jwz

"AI" once again revealed to be three perverts in a trenchcoat

jwz — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 22:56:33 +0000

Humans Are Reading Copilot Prompts -- And They're Horrified

Human contractors hired to improve Microsoft's Copilot AI chatbot are constantly bombarded with lewd or sexually explicit photo editing requests and images that users have uploaded, including upskirt photos or putting women into sexual positions. These contractors are then asked to review whether the generated image successfully fulfilled the prompt -- such as, did the image generator make the woman's AI-enlarged breasts big enough. [...]
"Faces are always uncensored, and many of the prompts are sexual in nature and dubiously consensual," one person who works on the prompts told 404 Media. [....]
These contractors are not being hired to flag or vet offensive or inappropriate content. They are being paid to review the quality of Copilot's output, including in these cases of sexual imagery.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

DNA Lounge: Wherein Folsom Street Events has fucked us, and not in the consensual way

jwz — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 18:52:33 +0000

Friday evening, the Folsom Street Fair web site finally published the map of the fair. (This is not unusual for them: many years they don't publish the map or schedule until after the fair has begun.)

And lo what do we see? That for the first time in over twenty-five years they have decided that our block of 11th Street is outside of the fair.

This has, to put it mildly, massive financial consequences.

So we mail them, and:

From: Angel Adeyoha
Date: Fri, Sep 25, 2026 at 11:15 PM
Subject: Re: Why is DNA Lounge excluded this year?
To:
Hey Devon,
The map has been public since our ISCOTT application, and we can't make a change to our footprint two days before the event, legally. We have moved to a closure system with fewer gates to make it work better for our staffing and traffic control, and so have to choose where closures that are emergency exits would work best. We didn't want to fence you or Butter in, especially since we haven't had any conversations about participation with your bar. We can for sure discuss what sort of participation you'd like in the future, right after we get done with this fair!
I'm sorry it caught you off guard and we're always open to meeting to discuss further.

Let me translate that for you from its native Douglas Adams:

There's no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now. ... What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven's sake, mankind, it's only four light years away, you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that's your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.

Thank you, Vogon Street Fair Events.

Yes it did "catch us off guard" that for the first time in twenty-five years their organization chose to completely FUCK us with zero notice to the tune of $20,000 in combined lost sales -- from our outside bar that nobody can visit, and our free daytime indoor party that nobody will attend. "Golly gee, nothing to be done. Better luck next time, fuck you very much."

The street closure permit (ISCOTT 1532891) shows all of 11th Street marked as closed up to Harrison. There's nothing that indicates the block need only be partially closed. So they closed our entire street -- but intentionally excluded us from the fair anyway. Best of both worlds!

Brüt:

Bare Chest:

SXTPS:

And not just us, of course: our neighbors Butter, Buzzworks, Audio, Bergerac and Halcyon are also fucked by this.

To be clear, this is not the City who did this to us -- this was done to us by Folsom Street Events, the corporation that runs the Folsom Street Fair.

Why would they do this? Who knows. Did we piss someone off? Did they decide that we're just not "Folsom" enough for them? On that note, here are some photos and videos of our parties on Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening:

Update, Saturday Evening:

At around 10pm, a crew showed up to start installing the barricades. Now, let me clarify what that used to mean: at literally every previous Folsom Street Fair, the "gate" was a couple of 3' tall stanchions, a card table, and a drag queen with a tip bucket and a hard sell. This time? the "gate" they were building was an 8' tall chain-link fence going wall-to-wall, blocking even the sidewalk. This was an Outside Lands fence. This was not a, "Welcome to the street party, please tip" gate, this was a, "You are not seeing Charli XCX for free" barricade.

Which means that this was not just a design and psychological barrier to people at the fair coming our way, they made it literally impossible.

Anyway, funny story, they started setting up that wall just north of Buzzworks -- so only Buzzworks, Butter and DNA Lounge were fucked. Audio, Bergerac and Halcyon got to be inside the fair. This did not sit well with Vlad, the owner of Butter and Buzzworks, and he went off. He told the fence installers that either they were taking it down or he was, and eventually they said "I am not paid enough for this" and left.

And then Angel (Folsom Street Events Executive Director) called the cops on him! An hour later, a squad car showed up.

Cop: You can't keep knocking down the fence, they will keep calling us, that's their property.

Vlad: No it's not, it's abandoned garbage in the middle of the street in front of my door, keeping my customers away.

Cop: Hold that thought, here is someone else we need to go assault, TTYL.

Then the cops went and sat on some dude and 4 more squad cars showed up with sirens blazing to rubberneck, as they do. I don't even know what this dude did, I blinked and suddenly there was a guy face down on the concrete getting cuffed.

So, I dunno man. Our best guess is that Angel has beef with Vlad for some reason unknown to us, and Angel considers DNA Lounge to be acceptable collateral damage in their little feud. Who can even tell. This is still some serious bullshit that is costing us a colossal amount of money and I would prefer to just be able to invite customers into my venue and provide them entertainment, food and beverages without someone trying to persistently fuck my shit up, so if Angel and company could knock that shit off that would be greatly appreciated.

As of 11:30 AM, they keep trying to put the barricade back up and Vlad keeps taking it down. I guess he hasn't been arrested yet. This story is "developing", as they say.

