medievalmvb

This is Doogie Howser erasure

second prize is a set of steak knives

iPhone macro photo of a me holding a mid-sized tomato

some personal tomato pot news

A slightly out of focus manul's face very close in the foreground as it investigates the camera, with a scenic snow covered mountain range in the distance.

Hello? Is anyone home? It's Manul Monday!

watching this Katrina doc on Hulu reminded me that no matter the depths of chaos and human misery, right wingers will be clamoring to shoot someone to reinforce dominance

“Check and see if he’s still there” lot of aggrieved click-chirps in the leaves

Photo: close up of an Anna's hummingbird with just its head (in profile, its needle of a beak pointed up and to the right) visible through a blur of green leaves, you can see the scalloping of its brown feathers, speckled with bright magenta, yellow, and green around the eye, breast feathers are brown but fringed with white

when you and the neighbor want to use the backyard at the same time #annashummingbird #hummingbird

one thing i think is cool and good now is if you swipe your finger on your phone a bit weird or hold a button down for 2 seconds instead of 1 some AI will burst through the screen like the koolaid man and demand to become a part of your life forever

Catholic mass you can watch a whole congregation very openly check their watches at 5 past the hour

no no wait RETOURNEZ is better

that’s just the correct Old French

REVENEZ

whoops no, their CMO is formerly Juul, Abercrombie & Fitch and CK so all suspicions reinforced

But to be fair to American Eagle, who support the following programs, I do think it’s entirely possible that they missed the distasteful eugenics context, I assume they hired an agency that they’re now rethinking

yeah and it’s honestly not hard to see a marketing agency “playing” with the genes thing—with plausible deniability—they honestly don’t care so long as it moves product

Photo: a young great blue heron about to land on an old pier, background blurred, its dark wings with mahogany splotches are outspread, probably 6-foot wingspan, landing gear legs are extended, bent forward at the "knees", it has a speckled white-and-brown breast with longer fringe feathers at the sides and a sturdy looking beak, dark on top and yellow below

Photo: a young great blue heron stabs its beak into gray and black water, splashing beads of water, yellow eye focused intently, its nexts is a mahogany gradient (lighter on the upper neck, darker towards body) with longer, thin feathers creating a fringe where neck meets body (it has in fact caught a tiny fish if you're wondering), photo is cropped so only head, neck and upper torso are visible because this is dramatic KAPOW

two for the heroneers #greatblueheron #heron #camanoisland

Homer Simpson at bat with determined slugger vibes

side note: once again you cannot spell “disinformation” without “Facebook”

AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’ If AI can analyze information, crunch data and deliver a slick PowerPoint deck within seconds, how does the biggest name in consulting stay relevant?

There is another way of writing these stories which is to note that companies are paying the extra freight for AI as a way of compensating for being unable to hire staff who can think & write logically and in a specific house style

*5 seconds into the first English Department mixer of the year*

The Budget Lab at Yale University, a nonpartisan research center, updated its tariff tracker on Friday. It calculated that American consumers will have to contend with an average effective tariff rate of 18.3 percent, the highest since 1934. As a result, the center estimates that price increases will cost each household on average $2,400 this year. Shoe prices, for example, are expected to rise 40 percent in the short run. America’s total economic output — its gross domestic product — is estimated to shrink by about $120 billion annually in the years to come.

Nonpartisan budget lab at Yale has "calculated that American consumers will have to contend with an average effective tariff rate of 18.3 percent, the highest since 1934. As a result, the center estimates that price increases will cost each household on average $2,400 this year."

Thee-read 🧵

they’re just copacetic

IN CLOSING, framing (perspective) creates different interpretative possibilities, sometimes seemingly contradictory. Please continue to share your takes—it may seem incredible at times but it is how we collectively generate meaning.

Should we reject junk-food info vending machines? I mean, PROBABLY. But actual junk food vending machines are already in schools. I do not agree with this btw. Students should have to run an off-campus Skittles smuggling operation like I did. 7)

I have been guilty of, selfishly, being annoyed by the hype gap: “I would love an on-call pocket-genius assistant but this sucks! Rewording requests iteratively to get ‘close enough’ is what I already do with humans. 😤” 6)

Popular discourse is wildly similar, with social status markers and moralization doing heavy lifting: genAI is sugary, packed with empty calories, bad for you and the planet, leaves litter everywhere. What’s wrong with an apple slice or stick of celery? 5)

On the AI & culture front, I think it’s fair to say that genAI/transformers have established “junk food” markets (sustainable business case or not): grab ‘n’ go, minimally acceptable Frito-Lay info dumps, emails & app coding. 4)

BUT never underestimate a creative team’s willingness to raid active subcultural signs/signifiers to generate impact. The earlier Brooke Shields/CK ad fairly screams “barely legal” porn aesthetics. The ad agency still wanted to sell jeans. 3)

HOWEVER we should note the ad wants to cross out “genes” and sell “jeans.” This is about as basic as marketing messaging gets: shopper you do not look like Sweeney but you can “get” the look. 2)