I am once again vainly attempting to explain that it -was a hotel-, in DC, you can go there. 'Gate' is just the second half of the name. Calling every scandal name-gate is ridiculous. What if it had been at the Hilton instead?

The 'Villain explains everything' monologue in Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency (US version), season 1, remains one of my all time favorite moments of that sort of trope. Just a glorious few moments of TV that you -definitely- need context for, but is so well done.

I realize everyone probably knows this, but a quick 101 on that 'search party for a dog' "My ex with a restraining order means it's harder for me to find them. I wonder where she is every moment of the day. I lost my dog, here is a picture I took." Just...no. Fucking hell.

Random thought- I remember the first time I watched Alien Resurrection, and at the end actually thinking 'This? -This- is the movie that gets vacuum correct? After literally everything else being completely physics optional?' I mean it's not perfect, but so much closer...

Absolutely fucking spot on. thepit.social/@peter/11601...

Well that's new. I am used to attempting to refrain when speaking to not us friends about 'oh God my country is really bad and getting worse' because they are perfectly aware and don't need soul crushing specifics. But just had to avoid mentioning something in their country the don't know yet. Ugh

Just realizing that the entire idea of 'why would you use humans as power sources' can easily now be explained by 'LLMs came up with idiotic plans inspired by Soylent Green'. Most of our infamous sci fi plot issues can now be simply filed under 'very very bad AI, like GPT/Grok/etc'.

Okay I've just been sitting on this in the back of my brain for the past weeks, and I just have to say it- Why do ICE have handguns? They have weapons, mostly nonlethal, and probably don't need the lethal ones period (shotgun in the trunk for cops, eg). But why handguns?

Trying to explain to my father that he shouldn't use the liebots that companies keep attempting to force onto his computer, during a phone call where we're uninstalling adware he was tricked into installing, and -while i have to stop him from installing another piece-... makes me question stuff.

Random dream snippet- For some reason I was being told by friends on bsky that I was being blocked, by accident, because someone with a very similar-appearing screen name was being an asshole, and that's why I wasn't popular. Then they were upset I didn't care? What an odd feature.

I am having one of those times where I empathize deeply with the Banks character who stated 'I wished to become more cavort-prone'

Okay, real talk. How the hell is trump going to explicitly violate 9a? Obviously we've been dealing with 1, 4, and 5 (table stakes). Some explicit violations of 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, and now 10. 3 one can assume will surface as a side effect of NG and insurrection act. But 9? Feels tricky.

Having a deep moment of network stress and I really am trying to convince myself to go to bed instead of diagnosis. It worked yesterday, I..think it worked earlier today. My ISP did fuckery, but it worked after .. but normal connection is working...but burp a bit ago ... 30% chance of sleep fix?

I'm really baffled that the -exact same people- who were angry at me for saying casually that I dated a guy but it didn't really work out since I am not really a fan of bottoming as 'way too much information' are now nonstop explaining why them using LLMs in 'just this situation' is fine.

quotes that evoke the sources: "Why does it talk like a lamb?" "My side! Your side!" "Two corpses, everything's fine." "I like my sketchers, but I love my Prada backpack." "Bet the death rate keeps the rent down..." "Well, go find some bad guys! Bad guys have money."

I think my absolute least favorite tech support 'moment' for friends and family is 'Okay, well, I understand it takes 5 minutes for this to reboot but I think somethign might go wrong so I need you to stay on the phone with me' I actually am fine with phone calls in general, just...call if problem.

I know this is seriously a done battle at this point but I still don't understand why Microsoft decided that having a calendar application on my computer that showed the calendar was something that needed to be rebranded, renamed, require a login, and no longer show the calendar by default.

At some point we're really going to have a full society-wide reckoning that 'because they can afford it' is not a sustainable answer to 'why did you give them that thing.'

It's funny when there is Discourse about something, you (I) lightly touch on it, then see the primary source....and I am apparently the only person upset about a specific angle (explicitly going to reddit to see if others are bitching about it feels like a trick, not doing that).

Thinking about the sheer number of bad movies/games/shows I have run into recently that have plots/twists that actually sound amazing if you try to relate them, but since they aren't made with love, attention to detail, or craft, end up 'wasting' great premises. Getting ideas isn't the tricky bit.

Oh fun, imdb getting worse. Now it lists 'known for ' for an actor as 'actor'. Cool, he was an actor on Lost. Maybe the role would be helpful there? It certainly used to list it! Gosh I look forward to seeing the next ratchet of worse UI for no reason.

Today's personal dystopian weirdness- I was drifting off to a light nap (my sleep schedule is wonky atm, don't judge), and was suddenly awoken by my watch suddenly buzzing a lot It was buzzing to tell me 'your energy level is very low, you should take a rest break or a nap'. That's...new.

Random audio bits that are playing in my head today- "I'm going to my room with three strange men" - mystery men "We're not talking about the window!"- farscape

If not answer, why answer shaped? Must be a user error, they are the wrong ones.

