I had a lot of work to do so decided to watch both episodes back-to-back. Star Trek, unbridled TechBro arrogance, rapid and unchecked technological progress, meditations on ancient questions of consciousness, identity, and dynamics of power, gamer culture, very satisfying comeuppance for the baddi…
I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the t…
My personal record is nine bills for the same, minor urgentcare visit. Things I’ve learned: It’s not your provider’s job to deal with insurance, it’s yours. Don’t pay outright1. You’ll keep getting clobbered until every single service provider has billed you. Call them whenever you get billed. B…
Me before Japan: I don’t need to weeb out over everything. Every place has its pros and cons. Me after Japan: unfettered corporate capitalism has ravaged the quality of life in America. I am envious of the plethora of small businesses and vendors on every block in Japan, many of which have owner…
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a prof…
NEW YORK—Claiming he could easily fit into a similar position at most companies, local CEO Mike Waltke told reporters Monday that his skill set was transferable to any job that requires an inept dumbass to receive a big salary. “I have the incompetence necessary to effortlessly transition into a…
This was rather vertigo inducing. And this one, a photo, wasn’t as vertigo inducing as it was depressing. Royalty-free image. Photographer unknown.…
Amil Niazi in a sobering article about ambition, COVID, women, mothers, and late-stage capitalism.…
Here’s Bryan Cantrill’s classic assessment of Oracle Corporation (taken from this talk.) On Twitter, a year after that video: If you were an enterprise database customer who hadn’t heard of the Nazis, might it be easiest to explain them with Oracle allegory?…
Because we don’t simply write non-annoying and non-creepy software that respects you and does the thing you want it to do anymore. Gotta deliver Value™ to all key stakeholders. By which we mean ourselves and the Market. Not you. You are nothing more than Data that taps “Purchase” to us.…
I cannot help rewatch this powerful scene from “Margin Call”. A masterclass in acting by the great Jeremy Irons. Every sentence, glance, and gesture projects complete and menacing presence, power, and finality, and is done to absolute perfection 👌…
Not sure why this actually got to me.…
By Michael Dearing. Couldn’t find any video and not sure if this is tongue-in-cheek (like the “48 Laws of Power”.) The distortions are: Personal Exceptionalism “I am special.” Dichotomous Thinking “X is sh*t. Y is genius.” Correct Overgeneralization “I see two dots and draw the right line.” Bl…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0 See also: “Where profits come from”…
By Barry Deutsch, September 2009. Things are much better now.…
A New Hampshire family says that after a night out to eat at Friendly’s didn’t go so well, a restaurant staffer decided to express their inner feelings through the increasingly preferred medium of the restaurant’s billing system, dropping the phrase “100% sh*t show” at the bottom of the dinner bill…
Watched with LD. Kate Winslet is an amazing actor and this miniseries is her best work yet. It is excellent everything: story, score, cinematography, dialogue, casting, acting. About economic depression, blue-collar America, forgotten America, the opioid epidemic caused by unchecked Capitalist gree…
“For all that we’ve been able to achieve while many of us have been separated, the truth is that there has been something essential missing from this past year: each other,” [Tim Cook] said. “Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply…
Neil Panchal on substituting shitty, ineffective, and expensive consumer-grade items with their industrial and military grade equivalents. Emphases mine: The average consumer is an idiot, so the bean counters keep milking them. Let’s stick RGB lights in what used to be the BMW, you know the ulti…
Value™ must be delivered to stakeholders at any and all cost 🏏…
Here’s some Buzzword Bingo based on these words by the same company. accelerate accountability action items actionable aggregator agile algorithm alignment analytics at the end of the day B2B/B2C bandwidth below the fold best of breed best practices beta big data bleeding edge b…
“Happiness” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk “MAN” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU…
There’s a difference between doing things right and doing the right thing. Doing the right thing is wisdom, and effectiveness. Doing things right is efficiency. The curious thing is the righter you do the wrong thing the wronger you become. If you’re doing the wrong thing and you make a mistake a…
, ThriftBooks, and Bookshop are three alternatives to purchasing books on Amazon. Powell’s is withdrawing from the Amazon Marketplace: “The vitality of our neighbors and neighborhoods depends on the ability of local businesses to thrive. We will not participate in undermining that vitality.”…