i'm in england for the week so i am trying to be a good guest and not post about how i think if you butchered paddington bear his meat would be blue like a macaw's but with a sort of jamon iberico sweetness from the marmalade-centric diet, or how when paddington bear dies his identity will […]

when sailor moon says that in the name of the moon she is going to punish me, the moon functions here as a lacanian Big Other. she, even if only subconsciously, does not legitimately believe that she acts on behalf of the moon per se (or even on behalf of the moon as synecdoche for the silver […]

the washington dc 👏 corpse 👏 flower 👏 is 👏 blooming

After ruining the "is a hotdog a sandwich" discourse for myself, I've now decided to pick another type of stupid discourse to permanently ruin.

As I do paper reviews I have to continually remind myself, "remember, caesar, thou art mortal"-style, that just because I am very *particular* about writing it does not mean that I am very *good* at writing.

My pinterest aesthetic moodboard is just this

i apologize for the recent string of terrible posts but i have to Work Post on this account soon so i have to get it out of my system. I refuse to speculate on what "it" is, though.

hack stand up comics of the scifi future going "ya ever notice how the ominous audio logs always survive the spaceship crashes and alien invasions? why don't they make the whole dang spaceship out of audio logs?!"

even when it tries not to be haunted, maine is still, like, kind of haunted

[ai, academia, satire(?)] as the ml bro crashouts to "arxiv wants to punish authors uploading pdfs with hallucinated ai references" enters day like 3 or 4, combined with similar crashouts over "icml wants to punish reviewers for not abiding by the totally optional opt-in no-ai policy they […]

Sam Handwich, Private Eye.

i used to think that every human being, no matter how wretched their circumstances, has uniquely experienced unique joy and wonder, and that all life experiences contribute (even if just in a small way) to the fullness of the heavenly choir, and we owe everyone we meet heartfelt kindness on this […]

I shall look at this stranger's joking social media post but once; any unasked-for riffs that I can make or any unsolicited replies that I can post; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass by this post again.

count no man peak until he is dead

woke up with the metaphorical check engine light on

rebooting my dinner with andre but they both look at their phones the entire time and recite the headlines of random articles that show up in their algorithmic feeds at each other and the last 15 minutes is andre trying to make tap to pay work on the ipad that the waiter brings around (30% tip […]

unhealthy in other aspects of my life probably but my innate and visceral response to "hey share your system or error info with our developers" or "hey fill out this feedback survey" or "hey rate this product" etc. etc. is "hell no, i'm no snitch; even if i were, i'm not gonna grass to a fucking […]

You've been visited by the giant alleyway gull

it is extremely annoying that when i am stressed about stuff i become both less kind and less clever, since being kind and clever are sort of the top two ways to get out of jams, in my experience

abbott: strange as it seems, they give small plates eateries with a focus on locally sourced ingredients nowadays very peculiar names costello: funny names? abbott: trendy names, trendy names. now, here in the city we have Who & What on first ave, IDK on second, and BeefWench: A Who&What Tasting […]

https://medium.com/@Birdbassador/vade-retro-duo-d10c38c0f473 Good morning. Here is a 5,000 word story about Duo, the Duolingo Owl. It is technically also a horror story in that it is meant to replicate the experience of listening to an increasingly deranged person free associate about Duolingo.

doing some spring cleaning and discovered a tarot deck i didn't remember having, bringing me up to nine (9) total tarot decks

https://medium.com/@Birdbassador/vade-retro-duo-d10c38c0f473 Good morning. Here is a 5,000 word story about Duo, the Duolingo Owl. It is technically also a horror story in that it is meant to replicate the experience of listening to an increasingly deranged person free associate about Duolingo.

the guitarist from angine de poitrine is kiki and the drummer is bouba

you already know what time it is

the only unifying bit i can find about research is that everybody seems to think that there's some other (wicked) place that "only cares about papers" but it's of course never the place where they are, where they are is of course different.

reverse omelas situation where society is more or less idyllic but there is one very public mean idiot who sucks shit that we have to be nice to.

in speed (1994), sandra bullock and keanu reeves deal with a peril via movement through space (romance ensues). in the lake house (2006), sandra bullock and keanu reeves deal with a peril via movement through time (romance ensues). we are therefore overdue for a movie where bullock and reeves […]

who the fuck is scraeming "IMMANENTIZE THE ESCHATON" at my house. show yourself, coward. i will never immanentize the eschaton

extremely worried that i'm starting to think "oh i should go to a baseball game soon, it's been a while." it's a sign of a body in deep distress, like in my side of the mountain where he started craving liver because he had a vitamin a deficiency

you would think that, given the circumstances, i would stop being genuinely surprised when i know about something related to math or statistics and can implement/describe it successfully. yet i have so deeply internalized that i am "not a math person" that it does, in fact, surprise me each time.

[other socmed] sympathies to the bsky folks but imo websites should go down more often. no five 9s of uptime, i want, like, one 9, tops. not only for immortan joe "do not become addicted to water, it will take hold of you and you will resent its absence" reasons, but also having a website that […]

we need to put the "nerd" back in "music nerd." a music nerd should not be cool. a music nerd should be into a second or third tier gilbert and sullivan light operas with songs like "lo, the postal inspector arrives with commanding gait." they should have a "this machine kills fascists" sticker […]

my advice for new writers looking to hone their craft: 1) begin all of your creative writing with an invocation of the muses, with a particular acknowledgment of whichever muse you think is most relevant (9/10 it's going to be erato; honestly can't hurt to thank erato along with the others just […]

i think it's still a crime on par with at least a couple of murders that the ico save music, the music that plays to let you know that you are safe, and you can take a break and think things through, has been coopted as hold music by both cvs and fedex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RMDBqQDtT8

looking through the infinite jest footnote visualization and feeling myself becoming Deranged https://samizdat.co/digest/notes/

jock

Why are people born after Gen Z called Gen αλφα and not Gen AA like a spreadsheet column

an impulse i am trying to correct within myself is that sometimes when i am mad or frustrated about something it's because i didn't get enough sleep or need a break or something, i do not actually need to write a stupid little academic essay about how a thing that is making me mad is actually […]

romance novel where the woman in a high pressure marketing job with a successful but aloof/boring fiancé finds out that the small christmas-obsessed town she's stuck in due to circumstances actually sucks shit and the bearded flannel guy she meets is caring and strong and all that but, like […]

first rodeo? i strive to attend /every/ rodeo with the excitement and beginner's mind i brought to my first rodeo. but also with the solemnity and gratitude for what could be my very /last/ rodeo as well.

i think the little paper hangers on hotel water bottles that say "complimentary" (because the assumption is that everything in the hotel room costs extra money to use) is an important bit of late capitalist environmental storytelling, in line with "yes/remind me later" dialog boxes and "i bought […]

encountering websites that are still doing april fools stuff and getting the same Fremdscham as when you see a business that is still making people send faxes

This sign raises many questions, which probably should be answered by the sign but aren't

i can be trusted with the ring of gyges

i apparently have written "together, these findings suggest" in pretty much every scientific paper i've ever submitted. just once i'd like to either a paper with a single (but important) finding, or one where the findings don't merely suggest, they straight up demand something.

there are actually four of the "three grand soups" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_grand_soups because borscht and tom yum are considered tied for third, but wouldn't that make them actually tied at fourth place? since if one soup overtook the other, it would then be in third.