Compare and contrast
6.12.18
9.11.18
The Other G
<special K's dog was put down today...TXTs follow>
Special K: The vet is due in 35 minutes.
<40 minutes later>
It is finished.
b1-66er: RIP.
How's the fam?
K: Mostly ok. Occasionally crying.
b1: Sure.
What's the next plan? Immediate replacement or "wait"?
K: Wait. She was Momma K's dog, it's her call.
b1: What was the last thing you said to the dog?.
K: I think "goodbye" or maybe "you owe me about 22 grand".
b1: DON'T JOKE ABOUT YOUR DOG'S DEATH WHEN I'M WAITING FOR A TABLE AT MY FAVORITE LV RESTAURANT.
K: Alright. What restaurant?
b1: Rírá Irish pub.
40% off for locals Fridays.
Best corned beef I've ever had (they cure their own).
Even though I don't eat it anymore.
K: Great.
I had a bagel dog.
Ohhh, my favorite.
When she died, Barbara said the Mourner's Kaddish to herself.
I have the damn Shannon dead dog song in my head now.
b1: I DIDN'T KNOW THAT WAS A DOG SONG!
Shannon is dead and gone
I hope she's drifting out to sea!
K: Shannon was Carl Wilson's dog.
The Casey Kasem "dead dog dedication" was about this song!
b1: Jesus.
b1: I nearly spewed my steel cut oatmeal bread across the table, in front of velveteen masks.
K: Wowowowow. I love telling you something new.
b1: I HATE that you might know something i don't...
...that's not about Jews.
That's why i hate that you work at G...
...The thing that makes me more comfortable is i know you don't pay attention...
...I'VE SEEN THE DATA!
K: Right?
b1: I know, right? Like chillax.
I SWEAR to you this just came up in my "suggested" queue.
7.11.18
Quote of the moment
"You never realize what people do until you become a tow truck driver."
-- Jose Norena
3.11.18
The most important news you'll read today
So, there's only three people left who still read the Archipelago. And one of YOU is asleep...
...But the long wait is over. Finally, finally i have a piece of news worth imparting.
2.11.18
The rules of the game
b1-66er: KTXT is a knife. It's got a serrated side that's a bit rusty...
...and the other side of the blade...
You read it? You're gonna get cut.
You just decide where in your mind...
...and what side of the knife.
Special K: Great.
1.11.18
Walk the cog
b1-66er: Are you walking out today?
Special K: No. I'm not going to the office, but if I were, I wouldn't walk.
b1: That's what i both thought and predicted.
K: You know me.
From what I can tell, the walkers skew younger.
Lots of pictures:
Bigger than I thought it would be. 47 offices, >1000 people so far. Now they're saying 3K in NYC.
b1: So what do they all do? Take the day off?
K: Go for an hour, there are speeches, go back. Some probably took the whole day.
b1: Does seeing all this make you want to join in?
This won't make Rubin's life easier.
K: No, it makes me cringe, and I'm glad I'm not there. And I'm not sure why I feel that way. Of course I support what they're saying. It's self-evident. But this protest feels limousine-liberal to me. The company is supporting it. That makes no sense.
b1: I've never seen the phrase "ll" before. That's a good one. Did you make it up?
K: No, I've heard it before.
b1: Its great. I'm using it.
K: Me too.
b1It precisely describes an exact thing.
You have a powerful joining force in you. I'm surprised this event doesn't automatically switch that magnet on.
K: Yes.
b1: Would it be bad form to do the walk as a skeleton...
doing a protest/Day of the Dead two-fer?
Hey, can you even PUT a pussy hat on a skeleton?
K: No, yes, and I'm sure someone did.
b1: If you do that, you've gotta put a tombstone on your head:
Killed by Andy Rubin
and top it with a pussy hat...
...And carry a limo hot wheels.
K: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh
NOW I wish I walked out.
And a sign reading
ANDY! STOP RUBIN' MY PRIVATE PARTS
30.10.18
I mean what you said i think you mean, i think
b1-66er: Conversation with D4rw1n about this graffito
Suttonhoo: Lion Air went down yesterday -- this tail is Malaysian Air -- that one disappeared in 2014, so I'm thinking not too soon
b1: Me too.
I hadn't thought of that wrinkle.
***
b1: On your first glance at the graffito, did you think it was a reference to the Lion jet that just went down?
D4rw1n: Yes
b1: Ah. I hadn't even considered that wrinkle. Suttonhoo suggested that after reading our TXT thread.
D: In fact it did not even occur to me that it wasn't until you asked me just now
Just this side of the wall
(All this starts with me sending the plane graffito to D4rw1n)
D4rw1n: Damn too soon?
b1-66er: I can understand why you'd say that, but i personally don't think so...is it too soon to wonder what the hell happened to your loved ones that never got explained and you'll never see again?
