Hollywood Pretends There Is No Pandemic

Hollywood is abandoning Covid precautions everywhere but black tie events.

According to the dominant narrative of film and TV over the past three years, Covid-19 never happened and is still not happening, despite a global death toll of nearly seven million within three years (and counting, plus tens of millions disabled). It's as if Covid has had no effect on the world whatsoever. [...]

Zone A is all performers and background actors and all employees who are present; there is no distancing or masking, and the zone is described as "a bubble encasing closely vetted vulnerable people." Vaccinated Zone A workers must test three times a week, including a required PCR test, with additional testing if scenes require intimate contact or "exertion."

Zone B are crew who work on set but don't get close to unmasked members of Zone A; masking is required and specific to N95's and above, and Zone B must also test three times a week with one being a lab PCR. Zones C and D are not allowed contact with Zone A. [...]

Zone A goes out of its way -- to its own detriment, as we're witnessing -- to avoid modeling Covid-safe behaviors, providing no explanation or context [...] Hollywood was contorting itself behind the scenes to prevent and avoid Covid in productions as well as award events. Yet simultaneously it became evident that Hollywood was very conspicuously erasing one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twenty-first century from all dominant film, TV, and pop culture narratives. [...]

Actors, film and TV makers, and content creators have been perpetuating a fantasy for nearly three years that there is no pandemic. No "present day" shows or films acknowledge the real present day. By pretending in real life there is no pandemic in films and TV, no public health crisis affecting every corner of everyone's lives, no massive global event disabling our friends, putting our grandparents in coffins, and making our babies sick, we are being denied our ongoing collective experience.

We're being gaslit and mocked by the very people we're looking to for some relief in all of this. We're being robbed of our collective grief.

But hey, Tilda Swinton seems fine.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

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This makes sense, because Large Language Models are also a petroleum product.

Eric Meyer:

Today I learned about Mozilla's new AI startup from my gas pump. Stop the future, I want it to be less stupid.

We go now live to Mozilla HQ:

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"Will You Help Me Repair My Door?"


Police Sue Afroman for Using Home Raid Footage in Music Videos:

In August 2022, police in Adams County, Ohio raided the home of Joseph Foreman -- a.k.a. Afroman -- on unfounded suspicions of drug trafficking and kidnapping. In brilliant retaliation, the "Because I Got High" rapper used home security footage of the raid and referenced it in multiple music videos. Now, seven officers have sued Afroman for allegedly invading their privacy.

Local news outlets report that the plaintiffs -- four deputies, two sergeants, and a detective -- are claiming Afroman took footage of their faces obtained during the raid and circulated it without their consent, which is a misdemeanor violation under Ohio Revised Code. They're also suing on civil grounds, claiming they've suffered "emotional distress, embarrassment, ridicule, loss of reputation, and humiliation." [...]

"They come up here with AR-15, traumatize my kids, destroyed my property, kick in my door, rip up and destroy my camera system," Afroman said of the raid at the time. The officers took a number of items from his home, including about $5,000 in cash.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

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Current Music: as noted

DNA Lounge: Wherein we reach a CENTURY

This photo of the DNA Lounge roof being constructed was taken one hundred years ago, on this day in 1923:

And pictured in this slightly earlier photo is the fellow who built this building, Dave Lerer, who was our current landlord's grandfather. He's the one in the dapper waistcoat.

So that was 54 years as a warehouse and foundry; then 8 years as a bar; then 38 years as DNA Lounge!

More details on the 1906-1998 page.

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jwz mixtape 239

Please enjoy jwz mixtape 239.

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Current Music: as noted

Safety Equipment

The white panel between the wheels of this truck is called a "Lateral Protective Device", and its purpose is to prevent people, bicycles, motorcycles and small cars from getting sucked under the truck's rear wheels when it swerves into them:

This second safety device must serve a similar function, but I can't quite put my finger on it:

I pass this truck all the time. It seems to spend hours almost every day parked in front of the Flower Mart with its engine running the whole time.

