lemon balm tea & chamomile tea are magical. weed and podcasts are huge helps with the constant night ruminating

That’s a perfect way to put it. I remember starting college and being really excited about the cloud, having my stuff accessible anywhere, changes automatically saved, etc etc. but now I don’t want any of my shit anywhere near their servers, it’s mine and mine alone and I’ll manage it myself and buffer against losses the best I can. I’d rather have myself fuck up and break a hard drive rather than let microsoft or apple wipe my stuff over a bug or because I didn’t pay them enough. Horrible, misleading bullshit.

The AI only fools us into thinking it’s intelligent because it picks the most likely text response based on what it’s read before. But often, the output is confidently wrong as it’s really just a parlor trick.

that’s basically what many humans do

i think AI still has really cool applications, it’s just that the vibe is getting destroyed by shitty companies putting it in everything, harvesting stealing data for it, the awful spam, and the built in restraints which make it act like you’re a child

I literally watch TV through a capture card right now out of stubbornness and principle. Anything I want to record, I can just hit a button and safely keep. No DRM preventing me from taking screenshots, I can manipulate the picture to hide obnoxious graphics or ads (great for sports); the sense of control is extremely gratifying.

When record companies make a fuss about the danger of “piracy”, they’re not talking about violent attacks on shipping. What they complain about is the sharing of copies of music, an activity in which millions of people participate in a spirit of cooperation. The term “piracy” is used by record companies to demonize sharing and cooperation by equating them to kidnaping, murder and theft.

i tried to get into streaming but i grew increasingly uncomfortable with paying forever as titles appear and disappear at the whim of suits. how could that possibly be a pleasant UX for customers?

i’d take the hassle of having discs or managing a server any day of the week over paying these goons for access to their files which they happily negotiate away for financial reasons. it’s just a disgusting paradigm. when netflix was starting streaming, i thought (i was like 15) we were emerging into a great new age, where every show you could ever want was on one beautiful service.

now they won’t even let you share accounts or screenshot the fucking show (a pig-headed anti-piracy measure which is mind-blowingly stupid given every single show on there is available for free if you know where to look ANYWAY. what are they DOING.)

fuck streaming, fuck netflix, fuck spotify. crash and burn. topple like the house of cards you are.

if you watch steve jobs’ 2007 iphone keynote it’s incredibly depressing now. he brags about how the iphone can load full, rich webpages instead of awful mobile versions; he loads the NYT website and gets the whole lush landscape desktop version, and taps to zoom in on certain elements. i used to be such a dork and so into tech in high school, it seemed so promising and wondrous.

i bet jobs could’ve yelled at spez about the API changes and gotten him to relent

and it’s not even a functional dictatorship; meaningful bills get held up in the wheels of power for ages and ages, but they have the will to pass this grossly authoritarian bullshit within a week. sick.

if i’m not burning alive by 50 i’m gonna be really disappointed by all these headlines

can’t believe people’s insanely smug reaction to this. the government is banning an app that 100+ million americans use and presumably enjoy. that is insane, full stop.

but just roll it out everywhere, if it’s such a forward thinking company. i don’t understand where this precedent came from – you can of course install whatever you want on macs. what makes phones different in that regard?

that’s all aaron bushnell right there. most noble american act of the 20th century

i’m so glad i don’t have to worry about retirement

we really need to stop centering the WFH discussion around ‘productivity’; MBA sickos will always come up with a way to continue dragging out and romanticizing the 9-5 grind.

the goal of remote work is not increased productivity, it is a dramatically improved quality of life for workers who enjoy it. it’s about not having to commute, not having to wake up early to get ready, not having to spend the bulk of your time and most alert hours in a shitty building that no one wants to be in. why would i not want to be with my cats and listening to my records while working?

at the end of the day, i don’t care about ‘deeper work’, i care about not feeling deep, unrelenting dread every evening when i know i have to wake up and be at work the next morning.

i still can’t believe we were meant to accept ‘we’re actively gambling on the buildings’ as a viable excuse for why people should return to the office

why should people’s lives be drastically worsened just so organizations benefit (in nebulous, bullshit, business school ways)?

why are people still so backwards about this? what’s the point? everyone uses caffeine and/or alcohol and that’s fine but weed is horrible and bad? just blatantly denying reality

thank you - it’s very hard continually coming up with perky, happy sounding chat up lines and sending them off into the ether with little response. how do i even know how well i’m doing?

damn, it feels like the end of the world is coming