Does anyone remember Apple’s short lived Cards App? You could send physical letterpress post cards from a dedicated app, with custom images and messages.
With the reviving of zines, and a backlash on digital media, I think if Cards would’ve come out today it’d be a smash hit. It was super simple and inexpensive. I used it often.
We Let Anthropic’s Claude AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars:
That was the point, Anthropic says. The Project Vend experiment was designed by the company’s stress testers (aka “red team”) to see what happens when an AI agent is given autonomy, money—and human colleagues.
We wanted our agentic AI to fail miserably at basic tasks, says company who claims to have invented god.
Did I ever tell y’all that my niece, when she was 5 or 6, made up a catch-all term?
Nah-boosh (accompanied often by a slight shrug)
Want pizza tonight? Nah-boosh (I’m up for anything)
You just stepped in poop. Nah-boosh (shit happens)
What a lovely contribution to the English language. She’s a gem.
If you’re being fed rapid-fire updates about an issue, or a series of issues, that hint at an outcome that never transpires, if the thing that should happen is always just around the corner, but that corner is never turned, you are not engaging in political advocacy, you are watching a soap opera. And the thing about soap operas is that they’re designed to go on forever so long as there’s an audience for it.
Apple unveils new Apple TV title card and it’s very different:
It has a new logo animation of the Apple TV logo, and the piano chord is gone, replaced by a jingle by Finneas, who’s mostly known as Billie Eilish’s brother and collaborator, and has his own solo career.
The title card was made using practical effects, glass and lighting techniques. As far from AI slop as you can get.
I think the reason it’s so hard to garner empathy for the poor is because so many Americans believe they are a rags-to-richest success story, that they pulled themselves up by their boot straps. It’s a “poverty is in the eyes of the beholder” type situation.
But unless you come from generational poverty, you simply don’t know how much the system is designed to keep you there. If you haven’t experience that you just don’t know.
I absolutely adored Roman J. Israel, Esq. I had no idea what this movie was about, and I was fully ready to x out and find something else to watch. But it kept me there, watching.
When Will My Pornographic Shrek Christmas Ornament Arrive?:
I had been shopping for a tree topper online when I stumbled into the strange world of AI generated pornographic custom ornaments starring popular cartoon characters listed on sites of dubious repute.
What a time to be alive.
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is an anti-capitalist manifesto that warns of the bitter trappings of theory-fatigue, and reminds us that being a joyless grinch can never serve the cause.
In this essay, I will…
Autocorrect changing a word after I proofread my post.
Seriously, is iOS autocorrect getting worse? How is that possible?
Mark Cuban trying to quote-tweet his way through growing class consciousness will never not be funny.
There is no stronger argument for solidarity than a Mark Cuban tweet.
Pro tip: write your blog post while listening to a movie score that encapsulates the vibe of your message. Works everytime and it’s so fucking fun.
I learned this from Pusha-T who revealed that he wrote It’s Almost Dry while watching The Joker (2019) and listening to the score.
Hackers is when you know the shapes tool doesn’t erase the text under the shape, and PDFs don’t flatten the document.
(Also, “filed under cybersecurity” lol)
Why I Disappeared - Ken Klippenstein:
During the brief, intermittent moments that I had time to check the news (rather than living through it moment by moment), I realized how utterly forgettable and meaningless most of it was.
Ken has done some incredible work, so nothing against him. But, he right.
There is a thin line between news and soap opera, both in how it’s delivered and how it’s consumed.
We are all way too involved in the political intrigue—endless court documents, political rivalries, made-for-tv espionage.
They drop another carcass of scandalous photos, we devour them in the comment sections of our favorite political influencers, and when the bones are picked clean, it’s on to the next scandal.
It’s actually remarkable. There’s noting in history that compares to the American political soap opera.
Donald Trump’s greatest achievement, his magnum opus, is the reality tv show he’s produced over the last decade. And we are all avid watchers.
I won’t include the link because I don’t want to broadly share this dude’s ideology. But I had to share this screenshot of the most dystopian AI-generated image in existence.
His whole deal is that we should centralize our digital identities and hand them over to corporations and governments. 🫠
I remember buying this desk—my dream desk—thinking I’d keep it pristine with nothing on it but my laptop and a cold brew. Oh how foolish I was.
Why I Quit Streaming And Got Back Into Cassettes:
Thus the act of listening to music is transformed from a practice of discovery and communication to a hyper-personalized mood board of machine-optimized “vibes.”
its-happening.gif
I watched A Christmas Carol (1951) for the first time. It’s wonderful. What a perfect Scrooge. Facial expressions alone, 10/10.
60 Minutes segment on CECOT / CBS pulled by white supremacist sympathizer, and enabler Bari Weiss, lives on the Internet Archive.
While Edwards' YouTube account used the image as the thumbnail for a video titled “The FBI forgot to redact this,” and he mentioned “one file they forgot to redact” involving Trump “and a 14-year-old girl” (at 0:22), Edwards did not show the thumbnail image during the 10-minute video, indicating it was likely intended as clickbait.
There’s a thin line between justice for victims, and participating in an ongoing political soap opera.
Premium - How The AI Bubble Bursts In 2026:
I believe that 2026 is the year when everything begins to collapse.
Ed has refused to give a timeframe for the AI bubble burst since he’s been talking about it. This is the first time I’ve seen him provide a year. Shit is getting bad I guess.
The tragic life of a content creator (late 2023)
Today I deleted my TikTok account. I had 57,000 followers, and 1.3mm likes. I published over one thousand videos over four years. I collected $430 from the TikTok creator fund. I made three friends.
