I like being able to put my icons wherever I want on iOS 18 but it’s a nightmare trying to reorganize them sometimes 😵💫
Started watching Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror on Max
A town of people slowly go insane over increasing obsessions with spiral shapes: patterns in the clouds, everyday objects, hair, insects, skin.
Nintendo Targets YouTube Accounts Showing Emulated Games
Recent laws in Japan have criminalized console and game modding, as well as save file editing.
YouTubers such as PointCrow have reported takedowns of their videos featuring modded gameplay.
Content creators are now more hesitant to produce videos involving Nintendo games, fearing potential legal repercussions or channel strikes.
Does Microsoft or Sony push back this hard against mods and emulators? Like not even the emulators themselves, but videos of games played on them? Seems harsh 🤨
Gun-toting Nazis tried to ruin a Pride festival. They failed miserably.
The organizers of a Pride festival in Grove City, Ohio refused to let hate win when a group of gun-toting Neo-Nazis attempted to ruin the day.
This is near where I live. They were there for like 20 minutes looking like a bunch of fucking idiots and everyone just kind of ignored them. People put up umbrellas to block them out lol
Currently reading: The Trouble with Being Born by E. M. Cioran 📚
The Bravery of Being Out of Range
Reading about the invasion of Lebanon today immediately made me hear Roger Waters' The Bravery of Being Out of Range in the back of my mind:
Hey bartender - over here! Two more shots and two more beers. Sir, turn up the TV sound, the war has started on the ground! Just love those laser-guided bombs, they’re really great at righting wrongs. You hit the target and win the game, from bars 3,000 miles away
The whole record Amused to Death paints a perfect picture of the Western world constantly fueling the war machine while we’re all amusing ourselves to death from the safety of our homes. And that was in ‘92; now we have a whole computer in our pocket so we can tune out from reality whenever we want, or maybe tune in to some war every now and again to see which team has scored the most points so far.
Sending Children Through the US Postal Service in the 1910s
The children had to meet specific criteria: they had to weigh less than 50 pounds, which was roughly the weight limit for postal packages at the time. Their parents or guardians would affix postage stamps to their clothing as a form of payment for their delivery.
This odd chapter in postal history is a reminder of how societal norms and regulations evolve over time, and it remains a curious anecdote from the early 20th century.
Well that’s enough US history for me today.
Jeremy Clarkson Says All Modern Cars ‘Are Sh*t’
Jeremy Clarkson has been known for his often controversial takes on cars. Well, he’s got another one: modern cars are “all shit now.” Clarkson said this during a watch party for the final episode of “The Grand Tour”
Clarkson isn’t alone in this opinion. A quick look at the Jalopnik comments section will make you think everyone hates modern cars because they’re too big, have too much technology and are too heavy.
I’m perfectly happy with my tiny 2013 Honda Fit 💁
We’ve been on this Irish whiskey kick for a while. Out of everything we’ve tried, this stuff is the cheapest by far and also the smoothest. It’s my new favorite ❤️🍻
I started using the Bear notes app on iPhone but I run Linux everywhere else so I still needed a good markdown editor for my laptop. Enter Apostrophe. Looks beautiful on my GNOME desktop and it’s just as minimal and simple as Bear. So many great alternatives on Linux 🐧
OpenAI might raise the price of ChatGPT to $44 by 2029
OpenAI could face a blowback if it increases prices too quickly. While ChatGPT has roughly 10 million paying users today, surveys suggest that many believe the current $20-per-month price is too high.
Personally I think $20 is already too high for ChatGPT. I pay $20 a month for Perplexity and I get Claude (with the ability to search the web), ChatGPT and Perplexity’s own chat bots. AI is a handy tool to have but not for $44 a month. Not everyone has that Sam Altman money.
I’m obsessed with Rick and Morty: The Anime. I’m not big on anime, maybe it’s the complete disconnect from the original creators or just the fact that it’s a parallel storyline but it’s such a good series
Enter your birth date and place to discover what the weather was like when you were born!
This is neat. It was rainy with a high of 85.8°F when I was born
U.S. Court Orders LibGen to Pay $30m to Publishers
…LibGen is one of the longest-running shadow libraries online.
In recent years, rightsholders have made several attempts to shut the site down. Court orders have led to LibGen being blocked in several countries, but completely eliminating the threat has been extremely difficult. This is partly because the identities of those running it remains unknown.
While this is a win on paper, it’s unlikely that the publishers will get paid by the LibGen operators, who remain anonymous.
The check is in the mail, I’m sure
Okay I'm finally using Bear
Not Bear Blog, but the markdown app. I used Obsidian for a while and I really liked it, but it felt like overkill so I switched to Drafts. I kinda liked that too but it also felt a little bloated after a while, mostly because it integrates with so many other services. Literally the only feature I used was automatically sending the draft to Micro.blog’s editor, saving me a whopping .5 seconds over copying and pasting it.
A rant about Facebook
You know what I hate about Facebook? It’s the only social network where literally everyone you know has an account. It’s one of those things that’s become a simple fact of life and no one ever questions it. If you take a step back it’s pretty crazy though right? We preach about the importance of decentralization but then the most popular… software… thing is the most centralized of them all.
Google’s AI Mushrooms Could Have ‘Devastating Consequences’
Google is serving AI-generated images of mushrooms when users search for some species, a risky and potentially fatal error for foragers who are trying to figure out what mushrooms are safe to eat.
I would trust a dusty old field guide from the 1800s before I trusted Google for foraging tips
I was always more of a Courtney Love fan. She gets blamed for Kurt’s death with no tangible evidence but Dave Grohl and the AIDS denialist garbage he pushes is directly responsible for thousands of deaths