Womp, and I cannot stress this next part enough, womp.

I’m back! Sort of. I spend way too much time on bsky these days, although it’s not looking so rosy anymore. Also, I’m trans and kobold now and it fucking rocks!

They have to keep pushing on this because they’re all invested up to their necks. The allure of AI is that it offers to replace all human labor for a fraction of the cost, but AI only knows what it scrapes, and the models are starting to poison each other because the net is increasingly flooded with AI bullshit. When it fails, I think the entire tech sector’s going to implode.

I think there’s still a problem in that you need to do some things that are undesired in order to maintain yourself - Household chores, for example. Some things are non negotiable, and for those you need to be able to force yourself, as unpleasant as it is.

Yeah. I think there’s a problem with the modern development cycle that a fuckton of the budget goes into marketing and marketable assets (i.e. all them graphics that look great in the trailers but nobody’s computer can actually handle, and then the rest of the team’s on the hook to make a game on a shoestring that can actually use all of that content - The only way you can possibly accomplish that with a fraction of a fraction of the budget is if it’s super simplistic and repetitive gameplay that’s stretched over 40+ hours like a peasant on a torture rack.

Think about how many games you’ve played over the last decade, and how many of them were still fun to play after the first five hours, either because the primary gameplay loops were satisfying enough to keep you engaged, or because the game was keeping it fresh with new mechanics that didn’t bungle clumsily atop one another like a raspberry and beef trifle. Making great games is difficult and expensive, and most studios would rather put out something with a guaranteed return than anything that’s fun to play.

Juicero-ass headset.

I mean, it was a little after my time but Vine never got abused by rage bait/content churn and fine tuned by the platform specifically to hijack your attention span and feed you ads.

I spent three years miserable on the mechanical engineering track that was colloquially known as “pre-business” before I ended up with an MIS degree at 23 after a hard pivot and an extra year and change of classes. I’d be hard pressed to say I’m ‘happy’ today, but the degree has afforded me the ability to live quasi-comfortably on my own.

Hmm, I’m no historian but I seem to recall they closed it because it cost a gazillion dollars to boat everything the prisoners and staff needed on a remote island. So is DOGE gonna get on that, or…

No? I guess I should just keep praying for a hamberder-induced heart attack then.

I can’t believe a Big n’ Tasty used to be a buck with prices the way they are.

F

There, I saved you 7 minutes

What kneecaps this prodpect is that the other half of the supply-demand curve simply won’t fall enough to meet American production where it will inevitably peak - far lower than that of existing overseas factories, even with the implementation of tariffs.

I think people fail to understand that, even if investors were to somehow become obsessed with dropping factories in the states left and right, people still wouldn’t be able to outproduce China and India. Even if Americans get paid the same poor wages, the cost of production would still be too high because the cost of living is also too high, not least because we have very little HDH and everything is too spread apart with little public transportation.

Yeah, I think people forget that the definition of a weed is simply “A plant that is unwanted.” Himalayan blackberry in the PNW is often a weed and it grows aggressively in a lot of backyards here, but lots of people keep it around because… blackberries.

We never will because it’d be the end of late stage capitalism and that means billionaires can’t have their yachts and jets, and we just can’t have that.

Half to a third of the U.S. The rest of us know full well how bad this is. I really hope Cali puts its tariff exemptions in place and Oregon and Washington follow suit because otherwise we’re going to see the worst recession in the country’s history

Honestly a good deal of us would be happy to have leadership that isn’t actively trying to kill us.

I mean this isn’t how government is supposed to work, but, here we are, with an unelected idiot handing pink slips to every government agency under the sun that doesn’t stroke his ego.

I feel for the remaining members of the NIH who have been told in no uncertain terms “Find or fabricate evidence that aligns with our anti-trans stance or start looking elsewhere for employment.”

Two inch gap between the plywood rectangle wall and door so everyone can see you taking a shit? A foot between the bottom of the door and the floor so stupid kids can pop their heads under and keep you company? Say no more, I got you covered!

It really is impressed upon me how cheaply every public bathroom is constructed. I feel like somebody could sneeze too hard and the whole thing would jostle apart.

Predictably, executive leadership has taken an official stance of sticking fingers in their ears and going “LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”