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/ 52 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/still-seeking-basecamp-alternative/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/still-seeking-basecamp-alternative/#comments Sun, 12 Apr 2026 03:34:31 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk6E I asked this 6 months ago and got no good answers so let's try again.

Against my better judgment, I let my staff start using Basecamp about 8 years ago, and now I want to ditch it for something open source and self-hosted.

Several people suggested Nextcloud. After much pain, I got that installed, and finally convinced my general manager to take a look at it. Here is his review:

I spent more time poking at this today, and on several occasions it took it 20-30 seconds to respond to link clicks.

I've also spent some time reading the manual, and... I hate these people so much. it's all about how to access your data with various protocols, and nothing about how to use the actual software or WTF the software is expected to do or how you might use it.

It looks like the "todo lists" is all those "cards". They even have an example set that implies each card has more details, but opening them, it just says DESCRIPTION and you can't edit it.

I cannot make any sense out of this. Is it mostly hosting infrasrtucture that is used by other, more sane front-ends? it alludes to a bunch of features, but it seems like those are "apps" that you have to add. on it's own, it's about as friendly as teaching a Boomer to set up a linux desktop so they can check emails.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rate this "I'd rather have my gums planed".

A few other people suggested Openproject.

It seems that the only method of installation that Openproject documents is "install an entire VM" or "install these RPMs" and of course they don't have a package for the OS that I use ("Amazon Linux 2023"). There's not a single mention of how one might go about installing from source, so I don't even know where to begin trying to test it out.

Also they say "whatever you do, don't install our software on a server that has anything else running on it, because we might completely scorch anything that isn't ours." Confidence-inspiring!

Even more confidence-inspiring: "A user you've blocked has previously contributed to this repository: Claude". So it's slopware, too.

I am now soliciting suggestions. Please give me non-terrible suggestions.

What I am seeking:

• Create and organize sets of documents.
• Create tasks and assign them to people.
• Sometimes with due dates.
• In both of these things, edit text, with basic styling and inlined images, WYSIWYG, including from a phone.
• Attach things like PDFs.
• 100% locally hosted.
• Not paying a monthly fee to an unhinged fascist to keep my files on their computer.

What I don't care about: Anything not on that list, including but not limited to:

• git;
• Markdown;
• AWS buckets;
• Dropbox;
• Learning what business-brain buzzwords like "Gantt" or "Scrum" mean.

Things that should not need to be said but do:

• Do not suggest software that you do not use.
• Do not just Google it for me.

Previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/still-seeking-basecamp-alternative/feed/ 39 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/popup-video-2/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/popup-video-2/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:30:45 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk6C Last year I wrote popup-video.js, a Google-surveillance-defeating YouTube player. You may have noticed it in action on the DNA Lounge calendar pages and galleries but I've made some improvements recently.

• The web page contains only a locally-hosted thumbnail. Nothing from YouTube is loaded until someone clicks play. This means no surveillance trackers on every one of your pages that has a video, and also the pages load dozens fewer megabytes.

• When you click play, a fake-window pops up inside the page with a YouTube player.

• Clicking anywhere makes it go away.

• There's a "minimize" button that makes it drop back down into the place where the thumbnail was and continue playing.

• If the inline thumb is nearly as wide as the page, it plays inline instead of doing the popup thing (this is often the case on mobile).

• It works on playlists as well as single videos.

• For single videos, it generates an ad-hoc playlist of all of the other YouTube videos linked on the current page, so the "previous" and "next" buttons show those.

• It works on portrait videos and videos with weird aspect ratios.

Dear Lazyweb,

If you understand the ever-changing rules about auto-play, perhaps you can offer some guidance.

On desktop Safari, you have to click twice to get the first video to play: the YouTube player pops up but does not then auto-play, unless you have done "Website settings / Allow all auto-play" for jwz.org. This is -- what's the word -- fucked up, because the creation of the IFRAME and the sending of the "play" event all happen underneath the user's "click" event, so this should be considered interactive.

And on mobile Safari you always have to click twice.

(I don't remember what the situation is on Chrome or Firefox on account of not caring.)

Anyway, if you know how to make it play with one click instead of two, I would like to know how to do that. Your suggestion should take the form of, "Here's a modified version of your JS file that works". Your speculation is acknowledged and ignored.

Previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/popup-video-2/feed/ 10 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.

Received: from mail.vividdreamqb.name (milestone.clevervistakb.com [170.130.167.11])
From: Dicks Rewards Team <dicksp0@vividdreamqb.name>
Subject: Final notice: YETI Beach Lounge Wagon unlocked by your gear score
Message-ID: <RUxA2tTL-gy3-hDiWXM33jfhjh3zp@vividdreamqb.name>
X-Request-ID: d36d3311-8a4b-4ac9-91b0-4afeee106923
Feedback-ID: jhkmk:vividdreamqb.name:mail
X-Spam-Report:
    * 0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
    * 0.4 KHOP_HELO_FCRDNS Relay HELO differs from its IP's reverse DNS

I can't even tell who has been popped here. "clevervistakb.com" and "vividdreamqb.name" have the same IPs but different registrars (maybe that's a TLD thing?) It's also not clear to me which of those domains sender_access matches on.

I have, however, come to the conclusion that that there are simply too many web sites.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/i-just-like-saying-dicks-rewards/feed/ 9 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/important-xscreensaver-policy-update/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/important-xscreensaver-policy-update/#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2026 09:45:38 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk56 25:

No contributions built with, or assisted by, LLMs or any kind of "generative AI" tools will be considered. If you didn't bother writing it, I'm not going to bother reading it. XScreenSaver is art by humans for humans.

When every news article didn't require navigating whether it was propaganda, or a grift, or both (because it's never science).

When I thought that humanity surviving beyond Earth was even remotely possible.

This timeline sucks.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/space-2/feed/ 76 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/today-i-woke-up-and-chose-violence/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/today-i-woke-up-and-chose-violence/#comments Sun, 05 Apr 2026 19:13:53 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk5y Arguing with robots has become something of a hobby of mine.

▶︎

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

Anyway, the trailer for Supergirl (2026) looks alright. The miniseries that it is purportedly based on was really good.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/04/space-nazis/feed/ 13 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/xscreensaver-6-15/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/xscreensaver-6-15/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2026 01:15:32 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk5c XScreenSaver 6.15 is out now, including iOS and Android. A whopping thirteen new savers this time:

• New hack by me, worldpieces.
• New Shadertoy hacks brought into the fold: bestill, bubblecolors, darktransit, downfall, driftclouds, goldenapollian, noxfire, prococean, rigrekt, trainmandala, trizm and universeball.

Shadertoys are so wild; you'll see like 30 lines of code, and when it runs it build an entire environment without there being a polygon or a model apparent anywhere. What witchcraft is this?? Well, here's a really good article that explains the techniques used: Painting With Math: A Gentle Study of Raymarching.

I fixed a bunch of Android bullshit, too (some of which meant needing to reimplement glRotatef etc. from first principles). Android's implementation of GLES is a buggy mess. Also I think Android has again lost the ability to ask for permission to load photos. I can't figure it out, so someone who gives a shit will have to send me a patch. I also still can't figure out why transparency doesn't work on Android. This makes Peepers be particularly horrifying.

Map Scroller: I updated the list of available maps, and made it show the name of the nearest city. One of the new map sets that works is the Google Satellite Map, and if you have two monitors, I highly recommend running that map in "Fully random location" mode. It has a habit of picking two places many thousands of miles apart that look surprisingly similar, like Greenland and Syria.

This one took so much time! Most of my screensavers are pretty quick; generally they'll percolate in my head for a while, then I do the first 90% in half a day, and then the second 90% in another half day to two days. But this one was composed entirely of ratholes.

1. Oh, first I have to find some sane way to get the country outlines. That means learning about GeoJSON and getting the proper data set from Natural Earth Data. Then that data has to be massaged and merged, and while there's probably some command-line way to do that, using mapshaper.org was easier.

2. Now I've got a bunch of polylines with weird "hole" rules (not winding-rule!) and I need to triangulate them. Next rathole: learning how to use triangle.c correctly.

3. Then I notice that while the GeoJSON has population data for countries, it does not for states and provinces. Ok, that should be easy to grab from Wikipedia, right? Next rathole: learning about SparQL, the Wikidata query language. It is one of the nastiest and most baffling query languages I've seen. Good job on that.

