JULIE: “I’m going to try a new herb and rice.”
ME: “I don’t think I should be eating rice.”
JULIE: “Not rice. Spice. Urban spice.”
ME: “Oh, ok. Sounds good.” (pause) “What’s urban spice?”
JULIE: “Not urban spice. Herb. And. Spice.”
Julie, exhausted, fainted.
Threads is getting an API. This seems to be separate from ActivityPub. I’m looking forward to this being implemented—I haven’t been posting to Threads as much as I do elsewhere, because doing it manually is inconvenient . @manton, have you seen this?
I am quite enjoying John Scalzi’s December Comfort Watch movie list and have added about half the titles to my to-be-watched-list.
I’m done with challenging and important entertainment for a while. The news is challenging enough nowadays.
We went to the San Diego Natural History Museum Sunday, which proved to be a personal milestone for me—my first time receiving a senior discount.
My chagrin at having the word “senior” applied to me was offset by getting a discount. So, um, yay I guess?
The Everywhereist: Every Relationship In Love, Actually, Listed In Order of How Dysfunctional They Are.. I love this movie and agree with every criticism against it, including this one.
RIP Luiz Barroso, who pioneered the modern data center for Google and made the modern internet possible. Until Barroso, data centers were populated by enormously powerful and expensive computer servers. Barroso instead used massive numbers of relatively inexpensive, disposable machines.
“… we must treat the data center itself as one massive warehouse-scale computer,” Barroso said.
Barroso was one of those immigrants that Republicans say are vermin polluting America’s blood.
Sivraj and Me. Phil Gomes created a personal AI advisor using GPT Builder, with a sarcastic personality based on Jarvis from the Iron Man movies.
This is brilliant. I’m going to try something like it.
Humans are a basically civilized species. We know not to go barefoot in restaurants, treat our friends’ living rooms like landfills or nap on the shoulder of our office cubicle mate. And yet, as soon as we step inside an airport or onto a plane, our manners seem to vanish. Perhaps it’s the delirium of travel or the belief that everyday rules do not apply to vacations, much like calories don’t count on holiday and foreign currencies aren’t real money. Or maybe there has never been a canon for proper passenger behavior — until now.
Amazon would rather ask its workers to humiliate themselves instead of paying living wages.
Meanwhile, founder and chair Jeff Bezos is worth $172 billion, and the company tripled its profits to $9.9B in its most recent quarter.
John Scalzi has a delightful short essay on “Die Hard," a movie that works so well because of its wonderful cast. Even small parts get their moments to shine.
And of course “Die Hard” created thousands of variations and ripoffs. My favorite “Die Hard” variation is “Paul Blart, Mall Cop.” The way I remember it (it’s been a few years), Paul Blart is a hero–and he was a hero all along: Courageous, loyal, and ingenious.
Thankfully, Scalzi spends only a little time on the question of whether DH was a Christmas movie. That was a good joke the first year it came up but enough already. Sometimes the Internet can be like a four-year-old that just wants to keep telling the same knock-knock joke over and over and over and over…..
