Now that half the cars are going to kill me because I can’t hear them [1], the other half have gotten even noisier [2]. We’ve gone from a gaussian distribution to bi-modal, and it’s not good. As though the leaf blowers got quieter by setting off small dynamite explosions. In between, it’s really quiet. Then […]
I just read a post with 166 comments at one of the sites [1] with better comments [2] that talked about how drinking and fighting and drugs were the ground on which the era happened, and the article and comments both remark on how kids today don’t seem to do that anymore. Control-F ‘lead’, and […]
“The purpose of a system is what it does.” —Stafford Beer, 2001
Tagged QotDI’m glad to see this blog post comment has caught on a little bit. It stunned me when I first read it, and now I’ve seen it in such disparate places as LGM, Jalopnik, and Charlies’s Diary [1] [2]. Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law […]
Tagged QotDI was raised on The Jetsons. I was promised flying cars, robot house cleaners, and jetpacks. As a splinter GenX/Boomer [1], the color of sky in my youth was that of a television, tuned to a dead channel. The streets of LA were wet, and it rained and the buildings rotted and dripped. I didn’t […]
Tagged ok boomer, rantI killed my first Aedes mosquito today, around noon. It was full of blood, probably mine. I look forward to the return of yellow fever and dengue. Between contested elections, occasional insurrections, half the country taking dog heartworm medicine instead of a vaccine, the roads falling apart because no one wants to pay any taxes, […]
And now Apple, and HBOMax, both have autoplay-with-sound previews while you’re looking through their channels. Did they learn nothing from Netflix?
Reagan said that the scariest words in the English language were “I’m here from the government, and I’m here to help”, but I have to figure that “Your employer just got bought by Bain Capital” are scarier, and a lot more immediate.
Is it too old-man-yelling-at-clouds to point out that just obvious stupid errors completely pull me out of the movie you are trying to get me to watch? Maybe Netflix doesn’t care, because it happens 15 minutes in, so it’s already counted as a view for their made-up numbers. To wit: “Outside the Wire”: “How […]
I started the madness about a year behind on my NYer subscription, stacked up on my nightstand. Home for every shit, I’m catching up now. It’s a relief, in some sense, to be that far behind, pre-whatever-this-is. I don’t have to read a 20,000 word piece on Pete Buttagieg (whatever). Saved myself that brainspace. […]
If everyone who told me that their dad had that car BITD really did, they would have sold a lot more than the 19,987 they really did from 1984-88.
On the list of things that are cool, and/or better than they used to be: Bike radar – there are those who dismiss it, and those that have tried it. Game changer. An affordable head’s up bike display (HUD) – goes with the previous. Not having to look down to see the radar or stats […]
I made sure that the American flag I bought was made in China [0]. Because I’d rather give money to (maybe) Chinese communists [1], than for-real no-kidding American nazis [2]. [0] to go next to the Black Lives Matter flag [1] But probably just better capitalists than us [2] A perhaps not-surprisingly large […]
QotD 20220629
I don’t believe that personal morality and character should be grounded on hope. … We need people who are grounded in the belief that there is a single humanity, and that battles are fought whether or not you can calculate that they’ll be successes. The struggle must be our very existence and we […]
Tagged QotD