Pissdrunk Pete Kegstand, Secretary of GWAR

President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho

I think Idiocracy was a very bad movie, and references to it are just so easy and trite. Mike Judge has done great things but this was not one of them. And yet, these people keep doing this shit.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Centers For Disease Control Ex Mortis.

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Exhibit A.

Exhibit B.

You are warmly invited to a series of four lectures by Peter Thiel addressing the topic of the biblical Antichrist:

Peter is a technology entrepreneur and investor who has spent much of his career writing and speaking about how his Christian faith informs his understanding of the world. His remarks will be anchored on science and technology, and will comment on the theology, history, literature, and politics of the Antichrist.

These lectures are off-the-record.

The lectures are designed as a cohesive series, with each session building on the last. To support continuity and community, tickets are only available for the full four-part program.

This event is organized by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called "ACTS 17 Collective: Acknowledging Christ in Technology and Society".

I can't tell how much they were charging to attend this Amway meeting because it's sold out.

And, as noted, "off the record".

Gotta spread the Good Word, but not too far!

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Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2024/10/im-poopin/feed/ 7 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/08/so-youve-got-a-lord-of-the-rings-prequel-for-me/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/08/so-youve-got-a-lord-of-the-rings-prequel-for-me/#comments Fri, 30 Aug 2024 19:57:43 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/ykYl

I feel like they could have padded this series out with a couple episodes that really dove into what it was like for Slug Sauron when he was spending al that time just... floomping around and sighing deeply. We never got a lot of backstory on Gloop and Gleep in The Herculoids, and they could have explored that here.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2024/08/so-youve-got-a-lord-of-the-rings-prequel-for-me/feed/ 6 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/08/quoted-printable-psa/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/08/quoted-printable-psa/#comments Mon, 26 Aug 2024 21:09:23 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/ykYN

Doing "view source" on a MIME message in 2024 be like:

Please use this instead of PHP's egregious quoted_printable_encode:

My future un-clawed-out eyes thank you in advance.

Previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2024/08/quoted-printable-psa/feed/ 2 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/the-ever-changing-rules-about-autoplay-2/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/the-ever-changing-rules-about-autoplay-2/#comments Thu, 13 Jun 2024 19:16:48 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/ykVI

Safari:

Also Safari:

After clicking in the window (but not on the video), calling play() works again. For a while.

That setting is supposed to disable the restriction that code may only play a video if there is a user event in the invoking event chain. It doesn't.

There also seems to be another undocumented restriction that if a video was already playing and stops (e.g., due to a network error) your code can start it playing again... for a while. But some time later (minutes? hours? I'm not sure) it won't play until you have clicked in the window. This seems to be associated with the start time of the video, not with how long the video had been stopped.

This is fine.

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I wonder what Zuckerberg named his cat, though?

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

Exhibit A: the unfathomably unreadable new look in macOS 11.x. It was already bad in 10.x but they made it worse.

Exhibit B: This is what happens when you go to System Preferences / Accessibility and check "Increase contrast". It just puts thin black borders around everything.

Exhibit C: This is what happens when you move the "Display contrast" slider two ticks up from "Normal" to "Maximum". It makes it so much worse that I wonder if someone implemented the slider backwards and QA didn't notice.

"Dark mode" is just as bad, it all ends up being dark gray on dark gray instead.

Fucking Apple.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2021/10/can-light-gray-text-on-light-gray-backgrounds-please-stop-being-a-thing/feed/ 23 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/01/very-fine-people-on-both-sides/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/01/very-fine-people-on-both-sides/#comments Sat, 02 Jan 2021 20:08:27 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yjip Exhibit A, McConnell:

Exhibit B, Pelosi:

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Back in April 2018, I ordered some replacement keycaps for my keyboard, because I could not abide having a "Windows" key on it.

Here's what those new keycaps look like now. The edge is worn down and the flower is missing its stamen. That only took 2.5 years!