D: I guess that started immediately and probably won't ever end for the victims' families.
b: So...what do YOU think? Is it too soon?
D: I take your comment as implicit criticism that I'm thinking of myself as much as them when I ask "too soon?"
I can see both sides of that
I'm the guy who initiated and moderated a fax bulletin board of Dahmer jokes starting the day he was caught
So a bit of yes and a bit of no
When I saw the Banksy (?) piece you sent my mind first identified with the pain of loss and judged the art to be too soon
b: That whole thing just creeps me out.
We've both taken flights that could've been that one.
The plane disappears. Government demands answers. People wail.
And then? Nothing.
D: Now when I look at it from a perspective you suggest (e.g., the art asks the questions the victims' families are probably asking) I can see it as positive
Yes
Everyone gone in a flash
b: It feels to me that 2 days after the incident wouldn't be too soon.
There's an interesting question there and that's one of intent.
Is it poking or prodding; or is it compassionate and demanding?
D: Both? Plus protest and rage and guilt and despair
It's a beautiful piece of art
Even for just sparking this conversation
b: EXACTLY.
Very very few pieces of art hold that quality.
Especially now in the us-or-them world.
D: Right
Good art
b: Look closely again at it. Look at the blurb on the far R.
Now tell me your impression.
D: Saw that too. It's part of the work. It's painted on the wall I believe
b: Yes.
I THINK the guy in front is actually just walking past.
D: I had wondered about some of the other stuff. Like is the "Load Studio" logo part of the work?
I was going to make the same joke
b: If that IS a guy just walking past, the pic is perfectly timed -- maybe even staged.
D: Also there's a small trompe l'oeil within the trompe l'oeil (am I spelling that right? A word I learned from RJ): the airline logo is designed to look 3D. And it does, even in a 2d painting of a 2d painting.
b: Yes.
10.10.18
Fungus R Us
The dear hunter:
I consider fungi to be the seashells of the forrest.
Major mushroom season at the moment.
I have not seen some these b4.
<b1--white ball one>Size of honey dew Melon. A bit huge.
15.9.18
how's that hitting your hand with a hammer going?
b1-66er: How's your work, we never talk about it.
Special K: It's great that it gives me money and insurance, and not demanding. Otherwise it's terrible, boring, dumb.
First time in my life I can have a boring job and be OK with it, not have to brag about how great my job is.
14.9.18
Loon shot
the former flyer: People are so lame! I was told that there was a joe Rogan/Elon musk interview where Elon goes a bit crazy and smokes pot. My friends were commenting about how he must be suffering from stress and stuff. I just watched the interview and thought it was fantastic. The guy was super open and interesting. Ideas were fantastic. He did take one puff of a marijuana/tobacco joint. Big deal. They also drank whisky. People are so weird.
b1-66er: one of the weirdest things about the internet -which i never would have guessed- is that everyone's an expert because they can look everything up...
...but people have become remarkably lazy. so they don't actually refer to the source, they refer to a biased synopsis OF the source...
...but people have become remarkably lazy. so they don't actually refer to the source, they refer to a biased synopsis OF the source...
...which almost certainly is some one (or thing) that's:
A undereducated
=and/or=
B looking for consensus bias in what they already believe
=and/or=
C have monetary interests in what they're saying...
...i never, ever, would have expected all this to turn out this way.
FF: Have you seen that interview?
b1: no. I've read about it, though.
I'm not a fan of musk's, so i don't cross into his reality distortion field.
I'll watch it if you want me to. (you have THAT MUCH) control of my behavior.
FF: I personally thought it was interesting. I liked the discussion about AI. What don't you like about him?
b1: I'm not convinced he's doing anything to save the planet...
...but a lot of stuff to tear it up.
FF: They talk about planet saving stuff in the interview
b1: so here's his non-planet saving stuff i know about...
he's making electric cars with no obvious frame recovery and battery disposability...
he's hell bent on getting to mars. which requires HUGE resources, trashes the Earth's atmosphere, endangers another planet's nearly pristine ecosystem.
FF: Ok. I get your pint of view.
b1: i think he, desperately, wants to be > SJ.
FF: If you think about it, it's not such a bad desire to want to be better than Jobs. It's better than not trying to achieve anything. I'm sure he has completely messed up ego stuff. But I still find him interesting. I'd prefer to hear about theories on AI and it's future in our society rather than stupid politics and out of date racist ideas being revamped to serve someone's financial agenda.
At least one of us is
b1-67er: Having swype problems with my phone. Perhaps virus. Almost anytging I swipe prints as "I think"
b1-66er: crazy.
do you NOT think?