4. Then I realize that while the GeoJSON contains the names of the countries translated into various languages, it doesn't tell you which ones are the official languages! Next rathole! Ok, surely we can get that from Wikidata too... Nope. While the Wikipedia pages contain the endonyms in the local character set, the Wikidata items only have them transliterated into Latin characters. To fix that, I had to scrape the Wikipedia page and parse the Wiki markup using regexps, dooming us to inhuman toil, etc. etc. Anyway, I got it working so that Japan can be spelled 日本...

5. ...on macOS, iOS and Android. Why doesn't it work on Linux? Oh ho ho ho, another rathole, this one un-solved! So on Linux it notices when all of the characters came out as square boxes and falls back to the transliterated Latin versions. You're welcome.

6. Ok, it's starting to come together. But since I'm zooming in a lot, the Earth imagery is looking a little grainy, since the image I have is 2048x1024. Well let's just go upgrade that. Next rathole! The old images I had were from the public domain 2002 NASA "Blue Marble" images and 2000 "Visible Earth, City Lights" images none of which still exist on NASA's site (all praise archive.org!)

   They seem to have deprecated those data sets in favor of the 2025 "Blue Marble: Next Generation" images and the 2012 "Black Marble" images. But... they're weird. First, both sets of images completely omit the North polar ice. Second, the 2025 daytime oceans are colored completely flat, whereas the 2002 images contained bathymetry details. And third, and worst of all, is no pairing of 2025 day images and 2016 night images where the pair have the same ice extents. This means that when we blend between the day and night images, it looks very weird. It took me days to finally accept that there was nothing that I could do to work around that.

7. So now that those various ratholes are out of the way, it's trigonometry time. The way the countries pop up and face forward toward whereever the camera is a technique called "billboarding" and it's pretty easy. But what's not easy is doing a smooth transition between the object being billboarded, and the object being back in the scene. Especially since it's position in the scene is spinning and wobbling about willy-nilly. (Remember, you can also spin the globe with the mouse, and it has to keep track of that as well!)

8. So the final rathole was finally coming to terms with quaternions. Quaternions and I have had a passing acquaintance for many years, but I finally had to get down and dirty and really understand them to make all of this work.

   Wikipedia describes quaternions as:

   Quaternions form a four-dimensional associative normed division algebra over the real numbers, and therefore a ring, also a division ring and a domain. It is a special case of a Clifford algebra, classified as Cl₀,₂(ℝ)≅Cl⁺₃,₀(ℝ). According to the Frobenius theorem, the algebra ℍ is one of only two finite-dimensional division rings containing a proper subring isomorphic to the real numbers; the other being the complex numbers.

   "I did not understand a math thing, and then I read the Wikipedia article on it, and now I understand the math thing" -- said literally no one ever. As far as I can tell, every math article on Wikipedia is written with the target audience of "person who wrote their grad school thesis on it" and no one else. Wikipedia's math articles are absolutely fucking useless for purposes of, you know, education.

   Anyway, 3Blue1Brown has a good intro video that is not like that!

   By the way, I propose that "Quaternions" should be pronounced like extruded cornmeal toroid "Funyuns".

Previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/xscreensaver-6-15/feed/ 91 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/internet-advertising-is-going-great/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/internet-advertising-is-going-great/#comments Sat, 28 Mar 2026 18:24:51 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk5a I hear Spotify is the new hotness, let's see if they will take our money:

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/gles-1-x-transparency/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/gles-1-x-transparency/#comments Sat, 28 Mar 2026 05:48:50 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk5Y glColor but not with glMaterial.

GL_VERSION in the Android simulator is "OpenGL ES-CM 1.1 (4.1 Metal - 88.1)".

This works fine on iOS and Cocoa, so it's not strictly a GLES thing, just Android. GLSL is not involved.

