Crypto billionaire Larsen -- who is currently spending tens of millions of dollars to prop up moderate candidates in California, fight labor unions, defeat the state billionaires tax and San Francisco's own overpaid CEO tax -- is still one of the Civic Joy Fund's biggest benefactors. This is reflected on the organization's own "funders" page, which lists cute categories for these very wealthy people, like "Disco Queens," "Street Sparklers," and "Joy Makers." [...]

In February, at the "Music Industry Summit" -- the conclusion to San Francisco Music Week, another Lurie project -- I watched as the mayor strode to the stage at the Swedish American Music Hall. There, before an audience of struggling artists, engineers, and small venue staff, he triumphantly reported that the last summer of concerts in Golden Gate Park resulted in "$150 million worth of economic impact," and that, according to new data, "our independent music venues generate $1.4 billion in economic impact annually."

Lurie paused for applause. "That's because of all of you in this room."

We clapped dutifully, but the people in that room did not need to be reassured that they had contributed to $1.4 billion in "economic impact." They would have preferred to hear that any of their favorite clubs might exist next year. The people in that room could use health insurance -- and they might be able to afford it if Lurie's billionaire buddies were taxed appropriately; say, with a one-time 5% excise tax on net worth exceeding $1 billion to save Medi-Cal.

But hey, that sentiment doesn't make for great social media content.

Indeed, the dissonance between Lurie's spirit-squad act around cultural events and the material struggles of the people actually making the culture is, at times, ear-splitting. One gets the sense he is physically unable to hear it.

"Those of us on the ground who work in [music] know that it has never been more difficult to be here, and try and provide the city with the core thing it is known for historically, which is free-thinking progressive ideologies and good art," says Austin Waz, frontman of the band Analog Dog and a booker at Kilowatt. "We see the incredible amount of venues going out of business, people losing their jobs left and right. We have an absolute crisis."

It's frustrating, he says, to see the large-scale parties into which the Civic Joy Fund pours resources. "It's one day, and they put $100,000, $200,000 into these things, and it's like -- you could have saved an entire community with that. You could have created the conditions that would allow a venue to flourish for years," says Waz. "You're not thinking about how to develop or support artists who come from the city ... it's a slap in the face to put up some [barricades] in the street and say, 'Look how wonderful this all is.'" [...]

"I'm hearing artists rightfully starting to question, like, 'Ultimately, who is this for?'" says Guest of the block parties. "Is it for the public, or is it to set up this area as being worthy of real estate investment? Because if the point of it is to cater towards visitors ... it's really not about supporting art or artists at all."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/joy-which-they-have-rebranded-as-economic-impact/feed/ 5 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/ai-vegan/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/ai-vegan/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2026 20:00:19 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk6V "uwu smol" ways, and, I dunno, I guess they do a land acknowledgment before they boil a lake or whatever.

If anyone is an "AI vegan" it's me -- I don't use these tools at all, ever, because they are unethical. Telling me that they are delicious is not going to make them ethical.

Also, I will endlessly berate you about your use.

That's veganism, you're welcome.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/ai-vegan/feed/ 51 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/honk-honk-its-the-bonk/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/honk-honk-its-the-bonk/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:38:32 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk6S

The Composograph image above is illustrating the 1926 Peaches and Daddy Browning scandal, in which 15-year-old actress Frances "Peaches" Heenan married, and then swiftly tried to divorce, 51-year-old real estate developer Edward West "Daddy" Browning. The Evening Graphic's coverage included allegations that Daddy kept a live goose in their bedroom.

Previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/honk-honk-its-the-bonk/feed/ 6 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/man-who-threw-molotov-cocktail-at-sam-altmans-home-claims-he-was-following-chatgpt-recipe-for-risotto/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/man-who-threw-molotov-cocktail-at-sam-altmans-home-claims-he-was-following-chatgpt-recipe-for-risotto/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2026 21:39:13 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk6K SAN FRANCISCO:

"I've been using ChatGPT to help with cooking for a while now, so I didn't think too much of it when the ingredients list included a bottle filled with gasoline and a cloth wick," said the alleged attacker, who added that he naturally assumed making the rice dish involved driving several hours to the OpenAI CEO's residence, especially after the AI chatbot had given him a "pretty decent" sesame chicken recipe the week before.

"I have to admit I felt a little weird as I prepared to toss this flaming incendiary device through [Altman's] front window, but the recipe explicitly stated that this was an essential step to get that creamy, velvety risotto texture. I guess I didn't know any better. I mean, I've never made risotto before."

The suspect went on to tell reporters that he still had "a whole fridge full" of Molotov cocktails at home, having attempted to prep enough risotto to last the week.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/man-who-threw-molotov-cocktail-at-sam-altmans-home-claims-he-was-following-chatgpt-recipe-for-risotto/feed/ 28 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/jwz-mixtape-258/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/jwz-mixtape-258/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2026 21:42:08 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk5-

Please enjoy jwz mixtape 258.

Because of the recent unpleasantness, here's a mixtape of songs about nuclear war!

This idea popped into my head while I was standing at the bar last night and I thought, "Yeah, I probably have enough videos for that" and started writing down song names... 10 minutes later I had more than 2 hours worth.

Oh yeah, and I had to find an alternate upload of the Two Tribes video because the official one is marked "inappropriate for some users, sign in to confirm your age." "Based on community guidelines." That video played hourly on MTV from like 1984 through 1988. I hate you, Milkman Youtube.

But -- and just hear me out here -- the American voters did resummon Nyarlathotep because enough of us remain enthralled by his unfettered madness, wanton cruelty, and nonsensical brinkmanship. This is classic Negotiating 101 courtesy of the Faceless God himself! Sure, he may have kicked it up a notch from "sheer madness" to "abject depravity," but that's for the pundits to debate.

That said, yes, it seems like the promise to "fill every womb with salt and every testicle with spiders" is sort of backfiring. People don't respond well to that type of unprompted threat, and his immovable, hulking form appears to have finally met an immovable object. It's a little ironic that the "immovable object" in this metaphor is reality itself, but I'll take the poetic flourishes where I can these days. You can never have too much light in these dark times.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/president-nyarlathotep-is-simply-engaging-in-classic-mad-outer-god-negotiating-tactics/feed/ 9 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/so-much-winning/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/so-much-winning/#comments Sun, 05 Apr 2026 01:30:13 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk5w I see we are at the "US Navy base in Virginia asking for donations of toiletries" stage of the victory lap.

Sailors have been arriving in Norfolk, Va., home to the world's biggest naval base, since at least the middle of March. Several groups that provide aid to military personnel say that the sailors arrived with very little. A call went out to community groups, asking for basic supplies like hygiene products.

"The base was asking for donations of toiletries and different things for the sailors coming back, because they were coming back with nothing," said Derrick Johnson, commander of American Legion Post 327 in Norfolk.

The post hosted a spaghetti dinner for some of the sailors, said Keith Shanesy, one of the post's vice commanders.

Previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/so-much-winning/feed/ 29 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/sms-chatbots-are-going-great/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/sms-chatbots-are-going-great/#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2026 18:53:57 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk5t

Ad name: DNA Lounge Bruno Mars Party
Your ad wasn't approved for the following reasons:
Reason: Your ad contains only music.
Recommendation: Submit a new ad with a clear voiceover that explains what's being advertised.

Do you want TikTok AI Voice? Because this is how you get TikTok AI Voice.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/internet-advertising-is-going-great/feed/ 17 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/official-video-full-hd-remastered/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/official-video-full-hd-remastered/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2026 23:51:30 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk5U Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine, Let Forever Be, etc.) made a great video for Kylie Minogue's Come Into My World. I guess he has mortgage payments to make because he just remade it as a commercial for a purse but that's neither here nor there. What I'm here to complain about is that the official Kylie Minogue YouTube channel (1.5M subscribers) has the "Official video" (45M views) "Full HD, Remastered".

