A bunch of assholes walk into a room and go, “We’re making an AI powered publishing house, we’ll put out more books faster than anyone else!“ And the investors go “Oh wow!“ and give them millions of dollars.
It now no longer matters to the assholes if their plan works. They already got paid.
Their paychecks don’t come from the end users, they come from the rounds of funding pumped into them. And the money keeps coming as long as they can keep the grift going. Not in drips and drops from actual consumers buying stuff, but in big fat chunks from investment groups and accelerators.
So much of the hideous bullshit of modern business makes a lot more sense after you realize that the “customer“ for the products being peddled aren’t actual human beings that go “Oh, that looks good, I’ll buy that,” but the investors shoveling money into the burn pits of these go-nowhere companies.
Just really sucks that so many of us are barely getting by (if that), and the people who stole from us are rewarded with billions. It's hard to put into words how demoralising that is.
Hawkins radio WSQK played “The Green Green Grass of Home” tonight and I don’t know if I trust the Duffer Brothers to make a good, cathartic ending with that theme. Because there’s only one character that it would be satisfying for. 🤨
‘The Hunt For Ben Solo’: Steven Soderbergh & Adam Driver’s Secret ‘Star Wars’ Movie Was Greenlit Before Disney Pulled The Plug [Exclusive]
“Sources close to the project emphasize that this was not a loose concept or early pitch. The film, operating under the codename Quiet Leaves, had a finalized screenplay and was entering early prep and staffing stages.” #TheHuntForBenSolo
it's kind of wild to me that they risked losing adam's interest in sw forever because of their terrible business decisions. like oh, we'll never want the biggest character from our home grown trilogy back, it's fine
The use of AI to marionette a woman whose tortured existence was spent trying to carve her own life and identity out of the space men forced her into is both damningly macabre and a surprisingly perfect encapsulation of the problems with this ghoulish use of technology.
“The humans won hands down when it came to notes, which require actual analysis rather than just distillation. The AI programs were ‘an almost total fail across the board.’”
Nice to know I wouldn’t have been so easily replaced at my old job by an A.I.
variety.com/2025/film/ne...
dressing for the job I want
the Bajoran version of the Bechdel test is “do two named women talk to each other about something other than murder” and I love “Deep Space Nine” because it fails almost every episode
Governing with the notion that elections alone will not keep authoritarians at bay means taking seriously the question of how to use power while you have it, ideally how to build that power *beyond just winning elections* to make sure that progressive policies endure and reactionary harms mitigated
I've said this before, but one of the more striking things about the current generation of righties is that they really show no sign of understanding that there's a world *beyond* their screens, beyond owning & being owned on social media. A real world, with real people & real problems.
Ahsoka
(not a Jedi)
22 Dec 2018-14 Oct 2025 💔
It's so ridiculous that MAGAs believe the GOP line that "Democrats want to give free healthcare to immigrants."
My dudes immigrants aren't getting free healthcare in the United States. American citizens aren't even getting free healthcare. You know who is?
The people lying to you about immigrants.
This strikes me as pretty bad
How do I get deep bloodstains out of carpet? #FuckCancer
“This is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke,” the ACLU said. “The Trump administration’s actions, paired with ABC’s capitulation, represent a grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms.”
It's always useful to remember that JD Vance examined the public data in 2016 and concluded that he believed victims like Katie Johnson who stated that Trump was a serial sexual assaulter.
"Katie Johnson" (a pseudonym) reportedly dropped her lawsuits because of multiple death threats.
I like this one. Brendon Carr in 2019
It’s long past time that I take responsibility for what I wrote on Israel/Palestine in ON REPENTANCE AND REPAIR.
& with the Gaza genocide, our thinking about what amends & healing may ever involve is even more urgent.
Even if there may never be “forgiveness” or “atonement.”
2022 — a confession:
Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions.
Here’s what a Ball State University employee said that led to their termination:
I love how people keep saying "We're inching towards" or "We're on the cusp of" a fascist regime
We're in one, and if you think we're not then you're lying to yourself