Test case:

Bool lights_p = time(0) & 1; glClear (GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glEnable (GL_BLEND); glDisable (GL_COLOR_MATERIAL); glBlendFunc (GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA); #define glColor4fv(v) glColor4f (v[0], v[1], v[2], v[3]) GLfloat c1[] = { 1, 0, 0, 0.5 }; GLfloat c2[] = { 0, 1, 0, 0.5 }; GLfloat v[] = { 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, }; glVertexPointer (3, GL_FLOAT, 0, v); glEnableClientState (GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); if (lights_p) { GLfloat amb[] = {0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1}; glLightfv (GL_LIGHT0, GL_AMBIENT, amb); glEnable (GL_LIGHTING); glEnable (GL_LIGHT0); glColor3f (0, 0, 0); } else { glDisable (GL_LIGHTING); glDisable (GL_LIGHT0); } if (lights_p) glMaterialfv (GL_FRONT_AND_BACK, GL_AMBIENT_AND_DIFFUSE, c1); else glColor4fv (c1); glDrawArrays (GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 6); glPushMatrix(); glTranslatef (0.5, 0.25, 0); if (lights_p) glMaterialfv (GL_FRONT_AND_BACK, GL_AMBIENT_AND_DIFFUSE, c2); else glColor4fv (c2); glDrawArrays (GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 6); glPopMatrix(); glDisableClientState (GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glVertexPointer (3, GL_FLOAT, 0, 0);

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/recent-movies-and-tv-33/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/recent-movies-and-tv-33/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2026 19:04:41 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk5A

• The Bluff (2026):
  An excellent little pirate movie. Which isn't quite right, because though it's about pirates, there's not a lot of pirating, or even sailing. It's more one of those "I was retired and you had to pull me back in" deal -- you know, a Statham Situation. Bloody Mary's ex wants the gollllllld. Anyway, fun characters, very good -- and parsable -- stunts, and the stunts felt very practical. I saw a number of Texas Switches going on, so I think a lot of it was done old-school.

• We Bury The Dead (2026):
  A decent road-trip zombie movie. The US accidentally nukes Tasmania with a zombie bomb, and people volunteer to clean up the corpses, including a bunch of people handling their grief in totally normal healthy ways, such as our hero who is looking for her husband and either hoping he is dead or hoping he is a zombie, it's not clear.

• Greenland (2020) and Greenland 2 (2025):
  These are both stupid disaster movies with absurd physics and geology, but more than that, they are movies that hate people, and believe that people are fundamentally awful, vicious monsters. Their thesis is that if anything goes wrong, everyone will immediately fuck each other over as quickly and as hard as possible, and there's nothing wrong with stepping on someone's face if it gets you into the boat one second earlier. It does not brook even a second's reflection. It was very hard watching this bullshit during the weeks when the people of Minnesota were presenting us a realtime rebuttal to this cynical, evil worldview. Besides that, it's amazing how any time there are like, 10 people who made it into the boat/car/bus/whatever, the ones who are not the 3 main characters are just ... absent ... in the next scene. Did they vaporize? Did our heroes eat them? Such script writing wow. I hated the first one but I hate-watched the second one because I had to know if it got even worse and yes, it did. I need an intervention.

• Cassandra (2025):
  Instead of haunted house stories, now we get them re-skinned as "smart-home automation turns evil" stories. The twist on this one is that the evil smart home is implausibly-vintage 1970s/80s tech. The show is just ok, and I really only even go that hight because of the retro styling. Which is pretty. Since it is Netflix, there's 90 minutes of plot dragged out to 5 hours over 6 episodes and it does the Episode Seven thing (but in ep 5) in the most predictable way. The writers for this definitely believed that you were half watching it while reading something else on your phone, so they have to repeat everything five times.

• The Damned (2025):
  Trapped in the ice, shipwreck, possible haunting. I dug it.

Then I went on a Ghost in the Shell binge, because it turns out there were like twice as many serieses as I realized and I hadn't seen most of them:

• Ghost in the Shell, Stand Alone Complex (2002):
  On a rewatch, this is still good! The animation is beautiful and the characters are well written. The Laughing Man is an interesting villain, and the signature move of being able to hide his face with a logo because every person and camera has mechanical eyes that are hackable is just epic. The eventual reveal of his identity is kind of weird and dumb, and overall the show suffers from several problems: A) it's a cop show and ACAB; and B) these C truly are B and have never met someone who told them "no" who was not a "terrorist"; and C) they do a whole lot of straight-up domestic political assassination; and D) it's weirdly racist for a cartoon where every character looks like a big-eyed Japanese pop star. You're all Sneeches! Much of the plot is about "immigrants" and "refugees" and how much of "our" taxes should be spent on "those parasites" and the difference between the "good guys" and "bad guys" seems to mainly be "should we deport them" or "should we murder them". So let's say that it doesn't age well.