Now, I'm old enough to remember when "remastered" meant "we re-scanned the 35mm negative". Let's take a look at the upper left quadrant of the first 15 seconds of that video at half speed. On the left: a 702x576 rip I made of the video in 2003 from the SD DVD release, Directors Series Volume 3: The Work of Michel Gondry; on the right, the 1392x1062 "Official Full HD Remaster".

Pay special attention to the text on the white sign at about 8 seconds in. Full-screen it for the true zalgo-level, AI-upscale, edge-detect horrorshow.

This is why I have trust issues. Kylie.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/official-video-full-hd-remastered/feed/ 36 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/oil-collapse-no-not-that-kind/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/oil-collapse-no-not-that-kind/#comments Tue, 24 Mar 2026 02:36:06 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk48 BLDGBLOG:

"The U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve is a series of vast, subterranean salt caverns in four different sites in Louisiana and Texas. Many are enormous -- the average cavern holds about 10mn barrels [...] This network of tunnels, grottos, pumps and wells can in total hold about 715mn barrels of oil, or enough to supply the entire U.S. with all the oil it needs for over a month" -- but those salt caverns were only designed to be drained and refilled five times.

The Financial Times calculates that we are already at the cavern's ninth historic drawdown, suggesting that "catastrophic structural damage," including dissolution of the salt caverns, is now a viable risk. This could mean, among other things, that the reserves can no longer be drained in their entirety, as "a minimum level of oil... must be kept in the salt caverns" to avoid this fate, with the result that the reserves' effectiveness in a time of future national emergency will be reduced.

Of course, this could also mean that someday the caverns will simply collapse.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/oil-collapse-no-not-that-kind/feed/ 20 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/github-copilot-litigation/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/github-copilot-litigation/#comments Sat, 21 Mar 2026 18:27:04 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4z This suit started in 2022 but seems to still be slogging along:

By training their AI systems on public GitHub repositories (though based on their public statements, possibly much more) we contend that the defendants have violated the legal rights of a vast number of creators who posted code or other work under certain open-source licenses on GitHub. Which licenses? A set of 11 popular open-source licenses that all require attribution of the author's name and copyright, including the MIT license, the GPL, and the Apache license. (These are enumerated in the appendix to the complaint.)

In addition to violating the attribution requirements of these licenses, we contend that the defendants have violated:

• GitHub's own terms of service and privacy policies;
• DMCA § 1202, which forbids the removal of copyright-management information;
• the California Consumer Privacy Act;
• and other laws giving rise to related legal claims.

Previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/github-copilot-litigation/feed/ 4 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/top-fema-official-claims-he-teleported-to-waffle-house/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/top-fema-official-claims-he-teleported-to-waffle-house/#comments Fri, 20 Mar 2026 19:46:31 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4x FEMA's Gregg Phillips says he has experienced multiple "scary" episodes of sudden teleportation:

Phillips spoke "on multiple podcasts" about being teleported against his will, which he has described as "evil." As director of the Office of Response and Recovery, Phillips oversees billions in funds, and is deeply involved in rapid response efforts in the aftermath of disasters.

"Teleporting is no fun," Phillips said last year. "It's no fun because you don't really know what you're doing. You don't really understand it, it's scary, but yet so real. And you know it's happening but you can't do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was."

Phillips in the same interview described "teleporting" to a Waffle House 50 miles away. "I was with my boys one time and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House," he said. "And I ended up at a Waffle House -- this was in Georgia and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was."

Now, do not mistake Phillips description for something like a medical episode or a black out of some form. He insisted that he was traveling from location to location without experiencing the passage of time. When his friends asked him where he was, he replied that he was at the "'Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.' And they said, 'That's not possible, you just left here a moment ago.' But it was possible. It was real."