Influencers do not typically speak out on atrocities because they have traded agency for celebrity. There are rules. And when you break the rules there are consequences.
When we decide to pursue Internet celebrity, we are making a choice consciously or subconsciously that it is better to try to rise above an unjust system then try to help fix it.
And with that choice, we offer up our agency in hopes we are gifted exemption from the trappings of everyday capitalism.
Those of us unlucky enough to be chosen as an influencer have a clear responsibility.
Influencers are agents of the spectacle. Their jobs are to occupy attention. Nothing more. Nothing less.
In exchange, Influencers are allowed to rent opulence, and escape the drudgery of the contemporary 9-to-5.
But, of course, there are some rules.
Rule 1:
At all times you are to play the role that the algorithm has assigned you. That role will be the version of yourself that is most marketable to the masses. Even in tears you are selling macchiatos. So keep it light.
Rule 2:
Even and especially while you are still in poverty, you must imply that you are paid well by documenting your adjacency to the elite class. When you do make money, if ever, you must spend it on the façade of wealth. No saving.
And most important of all,
Rule 3:
You can bear witness to suffering so long as you never identify a culprit. Or criticize the system that gifted you your pseudo celebrity status.
And here’s where it gets tricky.
The consequence for breaking these rules is algorithmic exile or worse. But as the system ramps up its extraction, your target audiences, those that have gifted you your platform, will experience unrest and suffering. Eventually, they’ll seek out the cause of their pain by identifying those on their FYP who have not acknowledged it.
It’s in these moments that the influencer realizes the trap.
The smart ones foresee this trap and start early. They wrap their influence in conciliatory philanthropy that holds no opinion on why such charity must exist in the first place.
It’s a noncontentious way to perform activism without ever having to challenge the system. And in times of peace, these charitable acts will strengthen the influencer’s celebrity.
But inevitably the system will do something so heinous. so horrid. That even the most aloof pacifist will begin to demand activism from the influencer they’ve invested in.
And this is the Catch-22 for the influencer. If they break rule three, they risk algorithmic exile, which is basically a career death sentence. If they stay quiet, their audiences may turn on them.
Of course, neither outcome holds any consequence to the algorithm because there’s always someone waiting in the wings to replace a fallen influencer.
Many will wisely ignore our cries in hopes it goes away. Often times things do settle down. People forget. Long term grief makes for short term memory.
Some will speak out in haste, deftly maneuvering through their monetized videos, offering a concessed acknowledgement of suffering without ever calling it out by name.
Go back and watch your favorite influencers. The ones who caved to pressure to speak on Palestine. Which words could they not bring themselves to say?
In many ways, the influencer has less freedom then their cubical dwelling counterparts.
But by the time they realize what they have become, it is too late.
Influencers are gladiators. The spectacle is watching them fight for their freedom in the social media arena. It is we as the audience who gives the proverbial thumbs up or thumbs down.
Archivists Posted the 60 Minutes CECOT Segment Bari Weiss Killed:
People then uploaded copies of the episode to a variety of file sharing sites and services, including iCloud, Mega, and as a torrent. Even political commentator Mueller She Wrote uploaded a copy.
Even Mueller She Wrote? If she doesn’t end up issuing an apology this will be something cool she did.
The uncanny threads.net (2023)
This is the beginnings of an essay I wrote then forgot about. I have a lot of those. So much has changed since I wrote this in 2023-ish. It doesn’t seem as relevant. Anyway, enjoy this half baked essay about how weird it once felt to scroll Threads. Haven’t been back much. I wonder if it still feels that way?
It’s difficult to write about Threads without sounding conspiritorial, because the app’s vibe feels like a conspiracy. If the so-called social web is in transition, then Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s latest microblogging platform, is the hallway connecting the yesterweb to some unsettled (and unsettling) future. The feeling is palpable. There’s something uncanny about the platform. It’s precursory. It’s liminal.
Scrolling through the timeline, there’s a sense that what you are seeing is fabricated; that the timeline isn’t governed by popularity, or engagement, even.
Walking through a fabricated Disney Pavillion, like what you’d see in Epcot, offers a wonderful excuse to suspend your disbelief. Let the wonders of Tuscany consume your senses!
Mickey Mouse is not just a character stuck behind a TV screen, he’s your friend. Go up to him and say hi! Every cast member, every detail, every nook and cranny is deliberately crafted to provide us with a magical experience. Its all in good capitalistic fun. We can ignore the fact that what we’re actually strolling through is an elaboratly crafted Walmart.
But what makes Disney World different than, say, the boomtowns of the Wild West, is that we’re in on the show. We enjoy Epcot because people are pretending with us, not at us.
There’s a thin line between wonder and surreality. Walk through that same Disney pavilion, but this time with the expectation that you are actually in Central Italy, things start feeling eerie. The architecture looks Venetian. In the distance, the backdrop resembles a mountain range. And that wine in a plastic cup you bought in the piazza, well, it is red, I guess. (Sure hope it doesn’t unexpectedly gush out of an elevator at me.)
That’s what it feels like to scroll through the Threads app. Like, if we were able to peek behind its structure we’d discover the two-by-four planks propping up a Potemkin Village.
I thought I might be alone in this experience. But it turns out, others have this unshakable feeling that Threads is somehow not real.
(I remember having screen shots of threads posts to put here but I can’t find them anymore. If I do, I’ll update.)
Viral trends seem robotic. Popular posts feel synthetic. And by the time you hop off the app, the taste in your mouth is metallic.
There’s something off about threads.net.
What is Decentralization? · Field Notes:
In it’s simplest definition, decentralization is the degree to which an entity within the system can resist coercion and still function as part of the system.
One of the better definitions I’ve come across
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