67: The second one I swyped as "I am Devo"
I am devo
I think
66: THAT'S GREAT!
i want your phone.
16.8.18
So THAT'S where cell phone babies come from!
b1-66er: Why's a cell phone called a cell phone?
What's it a cell OF?
Robotron: "Cellular" refers to the architecture of the wireless network, where the physical space is divided into individual cells. Each cell has antennas and equipment to handle all the phones that are in that cell. A cell can hand off a user to a neighboring cell when the user moves.
Each cell only has to handle a finite amount of users. This is the design that makes it scalable.
b1: So great.
Does anyone aside from you, Wayne-o, Woz and Bill Gates know that?
Robo: I'm not even sure the architectural features that gave it that name are still applicable. By the time it got to Europe, they wound up adopting the more general term "mobile".
b1: Do your super genius children?
Robo: Not a chance.
b1: Okay. So it's kinda obscure. I'm not a complete NOP for not knowing it.
Is the phrase "cell phone" antiquated? Is it like talking about a transistor radio?
Robo: I'd bet no one under the age of 30 knows it, unless they are in a related field.
The network is still "cellular", in that you move from one cell to another. But the term is a "leak" of technical jargon into the public lexicon that shouldn't have happened. The device manufacturers and carriers should have done a better branding job at the start, way back when.
b1: I hear your dad voice when you say that.
(I actually chuckled.)
I think I'm going to blame Wayne-o about the fact that i say "cell phone." I'm calling him the leak. I don't care if he is or not.
SUPER great story. Thanks. And thanks for taking the time.
Robo: Sure. Blaming Wayne-o is a good idea.
2.7.18
When push comes to jerk
Entropy Dave: Funnily enough, just today I described the urban design of Los Angeles as being like Godzilla had a wank and splooged out a giant lake of goo. That's my origin myth for LA. I say that as a fan of the culture of LA, just not the urban geography.
I was being serious though. A yankee friend of mine asked me dead in earnest, "As a patriot, I feel like I should do something, but what?" The New York Times is my primary newspaper so I keep up pretty well with American politics. It's been bad, getting worse for at least 25 years, ever since that asshat Grover Norquist decided to cripple the Republican political class by demonising legislative compromise. But the decline is reaching a new low, because the Republican political class has now effectively been neutered by an egocentric fool with no regard for anything but his own emotions.
The power of America has been that it has a thin culture. What I mean by that is not that it is not rich with things like music, football, food, rituals, etc. It is. Rather, the culture of membership and citizenship is thin. It is not based on 800 years of this or that region's history, like Europe or China. History doesn't matter--how could it? most American families have been in the country for less than 100 years--it is the ideas that matter, and it is from these ideas that the political institutions are made. So to become an American you just need to buy in to a few civic ideals. This is great because it means America can absorb anyone at any time, irrespective of creed, history, etc.
But the downside is that when someone violates these ideas, when someone undermines these institutions built on this thin culture, there are relatively few resources on which to draw. It is all held together by a shared belief in a few basic ideas. The French can reply, with the weight of history behind them, by saying this is not true to France. I don't think you can really do that in the US, unless you hark back to a few (mostly inaccurate) stories from the founding days of the country (think of George Washington and Paul Revere). These stories don't give us much traction.
We've seen the Republic subverted by subtle means, as Cheney did when he suborned the Office of Legal Counsel. But now we're seeing it subverted by unsubtle means that move the norms, that remove the inhibitions, that dismantle the thin culture that holds these institutions together. It is like everyday is a day to use the "nuclear option" in the Senate, everyday is a day where what matters is only whether you win (compare Merrick Garland and Neil Gorsuch), and where all that matters is whether you can get away with it (cp. Scott Pruitt).
This nothing to do with feeling alienated from the American voting public or having expatriated myself. It is about seeing a great country, my homeland, being destroyed almost literally day by day from within its own institutions. I only hope the next generation are better people than we were.
12.6.18
San Jose Plutonium News
San Jose Mercury News: Thank you for choosing text. May I have the phone number and address associated with your MERCURY NEWS account? How may I assist you today?
b1-66er:
<phone number and address elided>
I would like to cancel my trial subscription, thank you.
SJMN: Thank you for your text. Unfortunately we cannot stop the paper via text. Please call customer service.
b1-66er: It's not the paper I'm trying to stop, it's the digital subscription.
SJMN: unfortunately I have no authorization to cancel an account via text
b1: This seems (almost intentionally) difficult. I can always do it the other way and tell my credit card to deny everything to you.
Which is fine by me.
I'm trying to be nice, but you guys aren't. There's a trap door to subscribing, but no obvious exit once i have.