Phillips also claimed that he had once felt his car "lifted up" and teleported forty miles to a ditch near a church. [...]

At FEMA, Phillips, who lacks any sort of professional experience related to disaster response, has been successful in the sense that his lack of qualifications fall in line with the Trump administration's apparent goal of kneecaping the agency.

Update: KooKooKrazypants doubles down because of course he does:

"Haters gonna hate," Gregg Phillips wrote. [...] Phillips described the teleportation incidents as tied to a "spiritual journey" during a period he said he was undergoing cancer treatments and pointed to biblical examples of supernatural events.

"I have no regrets for my words nor my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ," Phillips wrote after CNN’s report, while arguing his comments were taken out of context. "The Bible has many examples of the power of God." [...]

Phillips added that the comments on teleporting to the Waffle House were taken out of context, though he has declined to say how. [...] Neither FEMA nor Phillips responded to multiple requests for comment on what part of CNN’s past reporting was taken out of context.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/top-fema-official-claims-he-teleported-to-waffle-house/feed/ 80 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/tinder-to-ai-your-dick-pix/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/tinder-to-ai-your-dick-pix/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:36:50 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4q In a feature the dating app says is set to roll out in the U.S. later this spring, Tinder plans to access users' camera rolls to pick photos and determine what they're into.

"It's up to you to figure out what you're comfortable sharing back with Tinder," Tinder Head of Product Mark Kantor told 404 Media. Still, users can't pick individual photos they want analyzed or ignored. [...]

Tinder has already leaned heavily into AI. Kantor told 404 Media that artificial intelligence is writing more than half the app's code these days.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/tinder-to-ai-your-dick-pix/feed/ 4 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/by-order-of-his-majesty-king-mob/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/by-order-of-his-majesty-king-mob/#comments Sat, 14 Mar 2026 21:48:50 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4a AI job losses free up time for unemployed mobs to burn down tech CEO's houses

"Getting laid off without warning from my copywriting job has done wonders for my work-life-bloodthirsty mob balance," reports Taylor Grayden, 35, of Vancouver. "Back when I had a job I never would've had the free time to organize an unruly rabble and march towards the beach house of (Open AI CEO) Sam Altman. But now I'm getting so much more violent retribution accomplished in a day." [...]

"I felt so lost after I was let go at my analytics firm so my whole department could be replaced by Claude AI," explains Sarah Brightwell, 42, of Kingston, ON. "But then I started learning how to use AI as a tool -- specifically for planning a multi-week siege of the sprawling compound of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei."

"Granted, the attack plans Claude spit out were full of hallucinations, but it got the ball rolling for me to organize my fellow unemployed humans and get marching," Brightwell adds, tightening the bolts on her homemade trebuchet. "After all, AI can't throw a molotov cocktail!" [...]

"Sure, we probably could have avoided this if we'd accompanied our artificial intelligence products with any kind of workable universal basic income system," explains Altman from one of his currently-burning $12.8 million San Francisco homes. "But I'd still rather die with all this money."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/by-order-of-his-majesty-king-mob/feed/ 7 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/the-removed-doge-deposition-videos-have-already-been-backed-up-across-the-internet/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/the-removed-doge-deposition-videos-have-already-been-backed-up-across-the-internet/#comments Sat, 14 Mar 2026 17:36:38 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4Q

On Friday, government lawyers in the lawsuit filed a court record which said they asked the plaintiffs to remove the videos "from the internet due to concerns that the publication of the videos could subject the witnesses and their family members to undue harassment and reputational harm." The filing then said that Fox specifically "has been subject to harassment and has received a number of death threats since the videos and video clips were publicized and circulated."

Internet Archive; torrent magnet link (only 5 seeders!)

Update: Judge says "no".

