Indeed. I really miss having useful ports. Fucking stupidest change ever to laptop design. I do not give a flying fuck about something looking smooth and slick purposelessly. I want goddamn ports.

I never really know what to say when people ask me if I’m nervous. Any comment I’d make would be inappropriate or weird. I usually just laugh awkwardly and change the subject.

While it’s certain I have my share of problems and burdens, being nervous has never been and will never be one of them. That module was not installed.

If it weren’t for double standards, most people would have no standards at all.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

If you can believe it, the California state government is even worse than the Florida one. I filed my California income tax on time and correctly, but a few weeks ago I got a letter requiring I send a ton of documents “to prevent identity theft.” Even though this was not an audit (it said so right in the docs), there were threats that if I did not send the docs, California would not process my tax return and I could pay additional taxes. There were other vague threats too.

So I sent the requested documents in by the 30 day deadline, waited a bit, then called the California Franchise Tax Board. The woman who answered was nice enough but said she couldn’t help me, as there was often an eight-week wait for any document processing to be done and she could not verify if the FTB had even received anything. She said I’d just have to wait.

Now, I’m just anticipating the moment the gloved fist of state government hits me with more fees and penalties for their self-imposed delay or perhaps (befitting the message) their own failure in processing my taxes. I fully expect this to occur, even though I did everything perfectly correctly. Because I have an extremely common name is why I expect this happened. Related to that, there is one large gas station chain where I can’t use any of my cards at the pumps for the same reason (I’m guessing someone with my same name stole gas or did some fraud a few times, so they banned anyone with my name altogether).

The more shit like this the California government pulls, the more it pushes you to libertarianism.

Most people spend too much time customizing their bodies and too little time customizing their minds.

What a strange mix of people and a good song; I thought the lead singer was Keira Knightley gone goth when I just glanced at the thumbnail.

I love love love how angry passport bros make modern HR-optimized feminists.

If I weren’t with my amazing partner, I’d probably be doing the passport bro thing too. American women have been utterly poisoned by social media and believe absolutely insane things about how relationships work and their own value as a partner. Who would want to have anything to do with that? You’d have to be fucking insane to want to.

Foreign women aren’t perfect. No one and no group of people is. But for most men, there are enormously better options overseas. Go for it if you have the resources. Even if you don’t meet the right one (or many right ones), I doubt you’ll regret it.

(Passport bros infurate modfems because they see it as breaking the rules of competition they’ve established, among other things. It makes them apoplectic that they aren’t the ones being fought over. It has fuck all to do with protecting women. And I love it.)

Do Americans hate QR code menus in restaurants?

I absolutely fucking despise QR code menus. They are an accessibility nightmare, first. Second and relatedly, the menus to which they link often use tiny fonts that are difficult to read and when you do zoom, then you can only see 0.00002% of the menu.

More than once I’ve walked into a a restaurant, saw it used QR code menus and then immediately walked out.

Violent women. What happened?

The common tale is that women are never violent; it’s always men. The reality is that women are very often violent to their kids and partners, but it’s rarely reported and there are seldom any consequences. In my own life, my mom attempted to stab me with a butcher knife. An ex threw blue glass dinner plates at me as hard as she could. I did not retaliate in any way as I knew I’d be the one who went to prison if I did while nothing would happen to her.

Because men are “the violent ones,” women rarely face any repercussions for their physical outbursts and abuse. They get away with it almost always. And I do not think that should be.

Some analysts believe Kyiv is buying the west time on the precipice of a world war. Is it being used wisely?

Those analysts are correct. We’re in a extremely dangerous moment now that is going almost unrecognized. The US is very cynically providing Ukraine just enough supplies to tie down Russia as the Ukrainians slowly lose while most of Europe sits on its hands, useless and clueless. This inaction is emboldening China. The fact is, the US (and any large nation) cannot go isolationist. That’s just absolutely not the sort of world we live in anymore — nor is it likely to return.

There is about an 80% chance the US and allies will be at war with China by 2032, and about a 60% chance Russia will attack Estonia, Poland or another state by then too. Thus, there will be horrible and devastating wars on two fronts. We should do anything — anything at all — to avoid this right now. Later will be (as the word implies) too late.

The thing we should be doing is defeating Russia in Ukraine with all available methods. This is the deterrent. This will put the genie of future war back in the lamp. Nothing else will, alas. I know it’s not what anyone wants to hear but it is what is true.

The first ten on today’s playlist: