*submits pre-lab 5* *looks ahead to next week* *pre-lab 7* *confused Rigsby noises* *checks syllabus* *pre-lab 5 and 6 are due on the same day* WhyWouldYouDoThat dot jpeg dot tiff dot 7z

I like to read a pretty wide variety of news sources, but I've been culling them over the last year as more and more of them fail to meet the moment. At this point, my media diet of getting sparse. Bluesky, what news are you reading?

Tekken has always been a little silly, what with a bear, a cyborg with a sword, and various supernatural entities competing. Did I just watch someone call in a strafing run from an attack helicopter and then shoot their opponent with an RPG? The rules of the Iron Fist tournament seem very lax.

ICE went after rideshare drivers at O’Hare today, according to statement from Illinois Drivers Alliance

A sad skill we all need to acquire. You have to learn to recognize the videos that are too sharp and too blurry at the same time, to see the shifting edges and blurred transitions. If for no other reason, you'll need it to help protect your aging parents.

Bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll with a quarter water. Plain bagel with a schmear is the bagel order. Everything bagels are just plain bagels that let you throw a handful of birdseed on the ground while you eat them.

It's weird to think that like the fall of the postwar order has "Obama makes fun of Trump at a WH correspondent dinner" as a causal event

Does anyone have an estimated $850,000 to $1.4 million that I could borrow?

I think "never prosecute people for crimes" would set a worse precedent, but what do I know?

For the record, I would have preordered the deluxe edition of this game.

I read somewhere recently that what the rich really want is slavery and it's hard not to read this article through that lens

A meditation on the grief of this moment. Worth the read.

"I'm the guy that just executes at this point. So whatever they want, they tell me to do it, I go do.”

How this story feels every time it pops up:

ACT 3 IS REAL AND IT'S RELEASING AND I'M GOING TO BE EXCITED AND YELL ABOUT IT. I HAVE WAITED 15+ YEARS FOR THIS.

AI company safety plans:

My goal for the year was to read 25 books. I have surely not handicapped myself in this effort by choosing to read a 1,000 page fantasy epic.

And soybeans.

My least favorite thing about this era of American history are the people who yell "this is a distraction from xyz..." at every news story. It is entirely possible for 53 bad things to happen simultaneously. That's what happens when the government is run by goons intent on destroying everything.

"Any last words?" the soldier asks as he ties me to a post. "I've cancelled you in my mind," I whisper as the blindfold slides over my eyes. I smirk before the bullets hit me.

Waze: Watch out! Object on road ahead! Me (excited): Is it a car?

I went to sleep thinking this was a proposal, and I woke up to find out it was already done. This is an insane change. It's a deliberate attempt to collapse the tech industry and crash the economy.

I bought a car in 2019 and it didn't have a CD player in it. I couldn't burn CDs to listen to while I was driving, and that made me unreasonably upset at the time.

When driving Uber, my radio corresponds to the types of passengers I pick up. Classic rock for older men, modern rock for middle aged men, top 40 and hip hop for college students. All of these are in my presets anyway. I just turn to them when picking someone up.

Follow up idea: The protagonist of the novel uncovers the vampires when they mysteriously can't enter the abandoned house he has been sleeping in. Squatter's rights are enough to block vampires.

Everyone look at my shiny bacteria that I grew in my microbiology lab.

I had a dream last night that made me laugh so hard that I laughed myself awake. 10/10 human experience. I highly recommend it.

Just repeating this, for no real reason.

Pretty soon, healthcare will only exist in major cities, and there will be no providers for vast swaths of America. No doctors. No vaccines. No preventive care. Maternal mortality will skyrocket. Diseases of poverty will become endemic. It will look like old photographs of the Great Depression.

(the sound of children screaming has been removed)

(not so) Fun fact: Uber required drivers to take cash when they rolled out in South Africa, resulting in drivers being robbed and murdered because gangs could steal a phone, call a ride, and ambush the driver.

Free novel idea: A series of murders rock residents of a suburb. All of the houses are owned by an investment fund run by vampires. The vampires mass purchased the homes so they wouldn't need to be invited in to eat the residents.

Six months after submitting it, I got a rejection notice for a short story I wrote. In the meantime, I have already begun adapting it into something more.

I know it's been a while since we've had a Friday night ride along thread. I promise we'll get back to that. I've had a kind of hilarious combination of setbacks (trips out of town, COVID, family members with COVID, etc.).

Silksong is really showing off that some of y'all suck at video games.

Sat down with my final beta reader today to talk through their comments. This one is just shy of a PhD in philosophy, and wow, it was fantastic. Sharp, sharp comments, as well as some fantastic suggestions to help untangle a few stubborn spots.

A huge actor, amazing in everything he did. I have a abiding love for the sci-fi series Defiance, where he played a surly mine owner and the most powerful human in a town of multiple alien races.

Why does it feel like Pritzker is the only politician plainly stating the issue and the stakes?

Putting a scientific & quantitative illiterate eugenicist who believes himself inherently and always more correct than the experts is… Unlikely to turn out well. Fuck understatement: RFK Jr. is a deluded idiot who is already killing people and is on track to slaughter so many more.

Spurs lose in befuddling and kind of embarrassing fashion. United wins in a last second penalty. Leeds need to win or this weekend is a total wash.

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Service Model.

Ah, there it is. There's the picture you'll see in the textbook. Chapter 7: Fascism in the United States

This is how I feel about solar plants. An entire field of panels turned to the sun to say that we don't need fossil fuels from ages ago. We can get our energy from a ball of nuclear fire 93 million miles away. That's incredibly inspiring (and very metal).

I got my first COVID vaccination because someone skipped their appointment. The vials held 10 doses, and I got the "spare" dose. At the time, about 2,000 people were dying every day. I cried when it was done because I finally felt safe. Two weeks later, I got a haircut for the first time in a year.

Nine days after first symptoms and still testing positive. No fever. No sore throat. No anything, just a little congestion. I'm so aggravated. WTF is this disease.

The Murderbot books are well worth your time, and World Central Kitchen is an incredibly worthy cause.

Meanwhile, there's an actual breakfast restaurant that's part of American culture, a place where the short order cook will beat your ass if you act up and make it back to the griddle in time to flip the eggs. I speak, of course, of the sacred Waffle House, which belongs to all Americans.

I finished reading Libertad by Bessie Flores Zaldivar yesterday. It's the story of a young girl in Honduras as she tries to come to grips with being queer in a country beset by political upheaval. Just an incredible piece of writing. Timely and beautiful. 5 ⭐

Seeing the weird "European pickpockets are being told not to target Americans" discourse a little bit, and it reminds me of a story. My mom took teenage me on a trip with a tour group to France, and we encountered a pickpocket on the Metro.