… iPhone users are extraverted, free-spending, narcissist party monsters. The Android users, meanwhile, are all home binge-watching Law & Order with their extended cat families.
Android or iPhone—Who’s the Real Sheeple? (Anne Kadet)
The real sheeple is the person who thinks their choice between Android and iPhone defines them.
Small Government: The ref has to be more powerful than the players (Cory Doctorow)
Companies should never be allowed to grow too big to fail, because they also become too big to regulate. Mega-corporations become more powerful than the governments that regulate them. Government becomes too weak to even enforce contracts, the one function that even extreme libertarians agree that government needs to do.
… even if governments do nothing but enforce contracts, they still have to be bigger and more powerful than the largest companies and cartels. This should be an area where good faith leftists and capitalist trufans can come together: making small government possible by banning big business.
Some archaeologists believe that when future civilizations sort through the debris of our modern era, we won’t be defined by the skyscraper, the iPhone, or the automobile, but rather something humbler: the chicken bone. The reason? We eat so many chickens.
How a shipping error 100 years ago launched the $30 billion chicken industry (Kenny Torrella / Vox)
Kansas City residents react to seeing their city featured on “The Last of Us.” (Robert A. Cronkleton / The Kansas City Star) A fun article.
Why did ‘The Last of Us’ Change Pittsburgh to Kansas City? An Investigation (Dais Johnston / Inverse)
It’s easier to make Canada look like Kansas City.
The answer could be found in one of its nicknames: City of Bridges. Any glimpse of the Pittsburgh skyline will show plenty of bridges along the three rivers surrounding it. Kansas City is also on a river, but the heart of downtown — the part of the city we see in The Last of Us — is more inland, meaning the grim, dry cityscapes we see in the show are more suitable for Kansas City.
I want to make this abundantly clear: If there’s one thing you must do flawlessly in your career, it’s killing. I don’t care if it’s an old dog, a sow, some pet chicken, a stallion, or a fucking 3-day-old kitten. You will do it humanely. That means quickly, painlessly, and compassionately.
— Our Business Is Killing: I never understood why veterinarians are at such a high risk of suicide. Until I became one. (Andrew Bullis / Slate)
Put plainly, the attack on the dignity of transgender Americans is an attack on the dignity of all Americans. And like the battles for abortion rights and bodily autonomy, the stakes of the fight for the rights and dignity of transgender people are high for all of us. There is no world in which their freedom is suppressed and yours is sustained.
— Jamelle Bouie, There Is No Dignity in This Kind of America
Or, in the words of novelist Michael Connelly: “Everybody counts or nobody counts.”
Julie replaced our toaster oven with a convection oven that also makes toast, with a fancy electronic control panel, and I managed to successfully use it to make toast without burning the house down. I knew today was going to be a good day.
Artificial intelligence is not a threat. The threat is that we live in a society that considers ownership as sacred and work as worth very little.
If I ever think about adopting a puppy again, I’m going to first reread my journal entries from late 2013 and early 2014.
So much poop. Poop everywhere.
Lazy Reporters Claiming Fediverse Is ‘Slumping,’ Despite Massive Increase In Usage (Mike Masnick / Techdirt) Yeah, many people try Mastodon and other fediverse services and don’t like them. But the services are growing fast, despite the bounce rate.
Elon Musk asked Twitter engineers why views of his tweets are declining. One engineer suggested the answer might be because the public is losing interest. Musk fired the engineer. (Zoë Schiffer and Casey Newton / Platformer)
Microsoft unveiled its AI chatbot-driven Bing search this week, presenting possibly the first challenge to Google’s search dominance in 25 years. In response, Google laced up its clown shoes and immediately stepped on a rake and smacked itself in the face. Google demonstrated its own AI chatbot-driven search which (a) isn’t available to the public and (b) prominently and spectacularly answered a question incorrectly.
I wrote this: Oops! Google’s new AI tool Bard showcases artificial stupidity
Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina and plant scientist Cassandra Quave watch “The Last of Us” and discuss the science. (Your Local Epidemiologist)
Cordyceps, the fungus that causes the zombie epidemic, is real, and it is every bit as horrific as portrayed in the show … but it only affects carpenter ants. The fungus hasn’t significantly evolved in hundreds of millions of years, not even to affect other types of ants.
We will not have mushroom heads running at exorbitant speeds trying to kill us any time soon. While not as sexy, real fungal infections are a major health issue and, with climate change and the rise of antimicrobial resistance, will become even more of one in the future. But if you’re worried about a pandemic, focus on viruses. In the meantime, enjoy the show.
I posted a photo here this evening that I took at the park this afternoon. It was a photo of a woman that I thought was a bride. But some friends here pointed out that she’s almost certainly a quinceañera. Now I feel weird about it, so I deleted the photo. Here’s a photo of a duck instead.
James Cameron did an experiment to confirm the ending of Titanic. Conclusion: the door almost certainly could not hold two people. Sorry, Jack. (Jennifer Ouellette / Ars Technica)
jwz: ChatGPT is a dangerous “bullshit fountain.”