In honor of today being Friday, I’d like to observe that for all its flaws, Rebecca Black’s “Friday” is a more human piece of artistic creation than an AI, by definition, will ever be able to produce. youtu.be/kfVsfOSbJY0?...

I switched to using Ecosia years ago, and it’s been great. It’s a search engine that uses their profits to take action on environmental concerns, mostly planting trees. www.ecosia.org

it surely doesn't help that every single figure in power for most of the last 10 years has been a grifter without principles and no one is ever punished for it

I am curious about the effect that almost everyone I know, even people who are doing relatively well, thinks they would be more successful economically if they sacrificed their ethical principles and just became a grifter of some sort.

I don't think about the day I get to stop working and travel or enjoy my projects and garden. I think about the day I can no longer work and lose my health insurance and stable income.

That's part of the broken social contract that I don't think the no-take-only-throw-ass economics overlords don't get. I now see any funds I have as my only defense against indiscriminate predation. I have figured out you will kill me and drain my corpse.

also like, my measure of "wealth" now is how much of things going wrong you can bounce back from and maintain a basic standard of living. It is not about improving said standard of living. I want a house so I can't be priced out of my apartment. I want retirement money so I'm not homeless at 70.

I'm doing well! I never could have dreamed I'd be doing this well ten years ago. I'm still not spending more than $100 on anything without wanting to cry about it because I expect to be destitute the moment literally anything goes wrong.

The Economy being good means nothing to me because it's a measure of how confident assholes feel in their line going up, and everything they do to make the line go up hurts me and devastates everyone who's doing worse than me. This isn't fucking rocket surgery.

They will lay me off, they will end my health insurance, they will raise my rent until I can't afford it anymore, they will destroy the tools I use by making them shittier or subscription-based or both; everything I depend on or enjoy will be Disrupted for some boy-king dipshit's funding round

so like lemme weigh in on this as someone who is more financially comfortable than many in my generational cohort: everything I have gained seems precarious and temporary because I know the people with real money will take it all from me the second they get an opportunity and no one will protect me.

i cant believe tom steyer is the first dem politician (that ive seen) to proudly and forcefully make this correct and obvious counter argument to the bigotry but im glad he did

OKC winning the rebound battle on both ends of the court.

Spurs half-court offense seemed sluggish in the second quarter. Not much ball movement, not much off-ball movement, lots of dribbling out the shot clock before a desperation heave.

"We're so fucked" - Every NBA player watching this game

Vassell has to stop it with these three attempts. It isn’t working, he’s gotta drive or pass.

Wemby c’mon man that’s unreal

Spurs look like they’re still hungover from Game 1. Which is understandable, to be sure, but they just seem flat tonight.

Dylan Harper, my god.

They’re really going to start Hartenstein, huh.

Wemby’s numbers aren’t even the story. It’s the way his mere presence kept OKC out of the paint. It won’t show up on any scoresheet, but his just being there prevented at least double-digit points.

Spurs looking flat to start the 2nd half. Wemby seems relegated to setting perimeter screens, but otherwise missing on offense.

Spurs are going to need Wemby to average 46 min/game. They’re getting absolutely cooked with him on the bench.

Is Alex Caruso the MVP, tho? He’s the only player the Thunder have going right now.

That was a crazy recovery by Castle, jeebus.

The Detroit Piston Get a Defensive Rebound Challenge

and relative to what similarly situated professionals make, even members of Congress are woefully underpaid. do you want more working class people to serve as federal legislators? you need higher pay. there is no escaping it.

a virginia state lawmaker is paid $18,000. a north carolina lawmaker is paid $25K. UBI and wealth taxes won’t change the fact that this is going to dissuade most people of talent from jumping in

There are, of course, reels and reels of Wemby highlights. But for whatever reason, this is the one that struck me as particularly absurd. It seems so implausible as to be some kind of joke, y’know, like the Nathan Fielder “all my friends are just out of frame” bit? But then you see the video.

He is not in this frame. He's going to get this rebound and dunk it.

While the world’s eyes are on fashion’s biggest night, we’re turning ours to the garment, retail, and warehouse workers who keep the industry running. From true love found on the picket line to a free tailoring school out of a Brooklyn basement — meet the New Yorkers who make it all possible.

I write about people who became famous for saying and doing horrible things so I routinely get asked this question. "Did they really believe it?" Look, I get the curiosity, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what's in their hearts. They put evil into the world.

Computers are hard

Prior to takeoff, a passenger on my flight noticed speed tape peeling off the wings and notified a flight attendant. We’ve had to deplane and we’re delayed 2 hrs, which is a drag to be sure. But some Karen on the flight decided to yell at the passenger who noticed the issue, which sucks worse.

Depressing. I don’t know what optimistic people think is the best-case scenario here. Perhaps they just never cared about what they did. “On quitting, the spread of AI, and the loss of an ideal.” ky.fyi/posts/ai-bur...

Still feel like "Musk and his crew of incels destroyed a bunch of stuff they didn't understand and thereby hastened the deaths of millions of children" did not get the public attention it warranted.

This Is Just To Say I have turned off the AI features that were in the update and which you were probably hoping to monetize Fuck you they were stupid so unnecessary and so annoying

YOU, YOU, YOU, OUGHTTA KNOW!!

Today is officially the 30th anniversary of Steamed Hams. On April 14, 1996, "22 Short Films About Springfield" aired for the first time!

I'm one of those trans women. I worked ground ops for Artemis I. I am torn between celebrating the success of my friends and peers and grieving how my dream of working for NASA was shattered by hateful assholes in Tallahassee

Brutal.

That is the obvious answer to anyone complaining about the wrong people (too rich) getting something they don’t deserve. Just tax them more, it’s fine. A clean example of this was when the Covid checks were sent to everyone. People who didn’t really need them paid more in taxes later. It’s fine.

The solve for "Sometimes when a service like free childcare is available to all, marginalized communities get squeezed out," is "Address that racism." It's not "Therefore waste incredible amounts of time and money trying to means test something that society should just make available to all.🤡"

You don't have to be extraordinary, and be tremendously useful to society not to be considered subhuman. You just have to be.

Meta will find $375M in the couch cushions and continue on their way. This isn’t the answer.

And in case there was any room for doubt, the Republican coauthor of KOSA explicitly said she expects and hopes the bill to make it harder for queer people to connect with each other and find out they're not alone (as Katelyn says she did here) www.them.us/story/kosa-s...

The GOP is a party of hardcore, unrepentant racists who are pushing for voter ID by claiming it is needed in order to prevent voter fraud--which is a decades-long lie that was always intended to lay the groundwork for disenfranchising non-white citizens. There is no nuance; that is all this is.

Yes. And we have to talk about this now, because talking about it is the first step to making it seem like a callous crime rather than a surprising emergency.

First they came for the trans people, and I said nothing because I wasn’t trans. Then they were like actually I’m pretty sure you are trans and I said no I’m not and they went okay well show us your penis then and I said what no get out of my face and they said that one’s a girl get her