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/the-removed-doge-deposition-videos-have-already-been-backed-up-across-the-internet/feed/ 24 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/math-is-hard-mastodon-edition/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/math-is-hard-mastodon-edition/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:50:08 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4M POST https://sfba.social/api/v1/media
Content-Length: 8956670
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=xYzZY
...

HTTP/1.1 422 Unprocessable Content
...
{"error":"Validation failed: File must be less than 16 MB, File file size must be less than 16 MB"}

Previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/math-is-hard-mastodon-edition/feed/ 14 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/today-in-scrapers/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/today-in-scrapers/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2026 18:28:44 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4K Honestly one of the most offensive things about these AI scraper bots is how bad at their jobs they are. Look at these 404s from the last 6 hours and despair:

/blog/2014/12/30/411x480 /blog/2014/12/30/500x417 /blog/2018/05/12/2048x1365 /blog/2018/05/12/736x677 /blog/2018/05/12/3000x2049 /blog/2018/05/12/2400x1600 /blog/2014/12/30/500x638 /blog/2024/1920x1440 /blog/2015/08/3375x2561 /blog/2015/08/600x600 /blog/2017/08/page/2/1400x781 /blog/2017/08/page/2/1280x720 /blog/2017/08/page/2/464x363 /blog/2017/08/page/2/1200x1600 /blog/2010/03/07/480x640 /blog/2011/09/312x360 /blog/2011/09/640x423 /blog/2011/09/600x800 /blog/2006/09/page/4/1042x673 /blog/2018/03/550x826 /blog/2018/03/640x427 /blog/2018/03/754x1024 /blog/2018/03/815x600 /blog/tag/www/page/2/410x630 /blog/tag/www/page/2/1200x809 /blog/tag/www/page/2/600x900 /blog/2016/04/page/3/962x1779 /blog/2016/04/page/3/1100x568 /blog/2016/04/page/3/1100x568 /blog/2016/04/page/3/1200x848 /blog/tag/www/768x1087 /blog/2014/2692x2970 /blog/tag/www/768x1087 /blog/tag/www/480x360 /blog/tag/www/906x222 /blog/tag/www/480x360 /blog/tag/www/768x270 /blog/2018/01/page/2/450x337 /blog/2018/01/page/2/500x667 /blog/2017/11/teeth-4/500x624 /blog/tag/www/988x1354 /blog/tag/www/800x450 /blog/tag/www/2000x2000 /blog/tag/www/2000x2000 /blog/tag/www/625x512 /blog/tag/www/768x432 /blog/tag/www/615x297 /blog/2014/640x360 /blog/2018/01/page/2/300x450 /blog/2014/1741x2600 /blog/tag/www/712x600 /blog/2018/01/page/2/585x350 /blog/2021/11/page/3/753x1200 /blog/2021/11/page/3/753x1200 /blog/2021/11/page/3/900x563 /blog/2021/11/page/3/1280x960 /blog/2022/05/page/2/1103x300 /blog/2022/05/page/2/1103x300 /blog/2018/07/page/4/315x450 /blog/2022/05/page/2/300x364 /blog/2018/07/page/4/2203x2938 /blog/2014/02/09/400x300 /blog/tag/dazzle/page/2/562x562 /blog/tag/dazzle/page/2/668x960 /blog/tag/dazzle/page/2/950x538 /blog/2006/02/blobby-art/500x375 /blog/tag/dazzle/page/2/484x604 /blog/tag/dazzle/page/2/3300x2475 /blog/tag/katrina/1318x1078 /blog/2019/03/page/3/680x510 /blog/tag/fanboys/768x547 /blog/tag/fanboys/768x1064 /blog/tag/fanboys/575x452 /blog/tag/fanboys/512x512 /blog/tag/fanboys/360x480 /blog/tag/fanboys/768x513 /blog/tag/fanboys/1024x759 /blog/tag/fanboys/584x328 /blog/2010/12/page/3/768x512 /blog/2010/12/page/3/500x628 /blog/2010/12/page/3/500x628 /blog/2010/12/page/3/960x1280 /blog/2010/12/page/3/960x1280 /blog/2019/07/02/500x392 /blog/2019/07/02/388x517 /blog/2019/07/02/388x517 /blog/2013/05/12/468x468 /blog/2019/04/01/900x1200 /blog/2019/04/01/1297x846 /blog/2019/04/01/768x432 /blog/2019/04/01/768x428 /blog/2023/12/shrimpfluencer/640x1136 /blog/2019/04/01/1200x628 /blog/2016/11/page/3/768x1024 /blog/2005/07/page/4/520x503 /blog/2005/07/page/4/520x503 /blog/2005/07/page/4/409x309 /blog/2023/12/psychedelic-cryptography/600x594 /blog/2021/01/page/4/1200x800 /blog/2021/01/page/4/1200x633

Of course all of them claim to be Chrome on "Windows NT 10.0".

Previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/today-in-scrapers/feed/ 26 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/how-much-water-do-the-data-centres-use-its-a-secret/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/how-much-water-do-the-data-centres-use-its-a-secret/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2026 03:08:04 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4G Do you want Immortan Joes? Because this is how you get Immortan Joes.

Roanoke gets its drinking water from Carvins Cove Reservoir. The locals tried to find out just how much water Google would be taking. But Google wanted the water and power numbers kept secret.

The details were finally released last week: [...] That's 7.5 million to 30 million litres of drinking water every single day. This is the reservoir's entire remaining capacity. Google is taking absolutely the limit of all the water they can.

How about the other AI vendors, like OpenAI? [...] Notice what Altman did there -- he started with the headline claim "water is totally fake" then he gave a made-up example ending with "or whatever." What he did not give was anything like a number. A current number. [...]

Given the secrecy, assume all the hyperscalers use a huge amount of fresh water. Until they give us official numbers somewhere they're not allowed to lie. They're not fighting to keep the numbers secret because they're good.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/how-much-water-do-the-data-centres-use-its-a-secret/feed/ 50 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/that-one-xkcd-thing-now-interactive/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/that-one-xkcd-thing-now-interactive/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2026 08:25:15 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4B

In my online undergraduate P5.js course, students are about to begin the module on motion and physics, including a bit of physics simulation using Matter.js. It suddenly occurred to me that I had never seen anybody put together this particular demo before, and I realized it had to be done. Messy source code here.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/that-one-xkcd-thing-now-interactive/feed/ 29 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/cocaine/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/cocaine/#comments Wed, 25 Feb 2026 01:47:12 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3t Every now and then I make the mistake of of posting something on Mastodon that really should have gone on the blog first. This is one of those, from last week. It did some numbers.

Everything written by AI boosters tracks much more clearly if you simply replace "AI" with "cocaine".

I shall demonstrate!

(Not linking to OP, because it's trash.)

"Let's pretend you're the only person at your company using cocaine.

You decide you're going to impress your employer, and work for 8 hours a day at 10x productivity. You knock it out of the park and make everyone else look terrible by comparison. [...]

In this scenario, you capture 100% of the value from your adopting cocaine."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/cocaine/feed/ 161 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/hahaha-get-wrecked-ya-surveilling-fucks/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/hahaha-get-wrecked-ya-surveilling-fucks/#comments Sat, 21 Feb 2026 01:41:11 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3m Across the US, people are dismantling and destroying Flock surveillance cameras:

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

"The More You Know..."

Waymo, Google's autonomous vehicle company, and DoorDash, the delivery and gig work platform, have launched a pilot program that pays Dashers, at least in one case, around $10 to travel to a parked Waymo and close its door that the previous passenger left open.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/door-ajar-versus-100-billion-valuation/feed/ 60 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/s-f-looks-to-repeal-law-requiring-stores-to-accept-cash/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/s-f-looks-to-repeal-law-requiring-stores-to-accept-cash/#comments Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:34:35 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3X The impetus for the rule was accessibility:

The "very poor," as well immigrant communities and the very young and old, the amendment read, "fall outside the non-cash financial system." [...]

