do you know how he died it's so crazy

Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition Technology to Its Smart Glasses

Meta's plan for launching glasses that people can use to secretly identify strangers on the street is to do it "during a dynamic political environment" when people who care about why that's bad are "focused on other concerns."

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

oh when i'm done watching your prestige streaming show, should i go listen to the Official Podcast? yeah? do you think i'm stupid? you don't respect me? is that it?

A Zapotec funerary urn, a ceremonial ceramic sculpture representing a deity or ancestor in regalia. These type of urns were placed as funerary offerings at sites like Monte Albán, Oaxaca. The representations may include the god of lightning and rain, Pitao Cocijo, or the god of corn, Pitao Cozobi.

so much of our present misery is just a giant, prolonged backlash to integration

A Mandaic curse bowl in the Royal Ontario Museum. It has a spiraling Mandaic text that leads to an encircled x at the center.

This Super Bowl Sunday, I’d like to introduce you all to the magical curse bowls used in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria in late antiquity. Written in Mandaic (as here) or Syriac Aramaic, they trap demons who trespass on a household by sucking them in with spiraling spells to the center of the bowl.

Over the past two weeks I've begun to realize that rich people only started funding chatbots once they could no longer email Jeffrey Epstein

Mills recognized that as the power elite becomes increasingly degenerate, it is increasingly difficult for their intellectual acolytes to formulate reasonable ideological justifications for their corrupt and irresponsible actions. In these circumstances, the power elite resorts to intellectual repression against those who call attention to their declining political capacities; that is, the intelligentsia who work in universities, museums, the arts, scientific institutes, entertainment, and the mass media.

Sociologist C. Wright Mills saw this coming—and tried to warn us—60+ years ago.

jacobin.com/2026/02/wrig...

I grew up surrounded by a lot of people who would always say the edgiest, most out-there thing to get everybody’s attention and gain control of the room

So now edgy comedians and musicians just make me feel like I’m at a really boring family reunion

the Epstein files are really devastating because they remind me of how many girls and women miss out on professional opportunities, mentorship and careers because of how many powerful, rich and influential men only view girls and women — and interactions with them — through the lens of sex

one of my strongest beliefs is that we're in our situation right now bc some of the most prominent talking heads (e.g. joe rogan, andrew schulz) are learning about politics in their 40s and 50s, instead of their teens and early 20s, and we have to go along for the ride as they learn basic things

ohhh ‘democracy dies in darkness’ was aspirational

worth noting that the second rich people stopped being afraid of mobs tearing them limb from limb, they stopped building libraries and opera houses and stuff and started ripping the copper wiring out of the walls of society instead

Minimizing the window where I read about how our world is a joke and we're at the mercy of megalomaniacal evil perverts. Logging on to the work zoom. "Heyyyy I'm good! How are you?"

This is a great example of what Marx called "the vampire thirst for the living blood of labour."

as someone who pushes hard against conspiratorial thinking in my professional and political life, it is deeply irritating when, on top of the untold human harms Epstein caused, it turns out he was at the center of at least half a dozen actual conspiracies

holy shit

These figures represent Ehécatl (a representation of Quetzalcoatl), who, with his breath gave movement to the sun and the moon and granted the gift of life. These served as load-bearing structural supports and were found at archaeological sites such as Calixtlahuaca and at the Templo Mayor in CDMX.

you could tell me that there are anywhere from two to nineteen Skarsgard men in Hollywood and I would believe you

I want everyone who has spent years in therapy wondering what is wrong with them, wondering why they had so many bad relationships, why they felt so much dread, to know that it was in part because you were living in a world run by evil, evil people and you could tell that somewhere deep down

That which is for me through the medium of money - that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) - that am I myself, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money's properties are my - the possessor's - properties and essential powers. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness - its deterrent power - is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself, and is he who has [In the manuscript: is. - Ed.] power over the clever not more clever than the clever? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?

As a side note, it’s funny to see so many of these emails with thirsty academics repeatedly enact Marx’s bit in the 1844 Manuscripts about the power of money. “Oh Mr Epstein, your house in New York is enormous and, unrelatedly, your questions at dinner were so intelligent, so insightful, so deep.”

Bilbo looking at his phone top on bottom is ChatGPT After all, why not? Why shouldn't I keep it? You're absolutely right — you found it, it's been with you a long while, and it's only natural to feel fond of something that's served you so well, especially when someone like Gandalf suddenly seems to want it for himself.

the thing about the Nuremberg trials is that they didn't really fix anything structurally. Elite nazis enjoyed political capital that got them back into power by the mid 1950s. America needs something above and beyond Nuremberg.

Wouldn’t have made it out of the VEEP writers room

#MosaicMonday - Black-and-white mosaic floor depicting a stork advancing towards a snake, from the caldarium of Villa della Pisanella at Boscoreale. Dated to the third quarter of the 1st century AD.

Antiquarium of Boscoreale, Italy.

If the US were a geopolitical rival the headlines would be like: US Secret Police Execute Second Dissident In the Streets As Militarized Occupation Enters Sixth Week

WSJ 1h ago Is this your last chance to get rich before the American dream dies?

Roses are red,
Potatoes have eyes,

YouTube video by NASA Live High-Definition Views from the International Space Station (Official NASA Stream)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB1y...