We are all hanging on by god damned thread here, and we don't need this kind of petty, vindictive, petulant, childish, circular-firing-squad nonsense from people who should be on our side. Jesus Fucking Christ on a God Damned Pogo-Stick.

ANYWAY.

If you could find the time to visit us at DNA Lounge this afternoon and evening, that would really be appreciated. I mean, if someone is going to so much effort to keep you away from us, we must be throwing a pretty good party, right?

We will be here all day, at the ass end -- literally the ass end -- of this fucking fair.

Update, Afterward:

You may be wondering how that all went! Well, at some point they stopped playing whack-a-mole with the fence, and the fence stayed down. This had the I-am-sure-unintended consequence of making 11th Street an additional entrance to the fair, as it had been in years past -- albeit one that had no donation-collectors, oopsie. As for us, we did alright. We did much better than I expected -- because had the fence stayed up, I expected crickets -- but we still took in almost exactly half the income as last year.

I'm really proud of the DNA Lounge and DNA Pizza staff, who still killed it today in the face of all this chaos and uncertainty.

DNA Lounge: Wherein there's a little more about the parklet

jwz — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 23:59:04 +0000

Thanks to Charles Lewis III for his nice writeup about our parklet situation in 48 Hills! (Vote for us in Best of the Bay!)

But since this wretched timeline is one that moves backwards in all the worst ways, City Hall and the SFMTA want the Lounge's parklet destroyed. Again. Seemingly for no other reason than "just because." The 41-year-old club has two weeks to take down the utterly harmless, wholly beneficial structure, or face a 500-dollar daily fine.
You know how this very column has illustrated that Lurie's administration wants to turn SF into Manhattan? You know how we've said their idea of "a thriving San Francisco" is one that appeals not to artists, performers, or independent businesses, but soulless corporate interests? This is what we mean. The DNA Lounge is not only one of the few indie performance venues still around in SF (particularly, in the SoMA/Tenderloin area), it's one of the few -- if not the last -- concert venues that hasn't been assimilated into the TicketMaster/LiveNation mega-monster. It's a genuine San Francisco original that constantly finds itself at war with the very SF politicians who should be defending it.

Here are some photos of our lovely parklet from this very afternoon, being enjoyed by the attendees of our annual PRC / AIDS Emergency Fund benefit event. Look at all that wide open space for busses!

You may have noticed that we got coverage about this from one of the local TV stations. I'm not embedding it here because the coverage was... kinda bad.

One good thing came of it, though, which is they got Dorsey on camera saying "let's hope we can keep that parklet there". We did finally get in contact with his staff, and they are trying to set up another meeting.

SFMTA's position hasn't changed a bit, and they have still not made any real commitment to pausing the fines, which may or may not start next week depending on their mood.

Anyway, back to that TV segment: they showed up unannounced at 10am, interviewed Devon for half an hour, picked their favorite 5 seconds, and then gave the SFMTA bureaucrats a full-page copaganda press release rebuttal that went entirely unchallenged and made it sound like we just put this thing up in secret in the dead of night and they only just discovered it, which is the farthest thing from the truth. SFMTA were deeply involved in the parklet design before during and after both of its incarnations.

SFMTA like to keep saying it is "unpermitted", but the only reason for that technicality is that eight and a half years ago someone inside the city bureaucracy just... dropped the ball and didn't finish the paperwork. If they had just done their job and signed off on it when they were supposed to, we would have been fully permitted today -- with affordances for the 40 foot busses that were the standard at the time of permitting. How were we supposed to know that they didn't finish their homework? That's their job, not ours!

But because one of their own fucked up eight and a half years ago, they think they get to just make us start over from scratch with an entirely new set of rules that did not exist when this project was designed and approved. We're getting screwed because they didn't dot their i's and cross their t's when they were supposed to.

By the way -- something else I didn't mention last time, because though it is stupid, it will obviously hold no sway with bureaucrats: this idea that there needs to be room for two busses at the curb? It's absurd! It has literally never happened, and do you know why? Because there is ALWAYS a car there! One hundred percent of the time when I have seen two busses there at once (which isn't even all that common) there has been an Uber or a Lyft or a Waymo or a delivery driver illegally parked in the bus stop, and so the second bus stops at an angle with its nose out in the traffic lane. And the bus drivers and the bus passengers just deal with it and go on with their day, because that's life in the city.

"But that's illegal", says the bureaucrat. "They can't do that."

BTW, ask me about our so-called "bike lane".

Slo-mo dubstep glitch mode

jwz — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 21:13:40 +0000

Dear Lazyweb, please help me figure out why OBS keeps doing this crazy thing where sometimes audio goes into slo-mo dubstep glitch mode. Sometimes switching inputs fixes it. Sometimes only "sudo killall coreaudiod" fixes it. Here's what it sounds like. It seems to be doubling the spacing of the frames, and the buffer is infinite.

Even worse is that my check-volume.pl script fails to detect it much of the time. On this particular TS file it reports "glitchy: 27.4 dropouts/sec over 6.2 secs" but when scanning the live .m3u8 stream it often misses it.