I guess it's not (yet) as bad as what the corresponding key looked like back in 2009... I do not recall how many years that took.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2020/12/command/feed/ 27 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2020/10/do-not-unplug-the-web/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2020/10/do-not-unplug-the-web/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2020 18:16:23 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yjd9 NanoRaptor: "The NeXT Cube that Tim Berners-Lee created the WWW on at CERN in 1990, and a PDF of its sticker to place on any black hardware you might own."

Previously,

previously.

I Called Everyone in Jeffrey Epstein's Little Black Book:

After Epstein's arrest in 2019, a media narrative coalesced around the question of his strange place in the global elite: Epstein the master salesman, a man who had skillfully conned his way into the world's most powerful circles, fooling everyone in the process. But after my travels through the book, after hearing more of the petty gossip and childish drama of the people who rule our world, I realized this was obviously incorrect. Built into the premise of Epstein the mastermind scammer is the notion that some kind of legitimate path to a legitimate global aristocracy exists. To call Epstein a grifter is to assume he circumvented some genuine meritocratic world order, where the "real" virtuosos dutifully climb the "real" ranks into the oligarchy, powered by nothing but their native talents.

The truth is that the elite world that Epstein ascended into, the one I tapped into by way of the black book, is populated with hordes of loathsome, boring, untalented people living their bumbling, idiotic lives while just so happening to wield some share of the preposterous global bounty that he and the rest were after. For all the mystery surrounding Epstein's fortune, its existence is hardly more inscrutable than the wealth of any of his other billionaire peers. He earned it the same way they all did, which is to say precisely not at all.

This wasn't some masterful hack into the global aristocracy. It's what everyone does. It's what the whole thing is. There is no scam here. It's grifters grifting grifters all the way down.

Exhibit B: This article about the economics of VIP parties at bottle-service clubs:

There's an invisible system behind every £100,000 bar tab and its currency is pretty women:

If you were to ask most people what makes men spend thousands of dollars on alcohol in a single night, the answer would probably seem simple. Rich people like showing off and don't care about losing money. But even among the very rich there are taboos around gratuitous spending. The people I interviewed who frequented such bars, and spent these large sums, often used the same words to describe the rituals of nightclub extravagance: "ridiculous", "stupid", "waste" and "crazy". For the alchemy by which money is turned into status -- to persuade people to break these taboos, in other words -- there had to be the right audience. And that's why the models had to be there. [...]

Most of the women I spoke to seemed to think that following promoters around would be valuable in the longer term, though this value was hard to measure. One benefit was cultural capital. Getting access to the kind of circles where you might find a serious investor, for example, is almost impossible if you don't display the right markers of education and upbringing. Young women who weren't born into the elite appreciated the fact that, by hanging out in VIP areas, they were able to hear what books or news stories rich people were talking about, and recognise high-end brands, food and wines. Learning the codes of elite consumer culture, they reckoned, was important, even if they were vague on how it might be of practical use. "I can't imagine that it wouldn't be," said one. [...]

Ironically, the promoters' position in the VIP ecosystem was closer to that of the young women they managed than anyone else, though few seemed to realise it. Like the women, most promoters dreamed about joining the club of the super-rich that they hovered around, but they were ultimately excluded from the money and status. They could only pretend to belong.

Dre was convinced that his connections with the elite would eventually earn him a big business deal. Every night out with him, every lunch, brought news of one of these almost-clinched projects: the limousine company, the film production, the TV show, and, of course, his music career, which was always just about to take off. One month he claimed he was raising capital for a tech firm because of his access to so many billionaires and investors. The next he was in discussions about a Serbian telecoms deal. But these never came to anything. Clients were happy to call him when they wanted to go out, but that didn't mean they took him seriously as a business partner.

Each layer of the hierarchy waits for crumbs to fall from the layer just above, believing in their heart that mere proximity will allow them to ascend.

Grifting grifters, all the way down.

Beg for scraps or you will starve.

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In 2018, someone ran my code and sent me screenshots!

This person got their hands on a gloriously-vintage TI MicroExplorer -- that's a Lisp Chip on a NuBus card, using a Mac IIfx as little more than a device driver for the screen and keyboard.

