Step one toward the inevitable Life Day takeover of the whole park. I can dream.

When I was a little kid, I listened the crap out of a cassette of vaguely Halloween-themed pop music. I looked it up recently - it was Hallmark's "The Sounds of Halloween": Thriller, Ghostbusters, Monster Mash, and more. This year I learned just how wrong my little kid memories of it were. 🧵

I've never liked coffee. Then, at Disneyland recently I had an apple cold brew and it was delightful! Is apple cold brew something a big chain can reproduce? Or what's the best/easy way to enjoy some kind of cold brew at home? I know absolutely nothing about coffee.

Each year I pick a stupid reward points program and play it a few minutes per day like a mobile game. Last year was Google Play Points, this year Bing Rewards. But Microsoft nerfed the program, so I'm calling the game early for 2025. Short Post Mortem🧵:

Real leadership in libraries means looking your community - including your boss's boss - in the face and saying to them that fewer staff means less services. There is no way around it. That's the truth of the matter. The community is either okay with that or not.

In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.

I saw a tragically AI-generated version of this poster, so I have recreated a 100% human-made version for all your protest sign needs.

Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!

Remember when i said we're living in the scariest parts of a Gibson novel thanks to a bunch of dudes who misunderstand Gibson's novels? Well now I want to discuss the verified govt accounts spewing rightwing propaganda— possibly via a bot-run troll farm— & why you should block them for your safety.

Now is as good a time as any to remind you that THE ROCKETEER (1991) was the best comic book movie franchise we never got. Soaring pulp adventure over an Old Hollywood backdrop, a top tier James Horner score. Oh and there's even Jon Polito!

Starting to realize/accept that my enthusiasm for two major franchises rests almost entirely on their excellent theme park presences at this point: Tron and Avatar.

Everything is a casino.

About half of my Facebook feed is now algorithmically placed AI slop. Long text of "historic" stories that didn't happen, or embellished with photos that couldn't possibly have been taken. I know, I shouldn't still be on that app. This is gonna finally push me over the edge.

A new government website literally called "TrumpRX.gov" that uses an AI-generated American flag missing stars 🤦 Oh and on a second look, it also has an inconsistent number of stripes. Trump's name and face are the new symbols of America apparently, the old ones are getting blurry.

This is actually for sale at Spirit.

Imagine how embarrassing changes like this are going to look in 3-5 years

We asked nicely and got to sit in the front of the Disneyland Monorail today, with the pilot. Bucket list item checked off. Bonus picture of the controls!

16 years later, Act III is coming to save us all. theprotomen.bandcamp.com/album/act-ii...

Sure doesn't seem like the Outer Banks will exist much longer. See the area while you can.

My understanding was that these houses have been abandoned for a long time, as the inevitable became obvious. I'm surprised to see there was still stuff like appliances inside.

I bought the Tron: Ares soundtrack on CD, my fist physical album in maybe a decade. It's in this little cardboard sleeve, and I'm kind of disappointed to not have a new jewel case in my life.

This is the seventh year I've volunteered with the UX Y'all conference, and the sixth time I've had actual responsibility for planning a part of it. This year I FINALLY figured out how to run the registration desk efficiently, and we avoided the traditional embarrassingly long line.

I still listen to 2010's Tron Legacy Daft Punk soundtrack regularly - it's my favorite album of all time. Will the new NiN Tron album will have the same staying power, will I listen to it in the impossible-sounding year of 2040? I'll just be happy to make it there.

How do you consume news of any kind and not give in to despair?

It must be a capitalist’s dream come true to keep employing a dead man but no longer needing to pay him, since he no longer needs food or shelter or autonomy.

Bring back Michael Eisner.

Everything is Gamergate and no corporation will ever learn any lesson from it

This whole video right up to the end is amazing. It’s kind of satisfying watching him have to deal with how shitty the technology they’re trying to force on us is. I miss when things used to work

re: discussion of cancelling streaming services. I know lots of stuff isn't on networks anymore, but I love my Tablo DVR. Connect an antenna, record things, watch it on any device in your house. Less than $100, no subscription fees at all. www.tablotv.com/product

All you need to know about the current situation is that Jimmy Fallon's the only network late night host not under attack.

Not even pretending anymore.

Sometimes it's nice to remember that even Marcus Aurelius was like "you don't have to comment on everything bro"

this is adjacent to why "let me google that for you" as a derisive response never sat well with me.

The Emmys' host isn't doing a great job, but the local news anchor just asked us all to tune in "... after the Grammys"

I've discovered that I really enjoy haunted houses, despite still having no desire to watch scary movies. But Scarowinds is 3 hours from home and more expensive this year, and I was thinking of skipping it. Now this Conjuring attraction might get me there all by itself. Really good word of mouth.

It will never not be amazing to me that journalists and other people in positions of public influence willingly stay on a site that is being openly manipulated on every level by one of the worst human beings on Earth.

Witnesses Assumed Charlie Kirk Shooter Was Just Ordinary Gunman On School Campus

Strange New Worlds finale has both the worst and best of the show on full display. But it gets M83 into Star Trek, so I'll let it slide overall.

Alien: Earth is full of some of the stupidest people in the history of humanity, and I can't quite decide if that's the point or not.

What‘s really sickening is that publishers are raking in money by selling our work at zero cost to themselves, yet still demanding we and our institutions pay to read other scientists work.

When I see people online, even in jest, suggest that people living in Republican-controlled states should be abandoned because of their politicians, I feel a deep heartache. New York CREATED Donald Trump and none of y’all are ever talk about it the way you disparage Alabama or Mississippi.

My decade-old book about Wordpress was in the set stolen by Anthropic and used for AI training. I think I'll get money as part of the settlement, at a level that far outpaces the actual sales of the book? This is very darkly funny to me.

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

The greatest crossover since Endgame?

I watched a giant cutter/grabber (technical term) tear apart the Rip Ride Rockit coaster track today. Has Universal considered that people (me) would pay significant amounts of money to do a little bit of this work myself? It looks so fun & satisfying!

I’m quoted in today’s issue of Forbes.

Thanks to construction rerouting, this year HHN provided an unusual chance to see my favorite piece of the Berlin Wall from the other side of the fence. I also visited the bathroom outside former Nickelodeon Studios, & it still has green tiles in the shape of slime on the floor. Incredible night.

A contemptible race to the bottom that will only end in unnecessary suffering for some of the most vulnerable among us. Defenseless and horrifying.

Back on my bullshit, never happier