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Mail search y u slow

Dear Lazyweb, some time in the last few months, searching in Mail.app has gotten ridiculously slow. Type something into the search field, wait 25+ seconds for the list to update. It used to be instantaneous. Any ideas for un-fucking it?

I assure you that if you decide to "just google that for me", all you're gonna find are decade-old posts saying "reset your BIOS NVRAM while slowly turning thrice widdershins".

Already tried: "sudo mdutil -E /" and "mdimport -r /System/Library/Spotlight/Mail.mdimporter"

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Is this not a reasonable form of ID?

Back in June 2022, Facebook decided that my (vestigial) personal Facebook account would no longer be permitted to admin the DNA Lounge page unless I uploaded a photo of my ID. So I sent them this:

Things started working again about a month after that, but today -- nine months later -- they rejected it:

Do you think it's because the edges aren't clearly visible? Or do you think it's because, in the intervening nine months, the license has expired?

I understand that Facebook got some bad news today, and gosh, I'm all broken up over it.

In I-think-unrelated news, Instagram has suspended the DNA Lounge account again, and I again have no idea why. They're asking for yet another kidnapping-victim proof-of-life selfie.

Devon sent another one. He wore pants this time. Last time it took a week for them to get around to looking at it.

Note that our account "doesn't follow our Community Guidelines", but that our account can be brought back into compliance not with a change of behavior, but with a sexy selfie whose hand has the right number of fingers on it. For the second time in three weeks.

Sure, that makes all kinds of sense. Just give us a lock of your hair and we're good, all is forgiven, carry on.

Incidentally, do you know of a supplier of "novelty" IDs who won't sell my credit card to a Moldovan bot farm? Asking for a friend, pictured above.


Update: Well that was faster. Last time it took 5 days, but this time took only 2. And in an unexpectedly forthright display, they actually admitted fault --

Still passive voice, of course. "Mistakes were made." And still no indication of what led to these "mistakes" or how to avoid them in the future, or why the same "mistake" was made twice in three weeks, or even any way to ask. (They say "please let us know" but do so from a "no-reply' email address, as is traditional.)

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

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DNA Lounge: Wherein DNA Pizza is Twelve!

Today is DNA Pizza's twelfth anniversary! We make some really good pizzas, you guys. Come get some:


Even if you're not local, you can still follow DNA Pizza on the social media for a daily dose of pizza porn. Follow us on Mastodon, or, if you must, on Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr or (ugh) Twitter.

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FAC SEVENTY THREE, FORTY

Today is the 40th anniversary of Blue Monday, the canonical synthpop song: the Platinum-Iridium reference 12" single, stored in a vault in Manchester,* against which all other 12" singles are measured.

    * Under what is now a parking lot and upscale condominiums.

In addition to being just a perfect song, it was also a glorious physical artifact. I still remember the first time I saw it: the three die-cut holes, revealing not the usual white paper inner sleeve, but weirdly-textured flat black plastic that looked exactly like the surface of a floppy disk. The two little notches at the bottom. No text at all. And the mysterious color code down the right edge. Perfect. No notes.

I have been "borrowing" from the designs of Peter Saville, Factory Records and The Haçienda for the last couple of decades, but this is where it all started.

It remains the best-selling 12" single of all time, and the production costs on the die cut sleeve were so high that it was being sold at a loss, which is just the most Peter Saville / Tony Wilson thing ever.

Here's a good article in The Guardian with some well-chosen musical selections: Who inspired it and who it inspired - they spliced Donna Summer with Ennio Morricone to make a futurist dance smash.

I have listened to Blue Monday at least a dozen times while composing this post and you should too. Sadly, the only official music video of the song is from the far inferior 1988 Quincy Jones remix. (It's a great video, but a terrible remix.)

Might I also recommend:

Extremely relevant Previouslies:

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Current Music: As noted

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