Timothy Snyder, the author of Bloodlands [wc] and On Tyranny [wc] has some really interesting thoughts on the current swing toward totalitarianism in much of the first world.
Stderr
All the unbuffered error messages
Back in the mid 90s I had an unusual experience, in which I was caught in the blast-corona of Operation Sundevil – the Secret Service’s attempt to gain relevance in cybersecurity [wik]. My role was small but it made me realize that the government, at that time, was ignorant enough that they could easily be stampeded into doing stupid things, a form of “terrorism by stupid cop” which I later re-framed as “a denial of clue attack.”
I used to follow Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books, until I tired of them. They’re puffalicious, but they remind me too much of S.M. Brust’s condensed sci-fi con conversations, and they just started to sound self-similar.
I’ve gotten familiar with the gestation time for a variety of seeds, and can practically set my clock by genovese basil.
Most bladesmiths have a “shelf of shame and woe” or a box labeled “fucked” in their shop. If they’re busy smiths, it’s generally pretty full.
Mooing and thundering, the trendy set blaze a trail across the grasslands, leaving poop, witticisms, candy bar wrappers, and empty Perrier bottles…
That I’ve subtly changed (or dramatically) the focus of this blog away from authoritarianism, bad government, online arguments, etc., and toward more lightweight things.
A meme-god friend of mine sent me this:
Perhaps some of you are wondering about my obsession with the pope; it’s simple practicality – I know there will be lots of pope images in the AI training models. Also, Marilyn Monroe.
[Content Warning: Tucker Carlson]
[Data Warning: Image Rich]
I had a bit of a brain-fart the other night and went on such a creating binge on Midjourney that I have a huge new slough of images that I was having trouble sorting through, until I decided to … dump them on you.