Macmini9,1 macOS 14.8.7, OBS 32.2.2. OBS is reading audio and video from a Kiloview E1 NDI. Audio Hijack 4.6.0, but it "shouldn't" be involved in this?

Previously, previously, previously.

Left Behind

jwz — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 18:48:12 +0000

Smooth Dunk:

Previously, previously, previously.

SF Democratic Party loves Flock:

jwz — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 03:59:07 +0000

The SF Democratic Party [sic] voted on Wednesday to continue its support for Flock surveillance cameras:

Two major resolutions were in front of the party's 31 members -- 13 of whom were absent -- on Wednesday. One, written by former District 4 supervisor Gordon Mar, called for the city to impose increased guardrails for Flock's automated license-plate readers, and to consider suspension of its contract with the city.
The other, written by committee chair Nancy Tung and District 6 supervisor and former police spokesperson Matt Dorsey, asked the group to affirm its trust in the city's existing use of Flock cameras. [...]
At Wednesday's San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee meeting, a majority voted to reject Mar's resolution and pass Dorsey's. Dorsey's measure received 11 votes in favor, 4 votes abstaining, and only 3 against. [...]
Both sides acknowledged that the city's Flock camera data was illegally accessed more than 1.6 million times in 2024 and 2025, with lots of those searches reaching out-of-state agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And, more recently, the San Francisco Police Department admitted around 300 out-of-state illegal searches had happened in the last year. [...]
Mar raised another concern: Two of the committee's current members -- Lily Ho and Trevor Chandler -- work for Flock. Last month, the San Francisco Standard reported that a prior version of Mar's resolution was removed from the party's agenda by a subcommittee chaired by Ho.
Neither Ho nor Chandler offered to abstain from voting on Wednesday. The committee does not have rules related to conflicts of interest for issues like this one, Tung told Mar. They then proceeded to count both Ho and Chandler's votes.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Disruption! AI!

jwz — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 03:47:56 +0000

Techbros literally out here trying to disrupt the fraternity rape-house:

Today these so-called hacker houses are driven by missions, like the advancement of humanity, and have become critical nodes for the AI industry. Residents are often startup founders or engineers working at OpenAI or Anthropic. Rent can hit $10,000 a month for a room. [...]
Parties featuring psychedelic drugs and sharing of sexual partners are common, the people said. One house threw lavish events for the AI community so often that its owner claimed more than $200,000 of damage, including for a rodent infestation.
At the mansion in Hillsborough known as AGI House -- named for "artificial general intelligence" -- local police have logged 37 incidents since 2022. At least 17 were related to complaints about large parties and events, according to the reports. The others included an episode in December when a woman called police and told them that a male AGI House resident had pressured her to have sex; she climbed over a gate to escape. Last year, police were also asked at least four times to perform welfare checks, which typically happen when people experience mental health issues or are considered unsafe to themselves or others. [...]
Nixon said he planned to make AGI House even bigger. His concept involved "20 AI hackers, living in the same epic house for three months, 20 weekend hackathons, daily dinners with AI royalty, ship code again and again and again," according to Nixon's notes, which were released in court.
"This is a new golden age," Nixon said, according to the court documents.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

DNA Lounge: Wherein SFMTA wants to bulldoze DNA Lounge's parklet

jwz — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 01:00:58 +0000

We've had our parklet for 15 years, and now SFMTA says they're going to fine us $500/day if we don't demolish it in two weeks.

We have spent nearly two years trying to negotiate with them to figure out some rational way to satisfy them, and they have been 100% unwilling discuss any alternatives. In their view, they can demand whatever they want and we just have to suck it up.

Over the last few months, we have reached out to Mayor Lurie, and to District 6 Supervisor Dorsey (through various channels) and have gotten no response of any kind.

Protecting local small businesses (and a Legacy Business at that) from the predations of petty bureaucrats is supposed to be what this business-focused administration is all about, is it not? That's what I've read. But they won't return our calls.

We love our parklet. We love all parklets. Probably you do too. Probably you also believe that the San Francisco street-scape should be a place for people, rather than solely used as free parking for Ubers and autonomous robo-murdercars.

If you have any pull with anyone in this administration and could get someone to return our calls, that would be extremely helpful.

I'd hate to have to resort to an emailing campaign, since those are annoying for everyone involved, but I guess that's next on the agenda if we can't get someone to talk to us.

Basically SFMTA's demand is that there be a new bus loading zone right smack in the middle of where the parklet is; directly in front of the entrance to DNA Pizza.

When we asked questions like, "Would sliding the parklet South by ten feet solve the problem?" they just keep repeating, "The loading zone for a 60' bus has to be here and it has to be 5' wide and 8' deep." Then we say, "I understand that, but how would you recommend we reconfigure our parklet to accommodate that without destroying it entirely?" And they just go back to, "the loading zone for a 60' bus has to be here." They won't discuss it. They just demand it be gone.

What we are asking of you:

Help us find someone in the Lurie administration who will return our calls. (415-626-2532)
Get the local press to make noise about this.

What we will be asking of that official:

Pause these ursurious, debilitating fines until we find a solution.
Convince someone to negotiate a solution with us in good faith rather than just telling us "fuck you, no".