Exhibit A:

And a mere 20 hours later,
Exhibit B:

It is a monolith with human imperfections. "That's the weird, nostalgic, terrible thing that I like in the building," Karen Vanderbilt, 33, said as she stared at the board while waiting for the track posting for her delayed train to Washington.

Perhaps that affection is stoked by a little bit of Stockholm syndrome in the cramped station, a Stygian den of low ceilings, stale air and confusing tunnels. "Your only hope of getting out of there is staring up at this one little board," Mr. Rabinowitz said. "You wait in this room and look up at your captor and hope it will let you go."

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Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

I would have included no further information than a rough image of the Earth and its one moon. I see no wisdom in the eagerness to be found and approached by any intelligence with the ability to accomplish it from any sector of space. In the meetings between 'discoverers' and 'discoverees,' history has always given the advantage to the finders. In the case of the Jupiter (Pioneer) plaque, I feel that a tremendous issue was thoughtlessly taken out of the world forum by a few individuals who have marked a clear trail to our door.

My point is, who will come a-knocking -- the trader or the tiger?

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

It's the embroidered cuffs that really lock in that "empathy" dollar.
That's a big dollar, huge dollar.

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Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

The wristbands, according to the patent documents, were designed as a means to keep track of products within Amazon warehouses as well as up day-to-day productivity.

The proposed tech could also provide Amazon management with a new means of workplace surveillance that would alert them to staffers who are wasting time or breaking for too long.

Amazon in the past has been accused of unbearable workplace conditions -- including timed bathroom breaks and 55-hour work weeks -- put in place to ensure the company is fulfilling shipping goals. The company did not immediately return a request for comment.

Imagine if instead of "employees", these could be force-feedback Waldoes controlling zombies Residual Human Resources from a remote location!

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Amazons according to Patty Jenkins:

Amazons according to Zach Snyder:

This abrupt change of direction is a shock and these outfits look like generic barbarian women from a game of Dungeons and Dragons. They completely lack the unique flavor of the Greco-Roman-inspired armor ensembles that Lindy Hemming put so much thought and historical research into creating for Wonder Woman. The Wonder Woman designs received acclaim from fans and costume fanatics alike. They were clearly inspired by the Amazon's origins in the Mediterranean and were feminine but very functional. Why mess with perfection?

Oh, right. The all-male team of directors and executive directors wanted women to fight in bikinis.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously. ]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2017/11/amazons-get-the-harley-quinn-makeover/feed/ 6 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/02/honk-squid-edition/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/02/honk-squid-edition/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2016 00:50:08 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yiXN

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2016/02/honk-squid-edition/feed/ 1 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/02/vulture-cleared-of-spying-eagles-tackle-drones/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/02/vulture-cleared-of-spying-eagles-tackle-drones/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2016 23:57:07 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yiWl Exhibit A:
Dutch Police Train Eagles to Tackle Drones

They aim to create a fleet of eagles that can take to the skies and prey on drones that infringe air space or hamper official operations such as emergency air ambulance landings. According to Guard from Above, the goal is to draw on the bird's "hunting instincts" to make them hunt down drones.

Exhibit B:
Lebanon returns Israeli vulture cleared of spying

A huge vulture detained in Lebanon on suspicion of spying for Israel has been returned home after UN peacekeepers intervened, Israeli officials said.

The bird flew over the border from an Israeli game reserve and was caught by Lebanese villagers on Tuesday. They became suspicious as the griffon vulture had a tracking device attached to its tail. As well as a GPS transmitter, it had tags on its wings and an engraved metal ring on its leg saying: "Tel Aviv Univ Israel".

Previously, previously, previously.

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Previously, previously.]]> https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/10/secret-identity/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/10/secret-identity/#comments Sat, 24 Oct 2015 03:08:11 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yiSp I kinda think Sexy Weed Doctor and Sexy Vampire are the same person.

]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2015/10/secret-identity/feed/ 3 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/07/how-to-build-your-own-bene-gesserit-pain-box/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/07/how-to-build-your-own-bene-gesserit-pain-box/#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2015 02:11:14 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yiOW

And people say I'm hard to shop for.

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