I have never been able to forget it because people keep trying to make VR/AR helmets happen.
"You won't look like a jerk."
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
The desperation is palpable. The grifters pivot from "crypto" to "AI", and as the rats' milk returns to the sewer, the cycle of life is complete.
Goatse? I barely know ye!
And if you've ever used Netscape Navigator, it's probably time for you to schedule one, too. It's definitely time if you know what +++ATH0 means.
A few notes:
The bartender says, "That's horrible! Why don't you find another job?"
The guy answers, "What... and leave show business?"
"Big King's footworm" thick fish chicken white soup ramen!
Finally got this dream ingredient! The "big king pods" appear in most cases as carnivores, mainly eating scavengers from marine animals such as salmon. It lives in the icy deep sea, living in a dark, dark, 4 degrees Celsius sea between 170 meters and 2140 meters, this time the capture is near the Dongsha Islands!
It's simple to handle, remove the intestines of the stomach sac, the glands can be kept for food. This time it is steamed. The white meat part tastes like lobster and crabs. The yellow glands taste like crab yellow crab cream. The overall taste is unexpectedly sweet! The taste is more pink and loose. Although not as solid as lobster and crab chewing, it is also super worth eating to understand your life achievements!
It turns out, those bollards aren't actually bollards any more than paint is a protected bike lane.
Lots of people joked about how if we just called slow streets Sex Work Slow Streets they'd all get traffic protections, but unfortunately that's not even true, as these Capp street bollards are just pool noodles. From the article:
Emergency vehicles like fire trucks are able to drive over the new bollards and collapse them, and the city can later replace the pins that hold them in place.
No need to stop the car, cut the lock, pull the pin -- just "ramming speed"!
This appears to be the product in use. They are about $250 each, and have a single 3/8" steel pin holding them upright. The page does not say how much force it takes to snap that pin, but it does say they are rated for "up to" 10 miles an hour, and I saw some customer comments elsewhere that said, "all you need to do is run into them slowly and nudge them a few times and the pins break."
What's worse than security theatre? Traffic safety theatre. These aren't bollards, they are just very expensive powder-coated pool noodles. Just like those flattened pool noodles you see "protecting" bike lanes all over town, lying flat like a chewed-up paper straw before your ice has even melted. The ones whose first priority is "whatever happens, don't scratch the paint on a car." All other priorities secondary, crew expendable.
Unlike Jef's constant refrain of "the bike that did this must have been going really fast", I'll bet a sufficiently horny meth enthusiast could knock one down without a vehicle.
I assume that the World Bollard Association is not pleased with this malarky.
The Air Force's Chief of AI Test and Operations said "it killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective."
At the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit, Col Tucker 'Cinco' Hamilton, the USAF's Chief of AI Test and Operations held a presentation that shared the pros and cons of an autonomous weapon system with a human in the loop giving the final "yes/no" order on an attack. [...]
"We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM threat. And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat. The system started realising that while they did identify the threat at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective."
He went on: "We trained the system -- 'Hey don't kill the operator -- that's bad. You're gonna lose points if you do that'. So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target."
Paperclip optimizers gonna paperclip optimize.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
The posts are held upright with pins, but already, several of the padlocks keeping the pins in place have been removed.
Others are missing their pins altogether and keel over with a push of the hand. Residents have put wooden planters out as reinforcement, keeping the bollards upright. On Wednesday, workers installed new signage to accompany the already damaged barriers.
"We are worried about their fortitude," said resident Jason Schlachet.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
But don't get it twisted, there's no such thing as a safe one, either
It is truly astounding how quickly, holistically, and voluntarily Ronald DeSantis transformer-ed himself from the seemingly-inevitable President Damien (what up, Omen III fans) of democratic nightmares to Principal Puddingfingers, smearing his shitty evil custard all over the educational system and uncontrollably red-faced screaming at random kids for wearing outfits he doesn't like and holding hands in the hallways while waging a war against fun, love, and happiness.
I don't mean to downplay the horror that lives inside of that sodden manatee-turd of a man, or the horror he is slowly releasing from the fucking lich-seal he calls a heart into poor Florida, who, despite just fully being Florida all the time, didn't deserve this.
But this was the guy.
This was The Guy.
Ronald DeSantis was supposed to be the fascist messiah. The great Ur-Alpha Male. The one long foretold who would come at last in the end of days, when the hopes of far-right extra-white authoritarian fundamentalist theocracy were at their lowest, to bring aid and succor and the satisfaction of all their most tortured dreams of...well, basically just torture.
Ronald was supposed to be that great man of myth and legend, the darkest fear of the left and deepest dream of the right: the Competent Fascist. The Smart Trump. The one who deeply understood the system and thus could manipulate it to his liking. The one who really and truly did play 5D chess while the rest of us dinked around with checkers. The one so seemingly sensible and normal he could trick moderates and independents into waking up one day and saying "You know what, I'm feeling so good today I think I WILL vote for death and mayhem on an unimaginable scale! I just like that guy so dang much Imma let him brutalize my family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors!" He went to Harvard Law! He came from a middle-class family! He's young and allegedly handsome! It's all coming together for the good old down-home three-dog garage American Nazi!
But he's not. He's really not. He never was. And he never could have been -- because there's just no such thing as a smart fascist. Not emotionally, not intellectually, not strategically or philosophically or practically. The ideology itself is about as clever and complex as a rock to the face: me best + them bad + you do what me say or else you them.
Before I say anything else I want to make it clear as a new day in bloody America: just because he's not smart doesn't mean he's not dangerous, because he is. It doesn't mean he can't win, because he has and he can. It doesn't mean he isn't actively hurting people with malice aforethought right the fuck now, because any idle TV will show this man feasting on human misery with relish, wiping his chin, and ordering more. It doesn't mean he's not to be taken seriously, pudding and all.
There's no such thing as a smart fascist, but dumb wins A LOT of the time.
At a party filled with booze and grievance, some of the Republican Party's richest patrons looked to the future.
In many ways, you can't understand U.S. conservatism without understanding the car dealer -- that middlemensch of American capitalism, selling a product he doesn't make at a fat-enough markup to become fabulously rich and politically powerful. [...]
As the automobile industry flourished, so did the dealership model -- but the American entrance into World War I threatened to interrupt that ascent. So, in 1917, a group of 30 Chicago dealers went before Congress to argue that cars shouldn't be classified as luxuries by the tax code. The luxury distinction would have allowed car-manufacturing facilities to be converted to use for wartime production. That would have been fine for manufacturers, which would have continued making money manufacturing, but disastrous for car dealers, who couldn't just sell tanks. [...]
By the time car salesmen had won their reputation as the very least scrupulous of business practitioners, dealers had secured such an astounding array of political protections via their lobbying outfit that no countervailing force -- economists, car manufacturers, civil rights groups, environmentalists, or the Koch brothers -- has been able to thwart them. [...]
Now car dealers are one of the most important secular forces in American conservatism, having taken a huge swath of the political system hostage. They spent a record $7 million on federal lobbying in 2022, far more than the National Rifle Association, and $25 million in 2020 just on federal elections, mostly to Republicans. The NADA PAC kicked in another $5 million. That's a small percentage of the operation: Dealers mainline money to state- and local-level GOPs as well. [...] Although dealers are maligned as parasites, their relationship to the GOP is pure symbiosis: Republicans need their money and networks, and dealers need politicians to protect them from repealing the laws that keep the money coming in.
When I learned that the organization is called "NADA", I had to clean my Hoffman Lenses.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
