“We need shittable cities (actively maintained public restrooms).… A city without well-maintained restrooms is a city where many of the chronically ill cannot leave their homes, and where the homeless are criminalized for bodily functions.” www.tumblr.com/vautour-c…
President Trump’s War on “Woke AI” Is a Civil Liberties Nightmare www.eff.org/deeplinks…
Questionable coffee
I bought a new coffee on Sunday and did not care for it, but I’ve been continuing to drink it because my parents grew up in the Great Depression, and they would rise from their graves and admonish me if I threw out perfectly usable food.
But it occurred to me yesterday that if I put the coffee in the chest freezer, that would not be throwing it out. And that’s what I did, and I bought a couple of bags of our usual Sumatra, which we like.
And now the bad coffee will live in the freezer forever, slowly working its way to the bottom, like deep-sea creatures sinking to the ocean depths, where the coffee will spend eternity with other foods we have no use for but can’t bear to throw out, such as the bread pudding I bought a few years ago, not realizing I was buying a whole loaf of bread pudding, and foolishly put in the freezer before I had cut the loaf into individual portions. (What the hell am I going to do with a massive loaf of frozen-solid bread pudding? It wasn’t even good bread pudding.)
One day, hopefully in the distant future, Julie and I will both be dead, and the Questionable Coffee will be our heirs’ problem.
Things that don’t bother me that seem to bother other people:
- Apologizing when I’m wrong. Just do it and get it over with. It’s a lot more trouble to twist yourself up in knots justifying bad behavior. Everybody fucks up now and then. Apologize and move on.
- Going bald. When I was young, I had long, thick hair. If there were an inexpensive, low-hassle way to get that hair back, I’d do it, but no such treatment exists, so that’s that. When I had a full head of hair, it was wild, and I had to beat it into submission every day. This way is more convenient, and I look ok as I am.
- Picking up dog poop.
Today I’ve been messaging folks I haven’t communicated with in years, and it’s been interesting to see what the last messages we sent each other were, three years ago or whatever.
Maga’s boss class think they are immune to American carnage: They’re in for a surprise. pluralistic.net/2025/08/1…
Cory Doctorow:
… The Maga base wants a bunch of stuff that the Maga elites would never tolerate, but that’s OK, because the Maga elites are pretty sure they will never have to suffer under the laws they pass for others. Peter Theil is happy to support a political movement whose dominant factions would like to put him – and every other gay man – in a concentration camp, because he’s pretty sure that only applies to the poor gays, not the billionaire gays.
Financiers who back Trump know that they can afford to transport their daughters, wives, mistresses and the housekeepers, babysitters and teenagers they impregnate across state lines (or national borders) to get an abortion should the need arise. Their participation in Maga was a bet that after victory was attained, the base could be made to settle for performative cruelty against people other than them.
MAGA’s boss class are counting on so-called moderate Democrats to bail them out when the bubble pops, as happened in 2008, Cory says.
Or they will count on that bailout. For now, I don’t think they’re thinking that far ahead. They’re thinking the hell-bound train will never arrive at its destination.
Here’s something that I’m thinking about: The subprime mortgage bubble in 2008 looted the financial sector. That was catastrophic, but the feds dipped into the rest of the economy to bail out the financial sector.
Today’s looters, led by Trump, are pillaging the entire economy. When they’re done, will there be anything left to bail them out with?
Civilizations fall. It could well be our turn. And that turn may come within a few years, or even months.
No, these thoughts don’t keep me up at night. They’re too big to contemplate. I just go along living my day-to-day life, not too different from how I lived it in the 2010s.
Sorry, the optional AI is mandatory. www.jwz.org/blog/2025…
Scams And Bribery Are Becoming the Foundation of Our Economy. “The United States government taking steps to deliberately introduce cryptocurrency into the heart of our nation’s economy is kind of like a healthy person deciding to pick up a syringe and inject an unknown, harmful virus into themselves. Stick it right in the heart there!” www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/scams-a…
Cybersecurity “red teams” tell the UK government that AI is rubbish, and they don’t think much of quantum computing or blockchain either. pivot-to-ai.com/2025/08/1…
Events that mark the passing of the year: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, my birthday, buying another year’s supply of dog poop bags, Labor Day, Julie’s birthday, etc.