EvskiG

A complex scoring chart for how the furnishings in your home signal your class, in PDF. Happy to add alt text if someone explains how to extract it — that’s a lot to type.

Same here.

Reminds me of Paul Fussell’s Living Room Scale in Class.

I believe someone adapted it for the UK, but I can’t remember who or when.

Quote: “. . . leather belt, with a short Celtic sword jangling from it. Long silk stockings and golden-yellow Saffiano leather sandals complete the picture.”122 The face of the powerful minister was covered in makeup, and his fingernails were painted red. Often during discussions Göring, once the opium content of his blood had dropped, felt so deranged that he would leave the room abruptly without a word of explanation, then return a few minutes later, plainly much refreshed. A general described one such surprising transformation: “Göring had the air of being newborn, he looked magnificent and fixed his sparkling blue eyes on us. The difference in his whole appearance between the first and second parts of our conference was notable. For me it was clear that he had been taking some form of stimulant.”

And so on.

Quote: “But anyone who passed through the big cast-iron gate and crossed the broad forecourt stepped into a realm of chaos, of unbridled alcohol and drug abuse, of intrigues and general mismanagement. The conditions in Göring’s three-thousand-room fortress (which today houses the Federal Ministry of Finance) were symptomatic of the regime’s loss of political reality and the wrong track that Germany had set off on. An officer described the Reich Marshal’s appearance: “We struggled to keep a straight face. He dons a white silk, blouse-like shirt with flowing sleeves, and over it a yellow, sleeveless, fur-lined suede jacket. With this he sports long, medieval-looking bloomers, and around his waist a broad, gold-studded . . .”

Sounds vaguely familiar.

Quote: “By now Hitler paid scarcely any attention to affairs of state. He preferred to stay up all night, seldom went to bed before six o’clock, and what he liked best of all was talking to Speer about grandiose architectural projects—although these were now purely illusory.”

Ugh, that must have been rough.

The cover of the book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich. Hitler’s head, basically.

Currently reading this to get a sense of what it might be like to have doped-up speed freak fascists in charge.

As someone who was around for some of the tech/futurist/cyberpunk scene, I often think of this as the MONDO 2000/Wired split.

The left-wing MONDO 2000 folks who were pushing for a tolerant egalitarian future got marginalized, and the conservative corporate-friendly Wired folks got rich.

A short and simple diet called Wine and Eggs. Wine, eggs, coffee, and steak for dinner.

There’s always this, from the Vogue Body and Beauty Book, 1977.

McDonald’s sign stating “McCafe. Come inside me next time.” And yes, it’s real.

Still can’t beat this.

And it’s clear why they freak the Nazis out — because it shows that they’ve already lost the culture war. And if you’ve lost the culture war, any political power you have is just a short-term holding action that’s doomed to fail. Eventually.

Thinking about the several Super Bowl halftime shows that have made a political statement of some sort (Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, Kendrick), even if it’s just that non-white people are here and part of America and unapologetic about it.

"Dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and company, if you don’t expect too much."

A natural aristocratic class, divine right of king, faithful servants who know their place, fear of cities and urbanization, evil swarthy foreigners, and few women.

Plus dwarves as Jews, which Tolkien freely acknowledged.

Because it is right-wing.

As noted by various folks for decades. Including Michael Moorcock, in his classic essay "Epic Pooh."

Was what they built last year in Claude’s training data?

Dr. Seuss character striding forward holding a bat. The text is “But I’ve bought a big bat./I’m all ready, you see./Now my troubles are going/to have trouble with me!”

The energy I’m bringing into 2026.

Luthor and Otis in their abandoned subway station lair in Superman I.

Finally realized what Mamdani’s abandoned subway station inauguration was bringing to mind.

Luthor and Otis in Luthor’s lavish lair beneath (I presume) Grand Central Station in Superman I.

It’s been done.

Elric of Melnibone. The Book of the New Sun.

Useless Democratic consultants who wasted hundreds of millions on the wrong things don’t want to be shown up as useless Democratic consultants who wasted hundreds of millions on the wrong things.

Personally, I like “error.”

It’s wrong. How much metaphor do you need?

May all your Christmases be white.

Arlo Guthrie meets Country Joe.

Spock and Kirk talking to an android in “I, Mudd.” “Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad.”

Nazis singing Die Wacht am Rhein in Casablanca.

Same vibe.

The Ham
Green Dad
Job Division

The Rolfing Stones
The Beach Goys
The Dours
The Polite
The Small Feces

Remind me, how did William F. Buckley feel about Jews?

Excerpt from the October 14, 1933 letter from the Free Association for the Interests of Orthodox Judaism, the Reich Alliance of Law-Abiding Synagogue Communities in Halberstadt, and the National Agudat Israel Organization to Hitler, entitled Dankschift far dem Herr Reichskanzler — Thank you to the Chancellor. “Marxist materialism and Communist atheism have nothing whatsoever in common with the spirit of the affirmative Jewish religion tradition, with true, historical Judaism, with the Orthodox Jewish doctrine binding on the Jewish people. For as long as can be remembered, we have, in speech and writing, been battling against this anti-religious attitude. In the instruction of our youth, in public lectures and from the pulpit, and in the Orthodox religious press, we have always countered the corrupting spirit of materialism with religious idealism, by stressing man’s responsibility to God and the nation. We have declared war on the atheist movement and engaged it in combat. We have raised up the Orthodox Jewish law as a rampart against depravity and dissipation and against capitalist excesses, a law that calls for the strictest morality in the conduct of life, that opposes the pursuit of gain for its own sake and demands the most trenchant renunciation of material advantages for the sake of religious and ethical principles. . . . In the fight against the materialistic spirit of Marxism, only the revival of the religious mainsprings, only the return of society to God, will be crowned with success. In this struggle, the true, religious Jewish people could stand shoulder to shoulder with the German people, guided by faith in God, renewed and rejuvenated.”

Same as it ever was:

“Orthodox Jewry is unwilling to abandon the conviction that it is not the aim of the German government to destroy the German Jews. Even if some individuals harbor such an intention, we do not believe that it has the approval of the Fuehrer, or of the German government.“

LLMs give you something that's about 50-75% right very quickly. If that's better than you can do on your own, it seems great. If that's worse than you can do on your own, it seems glitchy.

And if you need something that's more than 50-75% right, it's problematic.

Peppermint Patty and Marcie at camp, talking about Chuck. Patty: “I kept thinking about you and Chuck up here together, and it was driving me crazy!”