Obfuscatory

The real cost of groceries is back to the start of Covid, and going down.

This is crazy cracksmoking crap. Does anyone believe this? My income did not double since the start of Covid, but grocery prices certainly have. I guess the econs figure if they flood the zone with propaganda and their preachy proselytism of absolute lies they can convince enough people. And I suppose that does work.

We elected George W. Bush and Barack Obama twice, after all.

Limitation

So glad I am not dating now. Men are told we are not allowed to talk to or meet women at work, in clubs, in the gym, in the supermarket, on the street, on the bus or train, in the cafรฉ or anywhere else in public or private. So that leaves only dating apps, which only work for about 10% of men.

So what are the rest supposed to do, exactly? Seems like hell world.

Pathing

Even meaningless questions and apparently-worthless paths can lead you to the right answers, as even the worst approach is constrained by reality into the shape of the possible. This is not ideal, but as in optimization and modeling the best method is often not known — so a pseudo-random reset often provides some unexpected benefit.

Exploration1 is key.

  1. As seen in fundamental, “useless” research for instance.

Ens

Partially, this general decline springs from s misalignment of incentives. To bring up the old saw again, all of these products and services relying on advertising for revenue means that you become the product. But it’s more than that, too. It’s what I call the “scam economy” taking shape. This goes well beyond Cory Doctorow’s1 “enshittification.”

The “scam economy” is the result of transition of the entire sociocultural basis of trade behavior from community-minded mutual service with some profit stacked on top to an attempt to grift everyone else at any opportunity. This is what our economy has slowly but nearly-fully moved to since the 1980s. Ads as the primary revenue model just reinforced this pre-existing trend, but did not create it. “Enshittification” is just a natural outcome of this larger movement.

I’ve been thinking about what the larger animus driving this transition to a scam-based economy might be, but I haven’t reached any solid conclusions yet. When I do I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.

Eighties

Why is Burger King’s marketing gimmick that you’re allowed to modify your orders when that’s a completely normal thing that pretty much all restaurants do?

Being able to get a custom order quickly was not always the case. A commenter says this, but back in the day it was impossible in most fast food restaurants to get a customized order unless you wanted to wait quite a long while. Burgers etc. were under heat lamps and you got what you got, even if it had been sitting there an hour.

If you did want something not available under the lamps it’d often be a 15-30 minute wait.

And that’s how it used to be in the 1980s.

Labor Is in the House. What a difference a different presidential candidate makes.

The typical U.S. insurance policy will jump 22% this year to an average annual premium of $2,469 by year-end, the report found. That comes after drivers saw their policies jump 24% in 2023.

The big idea: are we all beginning to have the same taste? Music seems to be at the forefront of a rush to uniformity. Itโ€™s time to rebel.

If the internet can be said to have a geographic location, then perhaps it is Northern Virginia, which has the largest share of the hyperscale datacenter capacity within which the world’s data is stored.

Strange and wondrous creatures: plankton and the origins of life on Earth.

Guess What? Kamalanomics Isnโ€™t Radical at All. For once I agree with Krugman.

No Exit Opportunities: Business Models and Political Thought in Silicon Valley.

Armed and Underground: Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of an American Militia.

Harris is right about housing assistance and price gouging.

Chinaโ€™s overall sand supply surged by approximately 400% over the study period, yet the proportion of natural sand dropped from ~80% to ~21% due to the increasing use of manufactured sand.

Germany could have reached its climate gas emission target by achieving a 73% cut in emissions on top of the achievements in 2022 and simultaneously cut the spending in half compared to Energiewende. Thus, Germany should have adopted an energy policy based on keeping and expanding nuclear power.

Your TV set has become a digital billboard. And itโ€™s only getting worse. TV software is getting loaded with ads, changing what it means to own a TV set. Dystopia now. Fuck every part of all of this.

Return To Sender

IT Lead caught reading emails of execs challenging termination because he was never instructed not toโ€ฆ.

Well that’s an incredibly good way to get fired. Where I work, I could read anyone’s emails anytime I want but I do not because, first, it’s not ethical and is, as mentioned, a good way to get canned. And it’s boring to read other people’s emails even apart from all that. I have far and away enough of my own.

And in some cases, you can get tossed in jail for doing so. Why do that?