Here's an email I sent to the Mayor nearly two months ago. No response of any kind:

From: Jamie Zawinski
Subject: Please help us keep DNA Lounge's parklet
Date: August 1, 2026 at 9:42:37 PM PDT
To: daniel.lurie@sfgov.org
Cc: Devon Dossett
Dear Mayor Lurie,
I am the owner of DNA Lounge (one of San Francisco's oldest and most well-known nightclubs, at 41 years, and a Legacy Business) and we need your help.
SFMTA is currently threatening to completely destroy DNA Lounge's 15-year-old parklet.
This will have a hugely deleterious effect on our business. The parklet is beloved and heavily used by our customers, and by customers of other businesses on 11th Street. It brings life to the street, and helps keep the sidewalk clear. It provides much-needed shelter from rain, wind and sun.
THE PROBLEM:
Our parklet was installed in 2011. In 2017, in order to accommodate a sidewalk reconfiguration, we were forced to rebuild it and reduce it in size. In 2017, SFMTA approved the current configuration of our parklet, and at the time, all communication with them referenced a bus stop supporting 40' busses.
Now they are telling us that it was never "really" approved, and, surprise, now it has to support a pair of 60' busses instead, so our parklet must be destroyed.
This is straight out of "Brazil" -- "Oh, we may have said that, but your form isn't stamped, you see."
Nine years after we re-built the parklet to their specifications, at great expense, they have come back and told us that they're moving the goal posts.
WHAT WE WANT:
To keep our existing parklet at its current size and location. It is highly valued by our community, and very helpful to our business. Having already spent $15,000 on this gift to Eleventh Street, we do not look forward to losing it, or to having to spend even more money to make it worse and move backwards.
I hope you can help us with this, and cause saner heads to prevail.
Thank you for your time.
Jamie Zawinski

PS:
A slightly longer version of the timeline:
In 2011, we received permission to install a parklet in two parking spaces in front of DNA Lounge. It was enthusiastically supported by our neighbors. Though it cost over $11,000 to build and install, we were able to crowd-fund that from our local community.
In 2015, SFMTA told us that our parklet would have to move, due to a sidewalk widening.
In 2016 through 2017, SFMTA approved our parklet in front of DNA Lounge. All communication, drawings, plans and permits referenced a bus stop supporting 40' busses. Reconfiguring and re-installing the parklet cost over $4,000. But again, we were able to crowd-fund that, because our local community values it so highly.
In 2025, SFFD told us that our parklet would need to be removed entirely because (they falsely claimed) it is encroaching things that it demonstrably is not.
In 2026, SFDPW told us that our parklet would need to be removed to support the loading of 60' busses. We pointed out that all discussion with SFMTA in 2015, and all permits, referred to 40' busses. That's what they designed, and that's what we built. But they claim that that doesn't matter because suddenly, after all this time, we were "not fully permitted" so they can do whatever they want.
SFDPW are now making threats about "enforcement action".

And yesterday, SFMTA finally tacked up a poster on our parklet saying that in two weeks they plan to start fining us $500/day. We didn't even get the courtesy of an email.

And to add insult to injury, they started this a week before the Folsom Street Fair, our busiest weekend of the year. We do not have time to deal with this right now!

Sing that Ramones song with me: "SFMTA wants to take our parklet away".

Our parklet is 15 years old; it nearly pre-dates the parklet program itself, and that's part of the problem: because it has been nearly-first-of-its-kind and special-cased multiple times, there's not much of a paper trail. There were a bunch of phone calls and in-person conversations where people pointed at things.

And this city is dead-set on doubling back on every possible good thing that came out of the pandemic. How many parklets have been destroyed over the last couple of years due to massively increasing fees and bureaucratic intransigence like this? I don't have a precise number but it is "a lot". There are years of articles about this pattern: "Business and their community are sad about their now-former parklet, how could the city let this happen?" Apparently the Lurie (and Breed) administrations don't even consider this to be bad press. They just don't give a shit.

Aaron Peskin back in 2021: "It's the most uncoordinated, messed-up, insulting display of government incompetence. It's breathtaking."

Update: Part two.

Ducking autocomplete

jwz — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 16:58:04 +0000

Dear Lazyweb,

There are folks in macOS/iOS "Contacts" whom I haven't emailed in years. How do I make them stop being the first completion? I would prefer to not have to shitcan their contact info entirely, but I'm sick of almost accidentally emailing the wrong person.

"Remove from previous recipients list" does not fix it. They show up as completions anyway.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

DNA Lounge: Wherein it's the gayest weekend of the year

jwz — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 01:06:38 +0000

It's time for the Folsom Street Fair and we've got quite a lineup!

First a bit of an outlier, on Friday the Aniclover folks are bringing some kind of anime maid thing, your guess is as good as mine. But this one is phone-free, which I can certainly get behind. (BTW, if, in your dotage, you ever find yourself thinking that there's no new kink out in the world that can surprise you, check out an anime party. They have such specificity...)

Then we do the Full Folsom: Brüt, Bare Chest (sold out!), San Frandisco, SXTPS (it's supposed to be pronounced Sex Tapes but you and I both know it's a Sextopus); then on the day of the fair itself, we have our Studio 456 free daytime party, and in the evening right after the fair, a live show with Brooke Candy and Violet Chachki!

Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Then next weekend, Kreayshawn -- tickets are going fast for that one, get them now!

And with that lineup, might I remind you again to vote for DNA Lounge as Best Nightclub and Best Live Music Venue in this year's Best of the Bay poll?

Batman: The Doome

jwz — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 20:06:58 +0000

"The doome warning all men to the iudgemente wherein are contayned for the most parte all the straunge prodigies hapned in the worlde, with diuers secrete figures of reuelations tending to mannes stayed conuersion towardes God: in maner of a generall chronicle, gathered out of sundrie approued authors by St. Batman professor in diuinite." 1581.

Internet Archive has the first few pages of a reprint of this Batman Grimoire which says:

The Doome is Batman's translation and amplification of Conrad Lycosthenes' Prodigiorum ac Ostentorom Chronicon (1557). In his Epistle Dedicatory Batman calls his book a "collection, translation, and interpretation." [...] His chief addenda are [...] a brief catalogue of illustrious and noble women which concludes with a prayer for the preservation of the noble and most illustrious Elizabeth. [...] In illustrating his book, Batman employed almost ninety wood-cuts, a few of which were copied from Lycosthenes.

"Wait, this whole thing is just more infighting between Protestants and Catholics?"

"Always has been."

Some of the illustrations from The Doome are here and they are wild:

But it sounds like Batman only cribbed some of those from Lycosthenes, and those are pretty good too: Though Prodigiorum has a lot of repeated illustrations. A lot.

There's a reprint of The Doome on eBay, but it's $500. (And people say I'm hard to shop for...)

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

DNA Lounge: Wherein Hubba Hubba Revue is two decades old!

jwz — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:38:04 +0000

I hope you will be joining us for the Hubba Hubba Revue 20th Anniversary show this Sunday, Sep 20! Main floor seating has sold out, but some balcony seats remain.

Broke Ass Stuart has a nice retrospective:

How did this all get started?
Kingfish: "I got a call from DNA Lounge, asking if I could book a show on a Saturday night in September of 2006. My friend, Eddie Dane, and I scrambled, put together a line-up of our friends in the Bay Area burlesque community, signed-up our pal, Lee Presson, and his 10-piece swing band, and suddenly we had a show! We had absolutely no idea we were ever going to do another one. [...]
"I think the city was ready for our kind of entertainment when we first started. It was an era that gave birth to some really fantastic and enduring shows and events. At that time, on the heels of the dot-com crash, warehouse raves, and sort of the same ol' same ol' in the bars and clubs, I think people were looking around for fresh ideas and things to do. A new generation of burlesque, circus, and variety performers stepped in and created a new kind of Bay Area nightlife.
"People in the Bay Area are still fun, still engaged, and still interested in live entertainment, but challenging times, inflation, a terrible government and, pretty recently. a whole entire plague, have understandably left them a little less adventurous, a little more risk-averse, and that's too bad.
"With gas and food prices skyrocketing, live shows tend to be the first thing that people chop out of their budget. The problem with that is, it takes years and years to build those communities, and if they go, it is far from easy to get them back.
"When you lose your locally created arts, you lose the unique character and soul of where you live. Corporate entertainment can't replicate that, and San Francisco deserves to hang on to its character."

Kingfish and crew have built something truly incredible, and enduring, with Hubba Hubba. Almost nothing in the nightlife world lasts that long! Give them a heartfelt "Hooray!"

And to toot our own horn just a little bit here, I'm proud of the part that DNA Lounge has played in this as well. In a world full of corporate venues, run by management companies focused on national tours and slotting the same product into identical rooms in a dozen different cities, you won't find very many places willing to take a chance on local live entertainment like this, passing up more lucrative bookings and even taking a loss on it sometimes, because we love it and it is awesome. That's why we've been doing this every month for 20 years, and on top of that, every Monday for 12 years!

If I had to describe Hubba, it would be: a blender-load of Looney Tunes, The Muppet Show, SCTV and a bevy of 1930s screwball comedies -- "...but with a little sex in it. A little but I don't want to stress it." (Sullivan's Travels, Preston Sturges.)

Anyway if you like that sort of thing and by golly you should, come to the show, and join our Patreon, and as I've been going on about this week, vote for DNA Lounge as Best Nightclub and Best Live Music Venue in this year's Best of the Bay poll.

And of course also vote for Hubba Hubba Revue as Best... Dance Company? Theatre Company? Performance Company? I think they used to have a "Best Burlesque" category, but, honestly, Hubba is the 800 Pound Gorilla. But that's fine! It's an independent, locally sourced, artisanal gorilla, and it's very friendly!

See you at the bar, where Kingfish and I will be doing our best Statler and Waldorf.

Records of Enemy Surveillance

jwz — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 05:40:11 +0000

Records of Enemy Surveillance:

The red squares are Flock cameras. They are networked devices with cellular radios and solar panels which read license plates via machine learning algorithms. Police have access to the full network of cameras, and have used it to stalk women, detain immigrants, and enforce anti-abortion laws. [...] In some images, the photographer is visible; she is also under surveillance.

Interview:

My first thought -- and this is a crime, so I didn't do it -- but my first thought was I'm just going to follow some cops around with a drone and do glitch art videos. And I quickly realized after doing the tiniest bit of Googling that I could not. So I was like, alright, well, I'm going to examine some other kind of surveillance, and the Flock thing had sort of been in the back of my mind. [...]
Many people don't want to interrogate their desire for surveillance. They just want to check a box: This makes me feel safe, or this doesn't make me feel safe. Because you go to something in Piedmont and say, "Dude, you have a border set up around your little exclave city that is surveilling everyone who goes in and out. What in your heart of heart makes you think this is OK? What is your goal with that?" And if they interrogate it, it makes them feel horrible. But they don't want to do that.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

We Must Create the Shit Machine

jwz — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 05:03:19 +0000

Pete Reynolds:

The miraculous Shit-Raining Machine, from which there will be NO HOPE OF RELIEF, promises to unlock PREVIOUSLY UNIMAGINABLE AND CURRENTLY VAGUE BENEFITS FOR HUMANKIND, such as:

Business things
Other stuff
WE MUST CREATE IT

Could the Shit Machine END WORLD HUNGER? It's NOT IMPOSSIBLE in the most LITERAL SENSE, which is all the justification we need to invest an AMOUNT OF MONEY that would OTHERWISE BY ITSELF END ACTUAL WORLD HUNGER.
Could it CURE CANCER? We DON'T KNOW, which is the same as: YES. [...]
I asked everyone I know at the BIG TECH HUMAN CENTIPEDE ROUNDTABLE, and we all agreed that UNCONTROLLABLE SHIT-RAIN IS USEFUL AND GREAT, and that EVERYONE WANTS IT. Also, that it was IN RETROSPECT A GREAT IDEA TO PUT EVERYTHING ON COMPUTERS.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

DNA Lounge: Wherein we need your vote

jwz — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 22:09:28 +0000

Hey! Are you a fan of DNA Lounge? Would you like to help us stay alive? There is a thing you can do that will make it easier for us to book better shows, receive grants, and avoid harmful interference from our local bureaucrats. And even better, it only takes a minute of your time, costs you no money, and only involves clicking some links!

How, you ask?

Vote for us as "Best Nightclub" and "Best Live Music Venue" in this year's Best of the Bay poll.

I'm not exaggerating: being able to brag about winning popularity contests like this has proven to be extremely helpful to the business over the years. So won't you please take a minute out of your busy day and vote for us?

Categories for your consideration, in the order you will encounter them:

Best Pizza: DNA Pizza
Best Overall Bar: DNA Lounge
Best Live Music Venue: DNA Lounge 👈👈👈
Best Dance Company: Hubba Hubba Revue
Best Theatre Company: Hubba Hubba Revue
Best Performance Space: DNA Lounge
Best Nightclub: DNA Lounge 👈👈👈
Best Dance Party: Death Guild, AniCLover, Why 2K, Sorry For Party Rocking, Harder Better Faster Stronger, Vital, After Life, Dark Sparkle...

How does this help? Let me give you an example...

Let's say some City agency has a dumb plan that will damage our business. One of the few things that can discourage them is the knowledge that if they go through with their plan, people will notice that they did; and then their boss (or their boss's boss) will be dragged through the press, because the business that they're harming is well known and liked by a lot of people. People who vote.

Hypothetically. If something like that was in progress and I wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Just as a wacky example.

San Francisco has lost an absurd number of independent venues over the years, and DNA Lounge is still here: one of the few remaining large nightclubs in the city that is actually independently owned and operated. No corporate mothership, just us continuing to make the questionable decision to keep a giant nightclub running in San Francisco.

That independence is what lets us give a home to local bands, DJs, promoters and communities that don’t necessarily fit anywhere else. We can book the weird stuff, take chances on new events, and provide a stage for scenes that are too small, too niche, too loud, or just too strange for the corporate venues to care about.

Places like DNA Lounge only continue to exist because people decide that they should. If you are one of those people, then vote for us, ok? Thank you!

I agree with this message

jwz — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 09:22:47 +0000

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Happy "Big Block of Cheese Day" to all who celebrate

jwz — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:51:57 +0000

UN General Assembly votes against the Mercator Projection:

The UN General Assembly has voted to replace the traditional world map with one that more accurately reflects the size of Africa. The "Correct the Map" resolution, sponsored by Togo and backed by African Union members, passed with the support of 164 nations, including France and the UK. The United States was the only nation to vote against it.

The US voted against it because of woke, obviously.

Fortunately for you, XScreenSaver can accurately reproduce a Mercator Globe, amongst other cursed projections.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

I pay my parking tickets like any other Corporate Person: a million dollars at a time.

jwz — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 01:38:15 +0000

Waymo has been slapped with more than 8,300 parking tickets since January 2025, with fines of nearly $1 million for various violations.

Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli told Gazetteer in an email that the company pays parking tickets "like any other driver". [...]
The SFMTA data between January 2025 and July 2026 shows that the most common infraction for Waymos in the city, with 2,038 tickets, was "parking in stands," aka taking up a space intended for a specific type of vehicle such as a tour bus. The other top infractions were parking in a prohibited space, obstructing traffic, double parking, and blocking bike lanes.
The single most frequent location for a parking ticket was 85 North Point St. -- a block away from Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf -- where Waymos were cited 577 times. Coincidentally, the second-most common address (with 369 citations) was just two blocks away at 150 Beach St., outside a parking garage. Waymos also got hit with 288 tickets on Drumm Street, a 1,300-foot stretch in the Financial District adjacent to Embarcadero Plaza. [...]
"The amount of money for a ticket is nothing to Waymo. So jumping through the hoops to assess a fine will not change their behavior," Koopman told Gazetteer.
In theory, the state now has more power to regulate Waymo's driving, thanks to new regulations adopted on July 1 that allow California law enforcement officials to issue "notices of noncompliance" to robotaxi companies for moving violations; previously, only parking enforcement was allowed.
The infractions will be tracked by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, and the state has the right to suspend or revoke a company's driverless car permit if there are repeated or serious noncompliance problems. Unlike human drivers, Waymo does not have to pay fines for moving violations, Koopman said.
"I have a hard time believing any plausible number of notices of non-compliance are going to cause Waymo's permit to be revoked," Koopman said. "It's a step in the right direction, but I don't think this step does very much on a practical basis."

I was gonna make a joke about how many parking tickets you thought a regular meatsack Non-Corporate person could get and still keep their license, but it turns out that the answer is infinitely many as long as you pay them.

It used to be that if you got too many unpaid parking tickets you could have your license suspended, but even that's not the case any more since 2017. (And with a good motivation: that it primarily harmed the poor. But to the rich, and to corporations, a fine is a price.)

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

XScreenSaver 6.16

jwz — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 22:55:41 +0000

XScreenSaver 6.16 is out now for MacOS, Android and Unix.

Four new hacks this time, two by me: floppy, graphstat, amigajuggler and polarnight.

There is no iOS version because, though it compiles and runs just fine, Apple recently began rejecting App Store uploads that do not use the iOS 26 SDK. It is impossible to target that SDK with anything earlier than Xcode 26, which requires macOS 15 or 16. Since I am staying on macOS 14 for the foreseeable future, there will be no XScreenSaver iOS release for the foreseeable future.

Rockbox

jwz — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 20:41:57 +0000

Boy, I sure wish Rockbox didn't just... completely fuckin' suck.

When it does this, the only thing you can do is reboot, and that means "hope you didn't want to listen to any music for the next 15 minutes."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Happy Bell Riots Day, to all who celebrate

jwz — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 18:39:40 +0000

Previously, previously.

My friends call it the big D

jwz — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 16:20:23 +0000

Periodically, the "d" key on my keyboard stops working. Always and only "d". Power cycling the keyboar█ █oesn't fix it. Plug the keyboar█ into a █ifferent computer: works fine over there. Rebooting the Mac fixes it. An█ I have now █iscovere█: the mere act of launching NoMachine (without typing anything) fixes it -- for a while.

It just █i█ it again, 5 minutes later, go█ █ammit.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

Periodic reminder that "Moderate Democrat" is how you spell "Republican" in San Francisco.

jwz — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 23:18:20 +0000

For historical reasons, it is impossible for a Republican to get elected in this city, so all the Republicans register as Democrats and call themselves "moderates". What they actually are is "neoliberals", or, if you like, methane-breathing space zombie free-marketeers. The people to the left of them call themselves "progressives". And "centrist" means somewhere between "Libertarian" and "MAGA".

Therefore:

S.F. Dems vote to oppose billionaire tax, defying state party:

The vote fell along a neat progressive/moderate divide. The local chapter took the step two months ago to alter its bylaws to allow itself to diverge from the state party's endorsement on California ballot measures. Previously, the local chapter's convention was to follow the state party on statewide ballot measures and candidates.
Prop. 40, or the billionaire tax, would levy a one-time, 5 percent tax on some 200 billionaires who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026. Most of the money would be spent on health care, patching up a $30 billion hole in Medi-Cal due to federal cuts after President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill." The rest would go to education and food assistance.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Afterglow

jwz — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:39:07 +0000

Classic After Dark screen savers on modern macOS:

Afterglow is an emulator built specifically for running After Dark modules -- the original 68k module code, not a remake or port -- with no dependencies on ROMs or classic Mac OS. [...] Powered by the Musashi 68k CPU emulator, Afterglow reimplements just enough of the Macintosh Toolbox and OS APIs to run After Dark modules. No Apple ROM or classic Mac OS installation is required.
You can also browse and install software releases directly from the Internet Archive without leaving the app.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

libvlc

jwz — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:20:40 +0000

Dear Lazyweb, if you have succeeded in getting VLCKit to build on macOS 14, specifically BasicPlayerWithPlaylist, please let me know how you did it.

I downloaded the zip, did "compileAndBuildVLCKit.sh -x", which took like 4 hours but eventually completed seemingly-successfully. But then BasicPlayerWithPlaylist.xcodeproj can't find VLCkit.framework or VLCKit/VLCKit.h. This sounds like a build settings problem (Framework Search Paths had "../../../build/Release" on it but it seems to be in "../../../build/macOS" instead? But adding that didn't help it find the .h). Trying to build VLCKit.xcodeproj instead gets me complaints about missing static-libvlc and/or install-iphone-device/libvlc-device-static.a (I am not interested in iOS at all.)

DNA Lounge: Wherein someone tries to sell our Prince scraps

jwz — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 20:06:46 +0000

There's someone on eBay trying to sell unused tickets to our 2013 Prince shows for $700 each. (I don't begrudge them the effort, but I'm still not linking to it -- and I realize that "asking for" is not the same as "receiving".) But what they don't know is, I have around 2,000 of those tickets left, and any time someone signs up for our Patreon and I mail them their membership card, I usually toss into the envelope a bunch of stickers and a Prince ticket or two.

So, you know, if someone were tempted to give this guy $700, maybe instead they could give DNA Lounge $20 or $30 a month. Then in addition to maybe getting a little souvenir while supplies last, they'd also be helping keep this place alive so that memorable shows like that can keep happening.

I've got uncut sheets of these things too, so if that's your jam, make me an offer...

The reason I have so many extras is because of how big printers work. Or worked, at the time, anyway. We needed like 3,200 tickets, but these things were stamped in large galleys, so if you ordered 3,200 they ended up printing 5,000 and threw the rest away. And for a show like this, we did not want those discards falling into the wrong hands and ending up on the scalper market, so we had them send us the entire batch from the print run.

A couple of years ago I asked the World's Biggest Prince Fan whether this stuff was worth anything, and their answer was (my loose interpretation) "Yes definitely, but only if you put a bunch of effort in to trying to act like an auctioneer, and are cagey about how much you have" and that sounded like a bunch of work and also kind of dirty, so I never bothered. (It would require more finesse and salesmanship than just dropping them on our merch page, in other words.)

But hey, literally nobody but me currently possesses one of these uncut sheets, sooooo... Scarcity!

[ Butterfly meme ] "Is this... Captialism?"

Jello Gribble

jwz — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:21:13 +0000

You ever notice that Dale Gribble sounds like Jello Biafra?
I can't un-hear it now.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

Panopticars

jwz — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 18:48:50 +0000

Parked Waymos actively record 360-degree video and audio even without passengers aboard. Waymo discloses no fixed data retention schedule, storing footage for a vague "reasonable" timeframe.

Armed with 29 external cameras, LiDAR, radar, and microphones, each robotaxi stays powered up between rides so it can respond to emergencies and reposition when needed. What Waymo won't say: how long that footage is stored, whether a residential street gets treated differently than a public plaza, and what "reasonably appropriate amount of time" actually means in practice. That phrase is doing enormous work for a very small amount of transparency. [...]
Where Ring doorbells marked the first wave of consumer-grade street surveillance, autonomous fleets are the next layer -- and they connect. Waymo holds a research agreement with Nexar, the dash-cam network embedded in hundreds of thousands of Uber and Lyft vehicles. Flock Safety, the license plate reader company, previously explored accessing that same Nexar footage for its law-enforcement clients. That deal collapsed. The architecture still exists. Think of it less like a coordinated surveillance state and more like a surveillance potluck -- everyone brought a dish, nobody planned the menu, and you weren't invited.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Cop surveillance drones are going great

jwz — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:42:54 +0000

Handshake, not a drug deal: SFPD drone case falls apart:

DA officials did not say whether they agreed with Helvestine's argument that the footage showed only a handshake. But the DA's office subsequently motioned to dismiss the case ahead of its preliminary hearing, records show. That motion was granted on May 8 last year by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Michelle Tong. [...]
Deputy Public Defender Brian Cox, the head of the office's Integrity Unit, argued police officers regularly mischaracterize normal interactions as drug transactions, and that drones amplify those risks. [...]
"SFPD interprets otherwise innocent behavior as criminal because to a hammer, everything is a nail," said Cox. "Drones and other surveillance technologies simply give police more power -- and greater reach -- to do that." [...]
The police hub that deploys San Francisco's police drones is also backed by billionaires.
The Real Time Investigations Center, which helps the police department find suspects on the streets and aids arrests using drones and Flock Safety automatic license plate reading cameras, has bulked up through benefactors including Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, former Y Combinator partner Michael Seibel, and Michael Moritz's family foundation Crankstart.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Facebook's Pervert Glasses functioning as designed

jwz — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 05:07:21 +0000

Meta glasses are a workplace menace:

The two customers were, in fact, recording Hinkle, and the entire exchange was turned into content for social media. Another Target manager came across the video while scrolling online, without even looking for it. [...]
There's little recourse for those who have been unknowingly recorded. In one of the videos posted to social media that Hinkle is featured in, the Meta glasses wearer is seen chumming it up and dancing with a police officer who arrived at the Target store.
"You boys stay out of trouble," the cop says as he fist bumps the person recording. [...]
"Are your glasses blinking?" she asks.
He responds that he's recording her.
"Oh, could you not?" she says.
"That's what they're there for," he says, defiantly. "I'm here to watch you, and you're here to perform for me." The audience member refuses to stop filming even after being asked to. Rather than argue back and forth, Telesford cuts her set short and walks offstage. [...]
"We know that when people are being watched, they feel less free. They chill their behavior, they feel pressure to conform. They worry about even minor deviations from norms being used against them," he says. "It's just a sort of suffocating atmosphere to be a part of."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.