Nationwide, those levels are decreasing, but remain significant. A survey conducted by the FDIC found that in 2023, Black and Latino households were overrepresented in the unbanked population, with 10.6 percent of Black and 9.5 percent of Latino households in the U.S. were unbanked, down from 17 and 14 percent in 2017.

Today, approximately 4 percent of San Francisco households are "unbanked," or do not have a checking or savings account, and nearly 14 percent are "underbanked" -- have bank accounts but primarily use cash or use check cashers or money orders. [...] "These residents are often the most financially vulnerable and can face higher costs and barriers in everyday transactions," Manke said.

The destruction of cash is part of the advertising panopticon agenda. Paper money doesn't have a utm_source on it so it is useless.

Let us also keep in mind that this "vocal contingent of local business owners" are the same business geniuses who are always, always certain that a bike lane will ruin them.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/s-f-looks-to-repeal-law-requiring-stores-to-accept-cash/feed/ 25 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/peter-thiel-bad-vampire/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/peter-thiel-bad-vampire/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2026 20:44:55 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3R This is not the language of a man who fears death. This is the language of a man who solved it in the 1400s and is tired of pretending.

The one thing the longevity-vampire community has not yet learned from Dracula is operational security.

Dracula operated in silence for centuries. He didn't have a podcast. He didn't track his erection quality on a public dashboard. He didn't appear on Netflix. He understood that the fundamental rule of being a vampire is: don't talk about being a vampire.

Johnson, Thiel, and their cohort have broken this rule comprehensively. Whether this represents a new era of transparency or a catastrophic strategic miscalculation remains to be seen.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/peter-thiel-bad-vampire/feed/ 7 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/periodic-reminder-that-good-billionaire-marc-benioff-is-still-a-massive-piece-of-shit/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/periodic-reminder-that-good-billionaire-marc-benioff-is-still-a-massive-piece-of-shit/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2026 23:34:12 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3N In his keynote, Benioff thanked international Salesforce employees for traveling to the United States for the meeting, and asked them to stand. Benioff then said that ICE agents were in the building to keep tabs on them.

This is an example of "Silicon Valley CEOs and their inability to divorce ICE and the complete lack of understanding of why that makes them monsters," a Salesforce employee told 404 Media. "Employees are going absolutely apeshit in internal Slack about how completely awful it was." Another employee told 404 Media that Benioff "then followed it up with a joke about not understanding the message of Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance. On its own just seems out of touch, but coupled with the previous joke it does seem worse."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/periodic-reminder-that-good-billionaire-marc-benioff-is-still-a-massive-piece-of-shit/feed/ 27 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/ai-is-a-dick-move/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/ai-is-a-dick-move/#comments Sat, 07 Feb 2026 21:08:55 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3I Baldur Bjarnason:

I've stopped trying to debate software developers on LLMs. It's a fruitless debate. Even if the believers in agents and copilots could be budged on empirical grounds, and the past few years have given us plenty of evidence that they can't, this is still a crowd that is explicitly fine with using tools that are themselves deeply unethical. [...]

Somebody who is capable of looking past "ICE is using LLMs as accountability sinks for waving extremists through their recruitment processes", generated abuse, or how chatbot-mediated alienation seems to be pushing vulnerable people into psychosis-like symptoms, won't be persuaded by a meaningful study. Their goal is to maintain their personal benefit, as they see it, and all they are doing is attempting to negotiate with you what the level of abuse is that you find acceptable. Preventing abuse is not on their agenda.

You lost them right at the outset. [...]

Nor do they seem to care, except in a performative way, that "AI" is designed to be an outright attack on labour and education, using the works of those being attacked -- without their consent -- as the tools for dismantling their own communities and industries, all done in overt collaboration with the ultra right. [...]

