon Master tbh

Go for it. I don't even care any more.

Assault on Precinct 13 Halloween The Fog Escape from New York The Thing (Quite a run)

New Game: Which seat do you choose?

Is that a drain in the floor? 10/10

The bathroom equivalent of chef's table

reminds me of:

And they said cinema was dead

The green room bathroom of the Jackson WY Center for the Arts is an interesting place. Not pictured: the second fan.

Inventing the air conditioner Make it a 100 fucking pounds. No, no center mass to it at all somehow. Throw some fuckin…accordion arms on it that flap out and catch on everything when you’re carrying it up from the basement. And let me get 50 razor blades on the back of it too.

Fellow fogey and I chatting this morning about how we both understood, as younger men, how fogies see the world ending, because theirs literally is. But today, we agreed, we’re in a uniquely different situation, as it just might actually BE ending.

I just had a hunch that one of my books would be on this list. 😀 share.google/sqR5XwmrliyI...

Another banger from The Author Name -

Libby's Spread n Heat Pizza (1975-circa 1978): A thick, creamy, brownish-orange, tomato-based, pizza-flavored melange in a can, that could be spread on toast or English muffins to make a quick pizza (just add cheese!) Available in Three flavors: Plain, Peppers & Onions, and Sausage

Every guy in a videogame:

I take issue with the claim Thomas the Tank Engine “willingly” became a train. As a convicted murderer he was given a choice of execution or the human to locomotive surgery. He gave consent on paper, technically true, but it wasn’t willingly