I think this whole concept speaks to how differently we all use social networks. For some, it’s a passive news source. For others, it’s entertainment. For others, it’s a place to be social.

Ideological balance is the least important feature for me in picking a social network. I’m there to joke around and talk to interesting people. In real life, my friends and I don’t go “You know what bar we should go to? That new ideologically balanced one down on 2nd St.” (and then my horny friend says we should go to the bar where he met a hot girl once and we end up at TikTok¹, AGAIN).

¹ That’s a joke. I’m 40 and my friends pick bars based on proximity, beer selection, and how long they have the baby sitter for.

I’m not a liberal — I’m a leftist — and I consider a Tankie to be someone who gets so wrapped up in hating the U.S. or West in general that they start defending the likes of Stalin and others who used a facade of Marx/Lenin to consolidate power and do horrible things. Like, you do not, under any circumstances, have to hand it to Stalin.

Incidentally, here’s Thomas the Tankie Engine:

I made that for a shitpost in 5 minutes using Midjourney so don’t judge all the obvious A.I. flaws or that I used machine learning. I’d pay a real artist if it wasn’t a throwaway bit.

I live in New Orleans and the police on Bourbon St. ride specially-trained, very large horses for crowd control. I’ve definitely seen some drunk tourists try to resist an officer’s command to calm down by trying to push back on the horse and the horse just being totally unphased.

I read the Financial Times despite being on the left but I find that useful because they don’t cover DC drama unless it legitimately matters. I’m not at all interested in broadening my horizons by reading American conservative bullshit. I already know what they’re going to say. I prefer to read new perspectives. To give an example, I’d rather read a novel by an African woman than learn what propaganda Fox News is pushing. I just don’t care anymore.

“Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

— G.K. Chesterton

I use Bitwarden as a password manager and 2FA manager. I like that Bitwarden automatically copies the 2FA number after filling a password — if you want it to — so I just hit paste and it’s all quick and easy. It’s a lot of trust to put in one product/company, obviously, but I use biometric, FIDO, or ssh keys for critical stuff (at least where I have the option).

I also use Authy, in part because I used it for years before switching to Bitwarden. I liked Authy a lot but it was just less convenient than using Bitwarden. Also, a few sites — Twilio (Authy’s parent company) ones, specifically — seem to require Authy.

Passwordless is coming along but pretty slowly. So, definitely setup 2FA. Tech companies can’t seem to wait to switch to passwordless. Other types of businesses are super conservative about logins and probably won’t adopt it for a few more years.

There’s not that many bots yet and people are big into blocking (and you can subscribe to block lists so it’s automatic). I’m sure as it grows, bot traffic will too — it’s seemingly inevitable — but 20 million users isn’t really that much compared to legacy platforms. I think is mostly news because lots of people are fleeing X due to the election.

They published a 900+ page manifesto on it. Project 2025 won’t all be accomplished but it’s the policy agenda.

Knowing a human made it is the point. To be crude, if a sex doll is your girlfriend, you’re single.

I’m the Poet Laureate of the Darvaza Gas Crater, that’s who I am to decide it.

I don’t give a fuck if it surpasses human poetry to a focus group or if poetry is popular enough for you to care. I’m making a larger point that it’s a misuse of technology. Some things are pointless without a human personally taking time to craft it. We have loads of inefficiently produced things that exist because they’re “handmade” or came from the heart.

It’s like when Google screwed up during the Olympics with that commercial where Gemini made a little girl’s fan letter for an athlete. The whole point of a fan letter from a little girl is that it’s personal and took time. It’s not supposed to be perfect and efficiently produced. It could be 80% misspelled and written in crayon and be more meaningful than anything a machine produces.

Who the fuck wants poetry written by a machine? The whole point of poetry is that it’s an original expression of another human. It’s not a non-fiction book or decorative art. It doesn’t exist because we think it’s perfect. It exists because it’s a connection to another person.

Like, who gives a shit if a machine can churn out something like Langston Hughes “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” . His life is what gives the poem its meaning.

I’m all for LLMs writing stuff but when people say it can create certain types of art, I want to use one to make a dismissive_wank.png image.

I don’t think normal people said it in the mid-to-late 90’s. Like, the Soviet Union was (seemingly) finishing splintering and there was war and strife but there was a sense the world could manage it through diplomacy. The Montréal Protocol was already showing success. Most new technology still seemed promising instead of dystopian.

I’m not saying anyone was right or that we’re actually in the end times. Most of history involves muddling through crises. But it felt like global strife was at a low point and we could actually achieve global consensus on important issues.

I’ve never had to wait long in New Orleans or DC except for odd circumstances but those places essentially have predetermined elections.

• During the pandemic in New Orleans, they made the Smoothie King Center the main early voting location. That took a couple of hours but in normal years, I vote at a fire department and it just takes a few minutes.

• In 2008 in DC, I lived near the White House and my polling place was an historic AME church that was a spot on the Underground Railroad. Every global news channel with staff in DC — so all of them — was trying to interview people. So, I’m not sure that was the voting system’s fault so much as global media asking everyone for a sound bite. (I got interviewed by Japan’s NHK but I didn’t make the cut. If I want to get on Japanese TV, I guess I’ll have to go on a game show.)

But I’ve never lived in a competitive state or district. DC doesn’t have real representation in Congress and Louisiana’s 2nd district is drawn for Voting Rights Act compliance reasons so it’s also not typically competitive. (Louisiana also elects state/local officials in non-presidential years so it’s rarely got much on the ballot besides President and maybe an amendment or two. This year, we voted on whether offshore wind farms would participate in the coastal wetlands restoration program like offshore oil rigs.)

China should be ashamed. America would never steal rocket technology from fascists.

They couldn’t get Zoltar to de-age him like in Big? Why use A.I. to do something we could already do in 1988 for 25¢?

The federal government doesn’t run the elections so you’d have to check the 51 Secretary of State (or equivalent) sites to actually get live results.

For just the results. Decision Desk HQ gets updated quickly, as they provide data to media outlets and others. I don’t think they require a subscription just for results. The AP does the same and generally “calls” states anyway. (As in, the networks will call the results when the AP does, though some have extra requirements like their own data team agreeing.)

I would rather cook because I like the taste much, much more. Almost all frozen stuff is just flavorless to me so I end up having to doctor it up anyway. It’s easier for me to just start from scratch unless it’s something that’s a giant pain.

I also worked as a cook when I was young so the effort/time is probably a bit less for me since I can do the food prep stuff quickly and without much mental effort. When I chop vegetables, my brain basically does it on autopilot.

Stuff from different decades just to confuse whomever finds it. Like get a Five Stairsteps album from a used record store, a Blue Oyster Cult 8 track, a Tecmo Bowl cartridge, a Boyz II Men CD, and a newspaper from yesterday.

I’d like to think it’s because they’re taking a stand but they have to be even more sick of seeing weird American incels talk about US elections than we are in the U.S. Not to mention vote scolds who assume the entire internet is American.

“I don’t care about the election.”

“Vote! It’s important!”

“Motherfucker, I live in Antwerp! Shut up! Just shut up!”