• Ghost in the Shell, Stand Alone Complex, Second Gig (2004):
  Also a rewatch. Also still good, but kind of more of the same. Same weird anti-immigrant plot; the big bad "Individual Eleven" starts off as the same kind of maybe-hivemind as Laughing Man but then does a fake-out to something else which isn't as clever as they wanted it to be. Much more fun stuff with the emergent-personality Tachikoma smart tanks, which was a fun sub-plot.

• Ghost in the Shell, Solid State Society (2006):
  This was fine. At least they stopped shitting on immigrants and focused on billionaire vampires kidnapping children instead.

• Ghost in the Shell, Arise (2013):
  I never saw this the first time around, and reviews led me to believe that the story and animation were both vastly inferior, a bullshit cash grab. But actually I think it's quite good, possibly even better than SAC. It's a prequel, "here's how we got the gang together". In SAC Motoko was what, 35 to 50?, so she was wearing a 25 year old big-boobed robot porn star body. In this one she's 25-ish? (how old do you have to be to get promoted to Army Major?) so she's wearing a 15 year old robot body instead. Oh, anime, never change. But since she's not old and jaded she's allowed to have emotions and make mistakes instead of just being an always-right killing machine. And they aren't bottomless-funded cops just yet, so out of self-interest they have to actually care about consequences and accountability. They are still all temperamentally murderers, but without immunity, and that's what passes for ethics I guess. Less immigrant hate. Not none, but less.

  I hate that current events have made it impossible for me to enjoy stories about righteous vigilantes.

• Ghost in the Shell, SAC_2045 (2020):
  I never even heard that this came out, and... it's pretty bad. It's much more "3d" so it just looks like a video game cut scene. Section 9 has been disbanded and are working as vigilantes in Los Angeles, and The Major looks like a teen pop star now. Also the environments and especially the cars look very contemporary and out-of-place in the GitS universe. Someone involved really loves cars. The plot is... maybe not completely terrible but I really dislike the look of this show, and the character writing is just off.

  That said, S02 is better. The art is still jarring, but the plot is less "immigrants, amirite?" and more "super-cyborgs are freaked out by a secret society of even-more-super cyborgs." The plot hooked me, despite. Also there were some quite well choreographed fight scenes. Which feels like a weird thing to say about a cartoon but I assume it was a lot of mocap. But as always the Tachikomas are the real stars. The ending is confusing and incoherent, which is how you know it's a GitS show.

Ok, GitS diversion over:

• Night Patrol (2025):
  What if the (real) gangs inside LAPD were actual monsters. Very strong first act! Bogs down a bit in the third. Mostly black cast and they start off setting it up as a "white savior" plot but (spoiler) then they're like, "LOL no". It's fun. Not as good as Night Teeth, which I keep recommending.

• Primal S03:
  RAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

• Shelter (2026):
  I have simple needs. "Jason Statham was in hiding but then the commandos found him" -- shit man that's all you had to say. This time he's in a lighthouse.

• Monarch Legacy of Monsters S02:
  I continue to love everything about this show! Previously. Every time I tell someone this they say, "You're kidding." I am not kidding. It's great.

• Whistle (2025):
  Aztec Death Whistle summons your fate. It's basically a Final Destination movie, with the same dumb rules-lawyering. It's alright I guess.

• Umamusume Pretty Derby (2018):
  Ok wait hear me out. We have this recurring event at the club that plays "anime music", which is mostly indistinguishable from happy hardcore, and is some of the worst shit you'll ever hear (and I include "riddim" in that) and at the most recent event, everyone was wearing horse accessories and they left carrots all over the club, so I had to look up what the actual fuck this was all about. Anyway I watched like half of the first two episodes of this and it's some of the worst trash I've ever seen. It makes Sailor Moon look like Shakespeare. And like Rembrandt. Plot: sometimes genetic mutants are born with horse tails and once they grow into big-boobed teenagers they encounter a biological imperative to run in circles, very very fast; and then do karaoke. Oh anime, never change.

• The Beauty (2026):
  I started watching this knowing nothing about it, and the first episode was like: "Oh it's X Files body horror, I'm down", followed by, "This is a straight-up rip-off of The Substance, stop reminding me of better movies that I'd rather be watching instead", and then I soon realized that it's by the American Horror Story guy, and yup, by episode 2 he's back on his usual bullshit: "The only way I know how to write women is as cunty drag queens, aren't they just the worst? Girlfriend!" But, it had body horror and some billionaires get murdered so I kept hate-watching. The season ended with literally nothing resolved.

• Is This Thing On? (2025):
  Will Arnett and Laura Dern get divorced and he works out his trauma by doing standup. It's kinda just a romcom but it's really sweet.

• Young Sherlock (2026):
  This is some bullshit.

  The first thing you need to know about this show, which should have been a damned title screen, is that it is not a prequel, it is an alternate history that in no way lines up with the books or any other Holmes story. And knowing that would have saved me so much frustration and annoyance.

  But it's still some bullshit.

  I appreciate how some people might be here for "will twentysomething Sherlock and Moriarty fuck" but I can't get past "they didn't meet until Sherlock was like 35 and Moriarty was like 70, what even is this."

  I have been a Sherlock fan for a little while now. I still have the copy of Hound of the Baskervilles that I bought on a whim at a flea market when I was like 9 years old, and it imprinted on me hard. I assume I paid 10¢ for it. It is absolutely falling apart to dust but the latest copyright on it is 1904. The thing about Sherlock is, there's only like 1700 pages total, that's barely 5 novels, but it launched a thousand ships. This ship though, this "shipping", this is some crap. I might have enjoyed this show if the characters all had different names like "Steve" and "Brian" instead of "Sherlock" and "Moriarty" but as-is, I JUST. CAN. NOT.

  One of the things about being a lifelong fan of Sherlock is that when you are a child you think "This guy is the greatest guy ever and I love him" and then when you are an adult you think "This guy is an absolute piece of shit and I love him" and if you never made that transition, everyone else in your life has my sympathies.

  Anyway, as movies and TV go,

  • The Cushing movies -- honestly I'm not into them.
  • The Seven Percent Solution -- pretty great and nuts.
  • The Downey movies -- first eh, second hard pass.
  • House -- yes to S01, strongly diminishing returns after. Probably didn't age well.
  • The Cumberbach shows -- mostly fun, overall unsatisfying.
  • Elementary -- middling.
  • Enola Holmes -- Fun and I appreciate it as criticism.

  It's not a great track record.

• Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die (2026):
  A pretty fun low-budget riff on Terminator, but with the dirtbaggy lunacy of 12 Monkeys.

• Scream 7 (2026):
  This was definitely a Scream movie. It was fine. Always good to see [SPOILER] again. Has some AI hate.

• Scarlet (2025):
  King Hamlet's daughter (?) dies and goes to hell, which is somehow the Middle East but underwater, gets a 21st Century paramedic as a sidekick, and goes on a revenge-quest, fighting an endless series of Deadites. And then, I dunno, the planet explodes into love or something. The animation is great; it's a weird mix of photorealistic 3D-rendered backgrounds with cel-style anime characters, but the motion in the sword fights and dance routines (plural) feels rotoscoped, it has a twitchy Bakshi feel. Weird-ass incoherent movie, but pretty.

Previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/recent-movies-and-tv-33/feed/ 33 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/google-pass-redux/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/google-pass-redux/#comments Sat, 21 Mar 2026 20:05:00 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk45 Dear Lazyweb,

Four years ago I asked whether "Google Pass" was a thing that I needed to give a shit about and consensus was, "no, nobody uses that." But I have heard anecdotally, recently, that this might no longer be true. Thoughts?

The goal here is, "reduce the amount of time it takes for someone standing in front of my nightclub to wave their QR code at the door staff." On iOS, Apple Wallet supports that goal very well.

