Esteban

enshittification | noun | when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits

Okay, attempt 4 or 5 of being more consistent on here

I just kept myself awake for 3 hrs b/c I fell down a spreadsheet rabbit hole and idk how to like… map out a financial future.
I’m watching my elders scramble as retirement age looms over their near futures, only to look at my own and feel fear

Me: “I’m new to the team and still learning. This is my opinion, not to reflect the company/policy. Gen AI bad b/c x, y, & z, and we work on tech that can’t be automated, there’s too much of a human element involved.”

New boss/teammate: “No notes, he’s right and that’s what our AI guy would say.”

Got a new job, and as the newest team member I’m invited to sit-in on everything I can so I can learn how we work. We interviewed a potential intern the other day and when asked about AI I went on a small rant about its dangers, risks, and inefficiencies, and my new boss backed up everything I said

this is a very cool piece of scholarship especially since previously I'd have just had to make this argument by saying, "c'mon, have you ever met a soldier?"

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I’m slowly becoming convinced that Delaware and/or New Jersey are killing their scanners on the memorial bridge when they’re running low on funds b/c I have a damn EZ Pass and this is the 2nd time in so many years that I’ve been flagged and a $5 charge turns into $30

This! If you can switch from Whole Foods to a different grocery store and buy your books from bookshop.org instead of Amazon, that’s still a big step even if you feel tied to Amazon for other items. If everyone divested 30% that’s more than if a few people divest 100%.

“The horror of a child protagonist” hit me like a truck. I just read all this stuff near that age so it didn’t bother me at the time.
Looking back, as someone who’s had to act from the position of ‘elder’ is this what it’s like? Just constantly looking back and shaking my head at my own naïveté?

Or I decided to reread Hemlock Grove. I liked the book when it came out, I remember liking the first couple seasons on Netflix.
I’m barely 3 chapters in and these are boys!
I occasionally work with 19 year olds who I need to train/mentor/look after and these fictional kids are younger than that??

I mean this as literal children. I reread His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, etc) and the whole time I was panicking b/c those are babies! Those are 9-12 year olds! The child is confronting an actual polar bear and she’s like 10 years old!

I’ve been reading a lot more consistently since my friend showed me an app that basically gamifies it lol

And I decided to go back over a decent chunk of fiction I loved growing up
1) yeah, I can see how I grew into me lol. How we got from A to B
2) omg these protagonists are all babies

alright you wanna know how to support trans people?

hire them. It's REALLY hard already for visibly trans people to get jobs, even before this shit.

Support places that have trans people working front of house, and make sure owners know that's part of why you're there.

The AI bubble was inflated based on the idea that we need bigger models that both are trained and run on bigger and even larger GPUs. A company came along that has undermined the narrative - ways both substantive and questionable - and now the market panicked that $200bn got wasted on AI capex

Having braces as an adult is so weird
I’m either clocked as my age exactly or thought of as half a decade younger

Some days I want to take my brain out my skull and shake it. Run my fingers through the wrinkles, see if that helps.

I’m reading through The World of The White Rat by @tkingfisher.com
I discovered these books out of order and started 2025 by rereading them chronology.

To the author, I just want to say:
These stories are fantastic! Such fun reads!
And also, thank you for Gnoles.
A human finds them very endearing

Just in case your elderly relatives are talking about it: there are no looters. It’s simply not happening

And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, but became a meme which was honestly maybe worse

Names of the Poinsettia, Dahlia, Marigold and Plumeria in Spanish, then in Nahuatl and Mayan.

Yes, the name "poinsettia" is problematic (Google Joel Roberts Poinsett). An Indigenous name would be better. But folks citing the Nahuatl word "cuetlaxxochitl," calling it the "original," ignore 60+ Native languages spoken in Mexico & other flowers w/ fraught colonial names.

Here's a handy chart.

It always amazes me, how much of a piece of shit Reagan was.

Folks who know me can testify to the fact that I'm a sappy softie. So when the holidays roll around, I spend a lot of time watching queer Christmas romance movies.

Are lots of them chock full of schmaltz and glitter? Hell, yes. That's part of the appeal!

Here are some of my favorites.

1/

Me: I’m sorry I’m too broke to get your baby a gift but I’m pretty sick at drumming so I’ll just do that for him
Mary and Joseph (wincing): that’s lovely sweetheart

It’s boggling to talk to some of my conservative colleagues at times b/c they’re like “wow, Nintendo must really hate the fact the guy is named Luigi and McD’s must love the free press”
1. Why do you care about these companies?
2. I promise it’s the other way around, at least amongst my demographics

Can we talk people out of donating to Salvation Army entirely, please!

They force their charity recipients to attend religious conversion sessions as part of receiving assistance.

AND they're wildly transphobic and homophobic!

Fund better charities!

i just want to double down on this. d’onofrio’s “egger” performance is unreal. like, you immediately accept with no hesitation that this man you are watching is a giant alien cockroach in a human suit, and it’s all done with make-up and physical acting. a top ten hollywood physical performance.

Kinda disappointed that the “quirked up white boy, goated with the sauce” memes haven’t made a resurgence in the wake of the CEO being shot

Being told by a music app that I went through a “Goblincore Tavern Bard” phase through the summer really sums up more of my personality than I’m comfortable with