A good explanation of the crazy-making fact that most of the American economy doesn't actually involve making or selling anything any more. Strong recommendation for "Bad Company". I just read "Barbarians at the Gate" a few months ago, and this is a worthy companion. Thanks @greenwell.bsky.social

Revisiting 'The Bone Clocks' by David Mitchell.

Agonized over how to dispose of window A/C units. As they still function I tried to give them to charity. Then I gave up and scheduled town bulk trash pick up. Put them out and some rando's picked them up immediately. Cancelled pickup. Invisible Hand at work?

Song for today: First heard on a calm music stream back when my daughter was a baby and would only sleep on my shoulder. Moving reprise of the emotional core of The Golden Bough from the Aeneid. "Three times the form reached for in vain, escaped Like a breeze between his hands, a dream on wings"

Song for today - Under A Rock by Waxahatchee ‘Maybe I let on that I was interested, In your brand of lonely, a book you cracked once and never read’

Down a cladistics rabbit-hole re: higher order taxa: - Fish aren't a clade unless all vertebrates are classified as Osteichthyes, including humans. - Lancelet is obviously not a fish, but it is very fishy. (Fish broadly: encephalized, has gills, no fingers.) - Don't even get into sea squirts.

Number one metaphor for my life that I didn't grasp at the time but definitely had the capacity to if I had wanted to think about it: The week my parents divorced and I had to leave my childhood home was the same week I also entered the 'World of Ruin' in Final Fantasy 3 (6).

The phases of preparing a batch update CSV for EMu expressed in memes.

From Isaiah Berlin’s ‘Karl Marx’, seems relevant!

Up Next - Fantasy Life: Subtitle I’m Not Writing. Holy crap this should be a scheduled substance. Jesus. Activating my worst WoW freak instincts. I may be the first person to overdose on dopamine, rather than the drugs that get you the dopamine. Is it good? Unlikely! But I’m obsessed for now.

@jasonschreier.bsky.social Yesterday I responded to a post saying ‘Jason has attempted to will a release of FFT into being for years - this is not a scoop just a desire’. This was based off prior social media and Triple Click talk. Mea culpa - you remain the Shams or Woj of game scoops. Respect.

Not at all sure why I did this to myself. 100% Xenoblade Chronicles X. Great game! Awesome world, fun to explore, good combat, maddening dialogue, terrible pacing, poor characterization, Al’s verbal game made me feel like I had a stroke. Would not play again! But I am looking at you fondly XC3.

Nextdoor users - isn’t your average age around 51? Aren’t you of the correct age and have enough experience to clock the DMV spam texts as a scam? We can’t be getting fooled by a now roughly 8 month old scam, that resembles in nature all other internet eta scams. How does credulity still exist?

Is there an experience superior to arriving at an airport and getting wildly mid food from an airport bar? Almost certainly, but it is pretty great.

I love Fitbods optimism about my fitness level. Got close though.

More Xenoblade CX thoughts: Open world is great. Didn’t love marking it off hex by hex at first - but I like that you can complete the map without getting everything. Good world design, fun to figure out how to reach new locations. Undercut by flying skells - should have been endgame only.

New entry into the genre of unintelligible pharma ads: Fanapt anime ad. What precisely is it for? You wouldn’t guess from the bizarre ad. Might be AI slop that AI wasn’t involved in making at all. Looked it up - it’s for schizophrenia. Maybe the theme is that the ad makes you feel like you have it.

More Xenoblade CX thoughts: BLADES are all independent contractors, NLA seems distinctly libertarian, though there is no way they built the White Whale and other ships and successfully left the earth without major central planning. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing as that lifehold % drops.

Previous post aside, argument for making flyers check everything except ‘personal item’? Free up more space, get off more efficiently. Egalitarian if no fees applied. Would require transit of bags yo baggage claim to be a bit more efficient.

United Airlines now in a race to the bottom w/ Spirit and Frontier. No carry on? Only a personal item. Trying to make flying even worse while extracting yet more money.

Xenoblade Chronicles X Character Creator I don’t like character creators. I’d rather have a boring cypher who someone else crafted a backstory an appearance for rather than making the boring cypher myself. Shulk sucked a bit, but I’m still fonder of him than this guy: (best I could do!)

Trying to explain "woke" to my 8 year old. He asked, "what is woke and why is it bad?" "Well bud, it means that you are aware of systemic injustice and unfairness in the world and want to help fix it. Please list for me any friends who mentioned it in a negative context, no reason..."

Playing Xenoblade Chronicles X. Pros: - Huge map - Stuff to collect and check off on huge map - Combat still pretty fun despite relying on OG Wii XG ability toggling - Systems! Too many! Yet I'd take more - Some good field music