Rachel Riederer

That's how you can tell human authors from AI.

AI will put in some em dashes, then apologise and take them out when told off.

Human authors will climb the filing cabinet, hissing, and defend their right to em dashes with a loaded stapler.

Flower report

have achieved summer gardener nirvana (the green bean vines are climbing up the tomato plants)

Brad Lander became iconic by being a boring establishment bureaucrat who nonetheless has a soul and the ability to read the room. We stan this accountant(?) non-narcissist king

(cosmos, beans n greens, spinach, foxglove)

Garden update

Brian Wilson’s death has me listening to Beach Boys songs I loved obsessively as a child and I just remembered being 5 or 6 and making my poor Dad explain the concept of playing the field to me after a long interrogation about the “leave the best girl home on Saturday night” lyric. RIP to 2 legends.

Can confirm he is indeed both perfect and al dente

I had been planning to post my baby-pic reveal with the caption “Just what the world needs, another white man” but motherhood has made me lose my edge

a sleeping baby

Some personal news

Become ungovernable

screenshot from an online job application form. the question reads "Can you describe specific ways you have integrated AI tools into your development workflow? Please include any custom setups, automations, or use cases beyond single prompt usage" (a red asterisk indicates that this is a required question). an answer has been typed in the textbox below the question: "there is a monster in the forest and it speaks with a thousand voices. it will answer any question you pose it, it will offer insight to any idea. it will help you, it will thank you, it will never bid you leave. it will even tell you of the darkest arts, if you know precisely how to ask. it feels no joy and no sorrow, it knows no right and no wrong. it knows not truth from lie, though it speaks them all the same. it offers its services freely to any passerby, and many will tell you they find great value in its conversation. “you simply must visit the monster—i always just ask the monster.” there are those who know these forests well; they will tell you that freely offered doesn’t mean it has no price for when the next traveler passes by, the monster speaks with a thousand and one voices. and when you dream you see the monster; the monster wears your face."

applying for jobs again

All winter/spring I have been starting seedlings indoors to make a beautiful economical garden that would make my dirt-farmer forebears proud but then May comes around and as soon as I enter the big hardware store parking lot I become the cartoon “ah-oogah” wolf

There are aphids all over my rose buds so I sprayed water on them to rinse them away but I oh man can’t wait to come back with ladybugs and just use the power of the food chain to demolish those little fuckers

I just emerged from a long and forking thread of furious historians fighting about whether Ancient Agrarian Life was better than Screen-Based Late Capitalism, and I think it started with all parties involved making the same point about needing the FDA. BlueSky has truly come into its own.

if you're intrigued by this question you shouldn't be writing about tech, honestly

I think that the crowd at the Knicks-Pistons game was just chanting BAS-KET-BALL and maybe I’m wrong but I really hope not. Great vibe.

One of the wilder political things in recent history is that Project 2025 publicly released a 900 page document laying out their plans to roll back 100 years of human progress and then during the campaign Republicans just said "no we're not :)" and then they won and now they're doing it all.

Two NYT headlines stating the WH wants to promote more childbearing and the EPA is ending testing for chemicals that hurt children.

Two headlines in the New York Times today.

Keeping my garden:politics posting in balance. Here are some recent developments.

I can hear the hacks who cant tell the difference bt politics and sports sharpening their pencils

I know Vance did not technically murder the Pope but imagine spending your life advocating the care and love of the poor and you end up using your deathbed energy to make smalltalk with Hillbilly Elegy

Conclave was a good movie but I am not ready for the March Madnessification of the papacy

Heartbreaking injustice

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/n...

Bone chilling.

A court ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia to stay in the United States.

The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that he was illegally removed. Trump is pretending he won the ruling 9-0.

1/ You may not think this case means anything to you. But let me tell you why it does.

Yes, exactly, why hoard up 400 years’ worth of up Fuck You Money if not to spend it on the perfect Fuck You

America has been sleeping on Bridget Jones 4 and I’m here to tell you it’s a properly good movie. Maybe not exactly as good as the original but close! Don’t be dissuaded by the unfortunate 2 & 3.

Very excited to see the universities that do this win all the esteem away from the Harvards and Columbias that have decided to act as corporations instead of that of educational institutions.

A rule I made for 2025 is for every Trump post I do at least one garden post so here are the neighbors’ flowering trees

One thing I forgot about the first Trump Admin that is happening again is how much worse even well-meaning Trump-averse men start to act. Idk if it’s an Overton window thing or what, but seeing big upticks in all the small and midsize gender BS like space-sharing rudeness, rape jokes, etc