I found a hair on my clothes of a woman I hung out with more than three weeks ago now. These clothes have all been washed.

You women with very sheddy hair, you mark us. It never is gone completely. There is no escape.

Putin thinks Ukraine is an illegitimate country that doesn't deserve to exist — a rogue province of Russia that needs to be forcibly (re)unified with his empire.

If you don't understand this, you don't understand the Ukraine War. https://t.co/Yp8FBuYzAu

— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) May 24, 2023

Many people seem not to realize this, even though it’s blatantly fucking obvious.

From Mastodon: it is unfair to compare a modern pickup truck to a tank because the M1 Abrams battle tank has better forward visibility and is less likely to run over our kids than a street legal consumer truck. pic.twitter.com/HlIUYt7w6E

— @dannyman@sfba.social (@dannyman) May 23, 2023

Big LOL.

This is because — unlike men — women use other women to vet guys. If you have a girlfriend already this makes you much more attractive to many women because it means you’re good enough in some way that one woman chose you. And the higher-status or more attractive the woman you’re with, the more women who become immediately interested.

When I was in the army, zero interest from women. Got a very hot girlfriend and suddenly three different women wanted to hook up with me. Makes no sense.

Anymore I just want to have fun. We have so little control over so many things end of day.

Might as well try to have some fun before you die.

I think it’s worth it to pursue fun for its own sake with no other goal.

— Angie Schmitt🚶‍♀️ (@schmangee) May 22, 2023

This is the way. (But Angie, you just killed 7 million grammas.)

The United States is (1) a great country — maybe the best — in which to GET rich, (2) an excellent country in which to BE rich, but (3) an alarming country in which to be merely affluent, and (4) a downright awful place in which to be poor. https://t.co/tHsbxFbNcy

— Nils Gilman (@nils_gilman) May 19, 2023

This is dead on. Everyone not rich would be better off somewhere else in the Western world because of the reigning precarity of life in America.

A headphone jack is technology that has worked perfectly for over 100 years. Apple has to change all its charging ports by the end of next year because it broke competition laws. https://t.co/HW0D5wjgNK

— All Watched Over By Machines of Drum and Bass (@bartlebooth45) May 21, 2023

A fucking headphone jack worked far better than anything we have now. With Bluetooth, half the time the connection fails — and even when it does manage to connect, the audio sounds janky 100% of the time (and with very high latency too).

Headphone jacks had none of those issues and worked perfectly. I’m not nostalgic; headphone jacks were just the superior interface. And, just as important, could not have DRM applied to them.

My hot take is that Ch*tGPT is free right now because it needs you to feed it your stories, essays, and poems for free, and when it’s done taking all you have, they’ll put it all behind a paywall.

— Kimberly Nguyen (@knguyenpoetry) May 21, 2023

Oh that is absolutely the plan. Given the incentive structure, why would they do anything else?

if I wanted to read half-assed tankie ramblings I can get them right here for free

— Faine Greenwood (@faineg) May 20, 2023

Ian Welsh’s and other tankie clownery can be read completely free. But these days, you’d have to pay me to read it.

Why do people still eat fast food? It’s so expensive now it’s not worth it.

McDonald’s prices are now not much less than eating at a real sit-down restaurant. It’s only about 10-15% more to get substantially better food. Used to be, McDonald’s et al. were half the price or less of a real restaurant, especially if you ordered off the now non-existent dollar menu.

Low-end items have gotten vastly more expensive, while higher-end items haven’t risen as much. The effect of that on the two bottom income quintiles has got to be enormous.

My 1st ep of TV is being wiped from the streamer after only 6 months!!! This totes blows Disney!!! Before there were dvd box sets to have as a keepsake. Now it will be as if it never existed 😢😭 #WGAStrike #WGAStrong #writersstrike https://t.co/AD7efFlfVR

— Brittney Jeng (@PurpleBJenga) May 19, 2023

If you aren’t pirating it, you’re doing it wrong.

what song is this? pic.twitter.com/7QP1aJdWQn

— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) May 13, 2023

“Here’s Where the Story Ends” by The Sundays.

If you think Russia would have stopped with Ukraine, you're just deluded https://t.co/nHehlXS5wl

— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) May 17, 2023

The plan was to bang up Eastern Europe and take the whole shebang. That people are cheering for this — well, I wish they’d go fight for Russia if they feel that strongly about it.

It mystifies how so many people can be so clueless so often. It takes work to be so dumb. Active work.

I feel like the penn&teller of sex, where I explain the magic trick yet somehow u still enjoy the show. See this eye contact? that's deliberate. I'm smiling cause i know boys like that. Here's my 30 page seduction strategy guide im using on u. yet u still pay me to horf ur willy

— Aella (@Aella_Girl) May 14, 2023

But it doesn’t matter. Sex or no sex, the illusion of authenticity is just as good as the reality. Done well (this is tautological), they are indistinguishable. For another example, I know Carrie Coon as Nora Durst didn’t really lose her entire family in an incomprehensible event as seen in The Leftovers but she made me feel it deeply just as if she did regardless.

It’s going to be interesting when there are actual autonomous-ish robots who mimic a human with adequate verisimilitude that they are good enough for most people. Human-human relationships are going to decline enormously then. Because…have you met humans? They are terrible.