"it is what it is" is undoubtedly the GOAT thought terminating cliché. nothing else even comes close. it just is what it is

They put a button labeled "make me mad" in my enclosure and every time I press it I get poked with a pin. I thought there might be a monthly limit or something but so far it seems like you get unlimited presses

Saw a meme of GenZ baffled by how pre-internet travel worked, and realized we’ve crossed an enshittification threshold where IRL services that once seemed outdated, like travel agents, now seem luxurious: “You meet with a human expert who plans out your whole trip with you” sounds incredible now tbh

i wonder if everyone knows it’s possible to just say nothing or if that’s something only i ever learned

Did you hear about the DC July 4 fireworks show? It promises 850,000 fireworks in 40 minutes. That's 354 per second. You'll miss up to 142 of them every time you blink. For your edutainment, I proudly present the nerdiest thing you will read about this dangerously absurd / absurdly dangerous event.

witnessing the birth of a new all timer post is such a beautiful thing

I don't understand why bsky needs to know my age when simply posting here proves that I'm 38 years old

Stress is good for you because it gets your heart rate up

Lake forever, problems for now

The war on metaphor is over and we lost. defector.com/promises-mad...

The computer lost the mandate of heaven when the humble, helpful "program" was replaced with the insidious "app"

new William Gibson book opening line dropped

why are people arguing about bluesky this morning? it’s a rainy day. you could be out there getting drenched and falling ill

“…the scandal can’t just be that he used AI while working on his book, because he acknowledged that up front. He got in trouble because he had used AI badly, failing to check its work on a task at which it is famously unreliable.”

Biking along and contemplating a new life as a speed-scratch ingredient on its way to a fast casual restaurant for just a little too long.

I GET LOGGED OUT. BUT I LOG IN AGAIN

the ap style tidbit that most frustrates me when i see it violated in real life is the use of the term “first annual.” the ap is right: don’t call something annual until it happens a second year in a row!

This 1952 memo from the Pentagon UFO files is superb There is no point preparing for aliens ‘because no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens. At that point, our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic.’ 🤣 www.war.gov/medialink/uf...

“The majority of the technical infrastructure of the Internet was created in this way. For free, often by people in academia, or as part of their regular work, with no promise of some big payday or getting a ton of credit.” anildash.com/2026/01/09/h...

On the weather app, days where there is a small chance of overnight rain but it will otherwise be sunny during waking hours should not be represented by the little rainy cloud thumbnail. Bad for morale.

I personally love to read shit like "U.S. Pauses 'Project Freedom'" in headlines. Not all good jokes need to be complicated.

This is interesting because it challenges two widely held political assumptions: 1) that people love it when everything at the supermarket is at least $8.99 and 2) that the easiest way to win voters over is to go on TV every day and say that you need to build a big event space or you'll die.

Now that it’s backed by Gemini, my Google Home has suddenly decided it can’t discuss cocktail recipes or even acknowledge the address of a named bar or liquor store in my all-adult household.

found a whole operation of unmanned youtube channels making completely unchecked long form slop videos where the ai voice simulacra regularly trips up & does this for a full ten minutes every time. all the very legit comments are like "NO! THATS NOT TRUE! YOU LIE HE DID NOT" & never acknowledge it.

this is a good example of why breaking news situations are difficult. this one happened in a room full of journalists and i’ve seen at least three different and conflicting narratives

First they came for the A testers, and I said nothing, because I was randomly assigned to the B group.

"we are in hell" still implies a sort of solidarity, an opportunity for commiseration. Our damnation is bespoke. We are in seven billion hells.

and thus ends my reporting on the Artemis II toilet... toilet was noted as unpowered by Mission Control at 20:46:36 UTC, rest in piss

f/8 and be there

There are now 10 toilets in Space International Space Station: 4 Crew Dragon Docked at ISS: 1 Soyuz Docked at ISS: 1 Tiangong Space Station: 2 Shenzhou Docked at TSS: 1 Artemis II on way around Moon: 1 This will be the first time a toilet has left low earth orbit!

guys this is so nice :') I love that we're all online watching a thing that's good instead of bad :')

operator: 911, please state the nature of your emergency me: there’s a site i go to a lot that isn’t the best way to follow breaking news operator: is it a news site me: not really operator: why don’t you go to a news site me: i don’t know operator: jesus. ok. how many ambulances do you want me: 75

First, the good news. The bathwater has been disposed of.

Big screen for big purchase, little screen for little purchase it’s science

“…a lot of people approach new art as if they’re going into battle, and they can’t let the art win – from jump, they’re looking for reasons to be mad at it, to declare victory over it, as though they’ve diagnosed The Thing That Makes It Objectively Bad and there’s nothing more to discuss.”

Like it really cannot be overstated that one of the difficulties with identifying bad AI-generated writing is that a lot of non-AI writing is also bad!

We’ve lost all concept of this, but government services are not supposed to be profit making enterprises. government services are not publicly traded corporations. They are, and I can’t stress this enough, government services

“tweeting was a thing a lot of people used to do and it was often fun and free, but that website doesn't exist anymore…” 🎂

“That is not a bug in how he’s using the computer. That’s the entire mechanism by which a kid becomes a developer. Or a designer. Or a filmmaker. Or whatever it is that comes after spending thousands of hours alone in a room with a machine that was never quite right for what you were asking of it.”

anyone who has been on social media for the last 15 years has ptsd for this exact thing when the charts start to buck and the smart weirdos start to flail and vaguely gesture like this

NOEM TAKING QUESTIONS - DOES NOT APPEAR TO KNOW SHE WAS FIRED

Like the bible says: live by the sword, no worries

Costco Connection magazine just published a full article about why and how to stop your car

For the Old Heads

Time for the JSON creator to do the funniest thing ever www.json.org/license.html

Ordering a waymo so I can draft off it on a windy day

Wishing I remembered how to do sentence diagrams. 16 commas in this baby!