This is a joke, right?

Shouldn’t be allowed. Companies shouldn’t be allowed to buy each other. We already know what happens with consolidation.

At the lowest level, it is possible to pull people in your peer-group out of shitty world views. It’s slow and difficult. But like I got an old coworker to be way less homophobic through our chats at work.

At the larger level, nah, fuck em.

Desktop: 0. It’s off. I close the browser when I’m done

Phone: the number says 64, but only 25 “active”. I should probably prune.

I was just told today that ai usage is a factor in hiring and promotion. They didn’t say the AI usage had to be smart.

My boss, to his credit, reportedly said something like “well, if someone is already good at python they might not need as much AI to do a task than someone who isn’t”. I don’t think management cared.

I think it was heart of stone where I found random soldiers that were like level 40, and were thus inexplicably hard to kill. Kind of sucked. (Tip: setting things on fire does percentage damage, and so scales really well)

Nothing in the game is the kind of execution challenge difficulty I enjoy. It’s not like elden ring where you really have to manage spacing and stamina, consider your weapon, spells, skills. You can mostly just level and upgrade your stuff in witcher3, and win with face rolling.

Which is fine. That’s a valid kind of game. I just lost interest when replaying it because without the story to keep me in, the moment to moment gameplay wasn’t compelling enough

I didn’t really struggle with the controls when I replayed part of it this year. I lost interest because the difficulty starts out a little rough (wolves will kill you) and then a few hours later you’re so strong that even narratively scary things just melt.

I see this sometimes from a distance, even with children. The boys are wild and loose, the girls on a tight leash.

Unfortunately, trying to address that with the sledgehammer of The State is not easy to do safely.

I have a somewhat vivid memory of sprinting through NY Penn Station around midnight to get the last train home, back before I lived in the city. Was a deciding factor in me moving. Had to leave my friend’s Halloween party at like 10 to get the last train.

But public transport won’t make a handful of people rich, so that’s a non starter for many.

And you might have to reckon with living in a society, with other kinds of people. You’d really ask someone to write a bus with a {slur of your choice} just sitting there, like they’re entitled to peace and dignity?

In other words, conservatives are fuck heads who make the world worse for stupid reasons.

Also your local public library has a lot of stuff

I (a man in his 40s) pronounced Lathe wrong the other day in a meeting when referencing the le Guin story “the lathe of heaven”. Someone privately messaged me after to say “great book. BTW, it’s pronounced…”

That sounds like something out of Idiocracy. Just… it can’t all be highlights. Some things need to build!

I expect that’s some people, yeah. Accepting that climate change is real means accepting uncomfortable ideas. Like that they’re responsible, at least a little.

Some people can’t accept that they’re everything less than a saint. You tell them that walking to the store is better for them and the environment than driving and they go berserk. Can’t handle the implication that they’re not perfectly faultless.

I’ve encountered a surprising amount of seemingly intelligent, successful, people recently who of their own admission don’t read books. They just watch short videos, maybe a movie, and read social media.

I’m not a researcher but I expect that their vocabulary is stunted as a result.

But they’re so weirdly proud about it. Like a defiant 12 year old who doesn’t want to do his homework.

Many people would rather everyone suffer pollution and climate catastrophe than those people have a nice life.

Some people are just… not okay. Something in them in broken. Perhaps it could be fixed, but we live in the bad place.

If it’s like before, eventually it’ll be just a vague “things were bad” like the gilded age or great depression. Humans aren’t great at learning big picture things.

I used to care more about work. But this job pays garbage and is frothing over AI, so fuck them.

Rich people don’t want to give anything up.

Assholes don’t want their out-group to have anything nice. Even if it means they suffer.

Many people don’t know shit about fuck, and they’re just trying to get through the week.