Going all "but it works great for me" even as the industry burns around you and the "it" is a right-wing political project built on disregarding consent, being applied to dismantle public infrastructure and institutions, is fundamentally a dick move.

And debating dicks is pointless.

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Derik Kauffman insists it's not a joke. He's actually planning to hold a March for Billionaires in San Francisco this weekend. And he says he's doing so because he's opposed to a proposed state tax on billionaires and, more simply, because he feels as if the billionaire class has been unfairly vilified. [...]

The point of the event is to "change the sentiment on this to recognize that billionaires have done a lot for us and communicate that we're glad they're here," Kauffman said. [...]

He told The Examiner he's neither a billionaire defending his own interests, nor just acting as a front for the ultrarich. Last year, Kauffman founded an artificial-intelligence startup called RunRL that took part in Y Combinator's accelerator program.

Kauffman said he's not in contact with any billionaires or getting any funding from them, nor are there any other groups involved with the event. Instead, he's footing the cost of the March for Billionaires website himself and is the principal organizer of and publicist for it, he said.

Update: "Oh no. anyway"

San Francisco’s billionaire bacchanal a big bust:

Just one percent of Americans hold nearly a third of the nation's wealth. So it was fitting that after organizers announced an apparently earnest "March for Billionaires" for this Saturday at Alta Plaza Park, only a handful of pro-billionaire agitators actually showed. [...]

The tens of billions of dollars that could be raised from this tax would fund healthcare, a journalist said. What did Kauffman think of that?

Kauffman began his rebuttal, but it was drowned out by the hubbub of a "counter protester" wearing a towering papier-mâché chef puppet costume chasing around a man in a crown. "He's coming to eat the rich!" the royal provocateur yelled. "Help me get away from the unwashed masses!" [...]

"I am a Christian," said Annie. "I swear on my God that I am completely genuine." [...] "People are just jealous that they are poorer and weaker and uglier," she said. "We are beautiful. We're smart. We're strong... We are supporting the billionaires, here."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/march-for-billionaires/feed/ 42 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/waymo-exec-admits-remote-drivers-in-philippines/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/waymo-exec-admits-remote-drivers-in-philippines/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2026 20:55:56 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3E Mechanical Turk, meet Mechanical Filipino:

Mauricio Peña, the company's Chief Safety Officer, confirmed under questioning that the Google subsidiary employs human operators abroad [...]

"They provide guidance. They do not remotely drive the vehicles," Peña told the Senate committee. "The Waymo vehicle is always in charge of the dynamic driving tasks, so that is just one additional input."

When pressed on how many operators are located outside the United States, Peña said he did not have the breakdown available, escalating frustration from senators.

"It just seems kind of curious that you don't know that answer," one senator responded, before asking in which countries the operators are located.

"The Philippines," Peña replied. [...]

"Having people overseas influencing American vehicles is a safety issue," the senator said. "The information the operators receive could be out of date. It could introduce tremendous cybersecurity vulnerabilities. We don't know if these people have US driver's licenses." [...]

"It's one thing when a taxi is replaced by an Uber or a Lyft. It's another thing when the jobs just go completely overseas," the senator added.

But hey, at least these jobs aren't being stolen by immigrants!

JP summarizes this well:

The insistence on personifying their products eg "the waymo asks for help", "the human recommends" is such a conspicuous odd contortion that it's almost certain there are legal + business imperatives behind it that they don't talk about and won't until a regulator forces them to. [...]

They want to pay remote drivers from whatever country is currently cheapest, none of whom will have US state drivers' licenses. claiming that they're "advising, not driving" is the linchpin of their argument that that's not as illegal and dangerous as it clearly is. they're constructing legal fortifications before the deaths and lawsuits rise.

Let's not forget that these companies are still immune from prosecution when one of their remotely-operated drones commits a moving violation, up to and including a killing. And that Waymo's owner Google have stated in court filings that it is good for business if their competitors' cars kill more people.

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