If you were planning on making a living doing blackmail, there would be literally nothing better than if you could somehow trick people into uploading their identification and kinks into the same server.
Interesting little quirk. Amazon Prime has tons of costumes available for next day delivery... But when you search for Frog costumes, no Frogs are available for next day because they are apparently popular enough to be behind on shipping frogs for all sizes and manufacturers.
Based on "One Year Later," I think Dropout may sell physical items/merch to more people in a month than WaPo has print subscribers. Yes, the print numbers aren't *that* important. But the fact that it's wildly less than a "digital/online content only" brand, that raises an eyebrow.
The fat old guy who doesn't believe in exercise that the Ministry of Truth keeps insisting is only going to the hospital for another "annual physical?" Nah, I'm sure he's fine. Why else would they need to keep insisting he's healthy, and making AI images of how buff he is to use instead of photos?
This is an alarming compression of the planetary destruction timeline: with the massive growth of the AI bubble, data centers are expected to consume up to 12% of total US electricity by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023. www.cnn.com/2025/10/13/t...
Counterpoint: it's not like there's a payphone booth you can use if your phone dies, and the bar doesn't have a landline you can use any more, so you'd need to convince a stranger to let you use their phone to use your memorized number. Numbers have increasingly niche application these days.
I actually once sent my therapist an Astrid Lundberg video essay about Darmok and communication because it was saying things about communication with people better than I could find my own words for. And she said she didn't really get it at all. And I was like, "Exactly!"
Planning and inviting and messaging and confirming the invite's Yesses and cooking to have one person show up on time and spend the rest of the week eating a cold lonely dinner for seven. Trying to plan an "important" event with professional importance like a movie premiere gives crippling anxiety.
As an introvert who has become reclusive over the last few years, I find it anywhere from exhausting to absolutely soul crushing to try to be that guy. I completely gave up trying to do birthday parties a few years ago because it was just a net emotional disaster to invest weeks of work for "fun."
There's a certain Party Planner extroverted personality type that has always been successful in our society, but has become absurdly valuable for the rest of us in recent years. They'll gleefully take 100 slammed doors in the face and move forward because... I don't know why. It's just how they are.
Christopher Columbus was dragged back to Spain in chains by a crusading knight, convicted of tyranny and immeasurable cruelty, pardoned by Isabella but banned from returning to Hispaniola.
Yeah they are basically framing as "anybody would be right, no way for us to express an opinion or directly know what is happening" but literally they clearly had a guy standing right there to take the photo.
NYT not allowed to ask NYT folks what's happening? You'd have to be so dumb to accept it.
DHS allegations are as credible as a teenager in Salem testifying about an annoying neighbor at a witchcraft trial in the 1600's. The WGN producer did fly into the sky on a broom, and hex the ICE agents, and used spells and magics to hurl objects at the cars of the ICE agents, with demonic power!
UPDATE: In emailed statement to me / @reason.com, DHS alleges that WGN-TV producer Debbie Brockman "threw objects at Border Patrol’s car and she was placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer."
But it's actually shocking how few Trumpy lawyers have been disbarred in recent years. Odds are sadly she'll still be a lawyer after the administration, and be able to use that for celebrity lawyer appearances and consulting gigs.
Interesting how "Mortgage fraud" has become their goto move.
With my conspiracy theory hat on, they know Trump is up to his eyeballs in it, so they are using it as their default BS charge to pre-emptively whattabout some future Trump bombshell. "They only accuse him of it because we charged them."
Somehow this is gonna wind up with climate researchers in camps for weather blasphemy or whatever. Once you start putting the power of the state behind insane conspiracy theories, that power will go somewhere.
The guy who repeatedly, openly and unambiguously explains that he can't tell the difference between reality and TV/movies? Nah, I'm sure he's fine. And it's probably a crime to question his brain now.
I think it's hard to frame sitting in an exit row as "putting the plane in jeopardy." In general it is good to follow instructions. But in an emergency, it'd be better to have somebody there to start opening the emergency exit immediately rather than only after somebody random gets to that row.