Or is that what's meant by "trial?"
SJMN: I do apologize, unfortunately I have no authorization to cancel an account via text, please call customer service, but I will pass the feedback to my superiors.
b1: The reason i started TXTing you was because the phone voice prompt suggested it due to interminable waits.
How many rings do i have to jump through to say "no?"
I worked on customer service stuff at AAPL. It's super clear that no one has ever tried walking through this tree as a customer.
SJMN: Thank you for texting. Customer Service is now closed. You will receive a response during our regular business hours.
<No follow-up TXT was ever sent. I called my credit card the next day telling them to deny.
A couple days ago i got a postcard from the SJMN telling me they were charging my "account" $9.95. The next day i got a letter from my credit card saying the "paper" had attempted to charge 99 cents to the card.
Such are the tribulations of life.
And to think that I've done some writing for them.>
6.6.18
Sucker!
b1-66er: Green Munchkin (Lollipop Guild) died. Last one. Age 99.
b1-67er: Man that is old for a midget! In our hearts aren't we all members of the lollipop guild?
b1-66er: We are. It's POSSIBLE that's actually the whole lesson, and point, of life.
26.4.18
Yeah, but can you get an icee?
Proof that Long Beach sold its soul to the devil, in 3 photos:
Caption 1:
Old Long Beach looked like this...
Caption 2:
This could be Hell, or merely a refinery on the beach
Caption 3:
This ices it: look what they're hauling around in tanker trucks down there
18.4.18
Skulls of Romaine
b1-66er: Skull in salad!
That HAS to be a good omen. Right?
D4rw1n: Don't believe in omens
But that's fucking awesome
The Actore: Wow!… I, yeah… I'm going to go with a good omen… Ha ha, ha ha… Ha ha… Uneasy breath
Gumby: Yes! One of the best omens there is.
I saw that skull in a dream I had about salad 3 days ago. You were verbally abusing the skull, and it just laughed and laughed- Nervously.
b1-66er: SO DID I!
Lettuce prey
b1-66er: I'm interested in any comments you have.
b1-67er: The Packer is the Pravda of the lettuce industry. Surprisingly this piece seems fairly reasonable.
Nearly all the winter Romaine in the US would be coming from Yuma as of a few weeks ago.
Consumer reports messed up but saying stop eating all Romain in my opinion.
If it's a contaminated field, the whole field will probably be used for the same purpose (chopped, hearts,or whole heads)
This is because the extent of leaf burn, over growth, under growth, mildew, etc favors different fields for given products.
If out of 40 cases none get traced to whole heads, then the whole heads should be considered as safe as they ever have been.
Also the products touch different machinery, so if a chopped production line is contaminated, it's not going to contaminate whole heads.
I think the packing industry is right in using different language for product that might have a problem vs product that definitely has a problem.
It's pretty odd that they can't get it down to a brand.
b1-66er: great answer.
b1-67er: Consumer reports has done a poor job in the few cases where I knew something about what they were complaining about.
It's only good for them when someone else has a problem. So I don't think there are any tempering forces in their organization.
b1-66er: Another shrewd observation!
12.4.18
You had me at "slime"
From the flyer:
'Thanks for calling the ASPCA poison control hotline, how can I help you?'
'My dog ate my daughters slime.'
'What's the recipe?'
'Well, she's not sure but likely borax, white glue, shaving cream, and the insides of a stress ball that was made of some kind of clay.'
'Do you see hm eat it?
'Not really. she came back in the room and was looking for where her slime went and saw it dripping from his mouth.'
2.4.18
There is no number three
The 'grid: Two things that people should stop doing are moving to California and having children they cannot afford.
The point in projective law
b1-66er:
Extremely good write-up of a super interesting case.
The mouthpiece:
Fascinating.
Really an excellent article. Great details. One interesting quote caught my eye from a former US attorney, saying the government should never lose the case.
I understand his point about how much power of the government has, and how prosecutorial discretion should weigh heavily in favor of not bringing questionable cases.
But, in my view, there are some cases the government must bring, even though they might lose. The Noor Salman case does not look like one of those, both because she was likely innocent and because the evidence for guilt was extremely weak. This kind of case should never be brought. But in cases where the defendant is likely guilty, but the evidence happens to be weak, I believe there's a strong argument for bringing some of those cases. My reasoning is that even if the government loses, it must show that it is willing to try some cases on principle, even against heavy odds.
19.3.18
I know what you are, but what am i?
Just overheard the BEST conversation ever...
Red Rock Casino employee <annoyed>, "what's wrong with you?"
Other Employee <very defensive> "YOU KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME!"
And they both break into peals of laughter.