Grats to Walmart for walking me to a reasonable point, then actively discarding that to where I am considerably more angry than when I contacted customer service in the first place

I'm honestly not sure I could really explain to young me, working for an internet based company in the early 90s, that we are currently dealing with people who think that their right to free speech is being stifled if you choose not to watch it. I guess I'd read about video screens from orwell, so

For absolutely no reason I have the clip playing in my head of Kids in the Hall where a scientist is dragged screaming from the room saying 'it was only a couple of flipper babies!'

I just want to stop reading prepared public statements that would have made me turn off the made for tv scifi channel movie for being unrealistic dystopian silliness. It's like they forgot to send the filler text to the writers.

In today's depressing moments: I was writing to a friend about various US goings on, then realized I had to edit 'para' out of a phrase describing some of it. It ain't great folks.

I really hate the days where all your social cue checks and modifiers keep throwing errors and you have no idea if you are coming off as a strange, normal or 'wearing an Edgar suit'. Fucking calibration problems.

Just looked at someone's beautiful drawings, and felt the pang of 'sucks that I could never because I don't have the natural talent ' Shame on me for that thought. If I want to pu in the time and energy, I absolutely can probably develop some skill. It just takes time and effort, not excuses.

Wherever you are, whoever you are, just say out loud, right now, 'I was wrong.' Now realize that did not, in fact, cause a bolt of lightning. Next time you're incorrect about something, just own up to it, figure out a solution, and move on. There's really no need to double down, every time.

Stupid aging meatsack. I think I just injured my knee by literally pushing some stuff because I did it from a strange angle. Iced for a little while, took an anti inflammatory, and a brief hot soak. If I can't walk tomorrow I am going to be furious .

Every weird, obscure, pointless interest in some bizarre thing that seems so fascinating to you that nobody else even glances at? Yeah, spend some time on that. It will come up again later. More than you possibly think. Something you learn/discover/think about learning about it, will help you.

This morning, I posted the below. This afternoon, my father emailed me that 'my HP printer doesn't seem to scan anymore, and it doesn't work properly while printing'. Leaving aside how vague of a request for help that is, the timing is really something.

Line that sticks in my brain, even though I read it 30 years ago, and the context isn't relevant. "I just don't understand. I can't get there from here."

I feel like there's going to be a meme later based around 'how many bosses in silksong did YOU defeat before you realized there was a parry'

Messing with audio stuff and speech recognition and I can just feel the potential hyperfixation waiting in the wings. Like, wouldn't it be nice if someone made a database of english words that were phonemically distinct for various accents for control audio mappings? What would help with this...

I love that this actually ended up being a viable business model! Also I subscribed in, and my first issue didn't,uh, come. Ever. So I emailed about it, and talked with some very nice people, and got on a sort of 'refresh' list and got it a while later. Everyone was very nice! No further issues.

Had ad odd dream that was tangentially related to online stuff, not super interesting, except it was one that makes me think "can't read in dreams? Maybe YOU can't." It's possible I looked at text, 'remembered' what it said, and only thought I was reading. But it felt like it, so...doesn't matter.

Random source of irritation today: Hey, you know what's not a unique identifier (colloquially, fingerprint)? Fingerprints. Typically the automated match rate is about 1 in 5k-10k (depending on equipment) for a complete false positive. Biometrics must be cross validated!

Fuck, I don't think I saved today before starting my actions, usually I do it right after wake-up but apparently can't revert back.

Not that I expect anyone reading this to not be a pretty big fan of Mamdani already, but something I've noticed- He actually seems to have paid attention, and aggressively stepped up using alt text and subtitles on his posts on here. It's not 100%, but a few weeks ago it was 10% and now it's 70%+.

For most people, the goal of art is not to have an art. The thing at the end is the bonus. I feel like we lose sight of that sometimes.

I was going to make a (light) case for there being some value in reading old sci fi sometimes, but a slightly more common thing has come to the mind: Reading old sci fi dystopian end of world times gives you a pretty good idea of how -exactly- tech bros are going to make a new idea worse.

I too think you should go around DC with a buddy. DC's a very weird city and it's pretty easy to get off at the wrong metro stop then you have to ask a nice old lady where you went wrong, which is embarrassing. Also a second palette will make you try another restaurant and there are so many there!

It's always funny when you recall an obscure movie, go to the Wikipedia article and discover 1) it wasn't just a fever dream and 2) your brain toned it down significantly.

Eternal, frustrating complaint: Stop fucking starting your video game without giving me basic settings. 'But we just wanted to' No, fucking shut up. I don't care. You don't know my particular setup, my audio levels, my monitor, or anything. Give me a quick basic config. No excuses.

Something I'm finding really interesting is how many Democratic voters apparently feel they're more capable of convincing thousands of trans people they've never met to vote for bad Democrats than of convincing Democratic politicians to support equality.

Random question for the aether- What misconception just drives you nuts? A basic 'fact' that 'everyone knows' but is just explicitly wrong, or needs multiple asterixes after it, your own personal annoying thing that someone says, or a movie asserts, and you just get 'letter to the editor' vibes.