It seems like a lot of this comes down to “the bike and pedestrian stuff is better for everyone, even drivers. But some people just don’t believe that, despite all evidence”

We are ruled by idiots

Capitalist hellscape. One of my pets scratched me in an awkward part of my leg. ICE horrors. War. Genocide. Other things removed from my immediate, personal, experience but make me sad or angry when I think of them.

Saw No Men at a tiny show once. Great energy. Friendly people. Chatted with them for a while.

Saw screaming females a few times. The singer crowd surfs while doing guitar solos.

This year saw Caroline rose at a tiny packed venue. That was great. Love good crowd banter.

I don’t think “friends” works well as a binary yes/no. There are many different kinds of friends, Some people are like cacti and only need to be watered once a year. Other people are like… I’m not a gardener, but some other kind of plant that needs frequent watering. Some are weeds that will take over your entire home. This metaphor got away from me a little.

Personally, I follow a strategy of “when you have the energy, demonstrate the behavior you want to see.” So if you have the juice to handle an unsatisfying outcome, reach out to them like you’d want to be reached out to. Invite them to a party. Send them a funny meme. Whatever. They might flake. They might not respond. But you only do this when you can handle that disappointment. If someone’s been real flakey and you just can’t deal with it, you don’t have to go the extra mile for them.

It doesn’t help that the right infiltrates and murders left wing movements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars

I’m not a historian so I’m struggling to remember specific details. “People’s History of the United States” by Zinn includes many examples that went like “People wanted to organize for something better” -> “Capitalists said no, and had the police beat up and arrest people”

I already felt pretty good about not eating meat*. I think this would have have been a big motivator if I wasn’t already on board

*Ok, I’m kind of a half assed vegetarian. I generally don’t buy meat but if I’m at like a dinner someone else planned I might have some they cooked. It’s easier than going all the way to 100%, and has reduced my meat consumption by like 95%.

Natural consequence of capitalism.

The least bad use of LLMs is probably “shitty search”. Because Google et al have let the internet rot, it’s often hard to find things through normal searching. So people use the LLM that’s at the top of the page. This is not great.

They tell me to use AI at work. I tried entering in like “tell me about X. Link sources”. All the sources were also AI. Horrifying.

I should look into matrix. I have a small group of nerds in my group. need video, voice, text, and image sharing. A dice bot is nice, too.

Haha get fucked DoorDash. I’ll pick up my own food before using them.

I would make cautious alliance with someone if that was their principle.

I see job posts on LinkedIn that say they’re AI recruiters. They don’t seem to have a lot of clicks. Horrible idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth%2C_and_I_Must_Scream

It’s short and you can find a copy at your library, or on the seas.

You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.

Sales number is the only language they speak.

They also speak violence, but historically that’s in the form of the rich and/or the state attacking labor.

Oh god concerts are so stupid right now. Can’t see anything because there’s always some idiot holding a phone up in front of your face.

I get annoyed when people hold the phone up high during the show. If you hold it in front of your face, no one behind you can see it. Don’t block people’s view.

Microsoft should be broken up. They never should have been allowed to get so big in the first place.

The Republicans cause more abortions because they don’t do anything to fix the problem sooner. No sex Ed. No contraception. Nothing to allow labor to have stable home lives with financial security. Voting Republican to minimize abortion is counter productive.

Computers often do what you said, not what you meant.

Honestly more experience with that might help some people who are habitually unclear in their thinking and communication

No. Don’t feel strongly about hats. Wouldn’t want to live someplace where wearing a hat is expected. I’m a band T-shirt and jeans kind of guy though.