Note: I don't use Android and know as little about its ecosystem as possible, so please use small words.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/google-pass-redux/feed/ 125 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/stop-threatening-me-with-a-good-time/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/stop-threatening-me-with-a-good-time/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2026 02:39:47 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4m

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/stop-threatening-me-with-a-good-time/feed/ 4 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/a-slopfondler-walks-into-a-bar/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/a-slopfondler-walks-into-a-bar/#comments Tue, 17 Mar 2026 18:23:58 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4i

They	Hey. I found a good use of AI!
Me	No you didn't.
They	Wait let me tell you about it.
Me	Please don't. I'm begging you. Stop talking.
They	No, you'll like this.
Me	I assure you, I will not.
They	[ predictable story about how they had the plausible-text-fabricator summarize some data for them and they believed it without verifying, but they didn't pay for it, so it's fine ]
Me	[ and then they uncorked my 20 minute rant, my mask moist with the spittle of yelling; that's 20 minutes I will never get back, and also it made me miss the first set of the burlesque show ]
They	I had no idea you felt so strongly about this!
Me	Are you aware that I have a blog.
They	I read it all the time! Have you posted about this?
Me	Motherfucker, STARES IN "AI" TAG!!

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/a-slopfondler-walks-into-a-bar/feed/ 47 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/macos-26-guest-user/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/macos-26-guest-user/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2026 10:33:55 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4f Back in the heady days of macOS 14, you could customize the default reset-to environment of the "guest" user (Safari bookmarks, items on Dock, etc.) by copying stuff into "/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/". And of course macOS 26 seems to have completely fucked this. How do you accomplish this now?

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/macos-26-guest-user/feed/ 20 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/ai-protest-music-is-a-thing-now/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/ai-protest-music-is-a-thing-now/#comments Sat, 14 Mar 2026 19:41:09 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4W DNA Lounge, a room full of people chanted "No AI" along with Anton Corazza's song of the same name. The kids might be alright!

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/monarch-title-sequence/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/monarch-title-sequence/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:36:51 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk4D said before, I find the decisions about what stories they choose to tell, and under such constraints, fascinating. So every time a new season of a show starts, I pick them apart to see what subtle changes they made.

Monarch, Legacy of Monsters has a fantastic title sequence. Since the show takes place in two timelines, they split the titles between the past on the left and the present on the right, contrasting similar events in each timeline. And season 2 keeps up this conceit, but it was completely rebuilt!

So here are all four quadrants from seasons 1 and 2, stacked.

Also, this show is still killing it.

E.g. "unicrud --block Katakana".

The actual XFT font I get from XftFontOpenXlfd("-*-sans serif-bold-r-*-*-*-180-*-*-*-*-*-*") is

Noto Sans-300 :familylang=en :style=Bold :stylelang=en :fullname=Noto Sans Bold :fullnamelang=en :slant=0 :weight=200 :width=100 :pixelsize=401.899 :foundry=GOOG :antialias=True :hintstyle=1 :hinting=True :verticallayout=False :autohint=False :globaladvance=True :file=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/noto/NotoSans-Bold.ttf :index=0 :outline=True :scalable=True :dpi=96.4557 :rgba=5 :scale=1 :minspace=False :fontversion=131334 :capability=otlayout\:DFLT otlayout\:cyrl otlayout\:grek otlayout\:latn :fontformat=TrueType :embolden=False :embeddedbitmap=True :decorative=False :lcdfilter=1 :namelang=en :prgname=unicrud :postscriptname=NotoSans-Bold :color=False :symbol=False :variable=False :fonthashint=True :order=0 :namedinstance=False :fontwrapper=SFNT

Previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/03/linux-xft-unicode-fonts/feed/ 42 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/let-friction-ring/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/let-friction-ring/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2026 18:55:15 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk33 Dear Lazyweb,

I have this pulley wheel, 50mm inside diameter, 4mm groove. I need a rubber traction ring to go inside it. I cannot find anyone who will sell this to me.

The ring must be flat or concave, not round like a typical gasket seal O-ring, or the string its pulling will just slide off the track.

Alternately, any similar-sized metal pulley wheel that comes with a friction surface pre-attached, 8mm axis hole with set screw.

I have tried coating it with sugru, but that is too soft and wears off after not-very-long.

Update: If you're going to say "why don't you just" or "have you searched for" without a purchase link to a product of the correct size, please know that you are not helping.

Previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/let-friction-ring/feed/ 115 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/youtube-oauth-api-fuckery/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/youtube-oauth-api-fuckery/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2026 19:08:53 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3r I have two YouTube accounts, jwz and dnalounge, and I'm using the oauth API with both of them to automate uploads and stuff. With the DNA account, I am getting a refresh_token that lasts forever. But with the jwz one, I am getting a refresh_token that can only refresh the access_token for a week, and then I have to log in again. Any ideas what fuckery is afoot?

The DNA token does this:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/tokeninfo?access_token=DNA_ACCESS_TOKEN_1 => access_type	=> "offline", audience	=> "DNA_PROJECT_ID.apps.googleusercontent.com", expires_in	=> 3574, issued_to	=> "DNA_PROJECT_ID.apps.googleusercontent.com", scope 	=> "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube" POST https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token client_id	=> "DNA_PROJECT_ID.apps.googleusercontent.com", client_secret	=> "DNA_CLIENT_SECRET", grant_type	=> "refresh_token", refresh_token	=> "DNA_REFRESH_TOKEN" result: access_token	=> "DNA_ACCESS_TOKEN_2", expires_in	=> 3599, scope 	=> "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube", token_type	=> "Bearer" token expiration 0:00:59:34 => 0:00:59:59

but the jwz token does this:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/tokeninfo?access_token=JWZ_ACCESS_TOKEN_1 => access_type	=> "offline", audience	=> "JWZ_PROJECT_ID.apps.googleusercontent.com", expires_in	=> 3413, issued_to	=> "JWZ_PROJECT_ID.apps.googleusercontent.com" scope 	=> "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube", POST https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token client_id	=> "JWZ_CLIENT_ID", client_secret	=> "JWZ_CLIENT_SECRET", grant_type	=> "refresh_token", refresh_token	=> "JWZ_REFRESH_TOKEN" result: access_token	=> "JWZ_ACCESS_TOKEN_2", expires_in	=> 3599, refresh_token_expires_in	=> 201701 scope 	=> "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube", token_type	=> "Bearer", token expiration 0:00:56:53 => 0:00:59:59 refresh expires in 2:00:01:41

Maybe I'm logging in wrong? I log in with user/pass/TOTP "jwz@jwz.org" which takes me to the channel "@yesthatjwz" then I load:

https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?client_id=JWZ_PROJECT_ID.apps.googleusercontent.com&redirect_uri=https://localhost&response_type=code&scope=https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube&access_type=offline

and it asks me to choose my "brand" account. There are three listed: "DNA Lounge", "yesthatjwz", and another "jwz" account. The selection that works is the "yestthatjwz" one. The mystery account is @alsojwz1853 and I don't know why it exists but I'm afraid to delete it in case that breaks something.

When I sign in with "jwz@jwz.org", it takes me directly to my real channel, @yesthatjwz.

When I sign in with: "yesthatjwz" or "youtube@jwz.org" or "yesthatjwz@jwz.org", it asks me to select a channel: @yesthatjwz or "also jwz" @alsojwz1853.

Trying to sign in with "alsojwz1853" says "could not find your account".

Another clue: both the "DNA Lounge" and "yesthatjwz" accounts work with or without at-signs, /dnalounge, /@dnalounge, /yesthatjwz and /@yesthatjwz, but the other one only works as /@alsojwz1853, not as /alsojwz1853. Maybe because they are old accounts that pre-date YouTube being purchased by Google? Another difference is that the thing in console.cloud.google.com/auth/clients/*_PROJECT_ID for DNA is an "iOS client" created in 2014, but for "jwz" is a "Desktop client" created in 2024. There don't seem to be any settings.

But I still don't understand why the DNA and jwz accounts have different behavior.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.]]> https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/youtube-oauth-api-fuckery/feed/ 32 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/remote/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/remote/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2026 08:29:26 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3k https://cdn.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/remote/feed/ 49 https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/all-your-base-slight-remaster/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/02/all-your-base-slight-remaster/#comments Mon, 16 Feb 2026 21:28:40 +0000 https://jwz.org/b/yk3i "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" on Newgrounds.

In honor of this important anniversary, I downloaded the original Flash SWF file from Internet Archive, played it using Ruffle in a full-screen window, and replaced the audio with the original MP3 of "Invasion of the Gabber Robots" by The Laziest Men on Mars. So this is probably the highest fidelity encoding possible, without going back to the original forum GIFs.

Make your time.