January 6, 2025, 1:26 AM Chill Links

Bluesky Won’t Save Us. Like radiation, social media is invisible scientific effluence that leaves us both more knowledgeable and more ignorant of the causes of our own afflictions than ever. Social media is for most people a Level 1 cognitohazard.

We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is, and it always will be the economy, stupid.

Enough With the Land Acknowledgments. Yeah, that is some absolutely moronic bullshit.

Russia Targets West With Drones, Exploding Parcels and Sabotage. We are already at war with China and Russia, but only they realize it.

Linde showed a photo of the scrawled letter from Allison’s cellmate. This incarcerated stranger, she said, had easily diagnosed dementia before any doctor did. That’s damning.

An Analysis of 2023 Layoffs.

Obama wasn’t a moderate defender of norms. He was a coward.

Government Needs to Waste More.

Tadate

January 5, 2025, 7:16 PMJanuary 5, 2025, 7:19 PM Chill Regular-ass Post

Unless aliens kidnap my partner (or me¹) there’s not a chance I’ll be in the dating scene soon, but if I were I’d definitely go somewhere overseas if I wanted to subject myself to that hell again.

There are a few advantages to that approach. It automatically makes you unusual and exotic, and depending on the country the women haven’t been as utterly poisoned by social media. I’d concentrate on somewhere with low social media use, low tattoo prevalence and low obesity.

Then I’d learn the language (relatively easy for me, if I want to do it²) and make it happen.

American women are basically undateable now due to social media-induced mental illness, tattoos, ridiculous levels of entitlement and obesity. It’s just about a crime to do that to yourself.

Green alien girls are a-ok with me.
Though I dislike talking to people in general, so I’m far better at learning to read languages.

Back Hold

January 5, 2025, 7:56 AM Chill Amusing, Annoying

Indeed. And then I really piss ’em off by saying things like, “You’re only constrained by yourself. No one is actually holding you back.”

I make friends wherever I go.

Ad Del

January 5, 2025, 1:26 AMJanuary 5, 2025, 1:27 AM Chill Killin' It, Tech

Why I Switched to macOS After Using Windows for Nearly Two Decades.

Windows is a spyware-infested ad delivery system. Linux is ok but still not all that usable (and I use it daily in two different VMs, so yes I do know).

MacOS is the best of a bunch of bad choices. I also just bought an M4 Mac Mini and while it has less memory than my old system, it’s absurdly fast. Apple has really been killing it with their own chip design, which I did not expect when they initially announced their intent.

The M4 Mini is around twice as fast as my old system, and I had a high-end 2020 iMac previously. Pretty impressive. And unlike with Windows 11, I don’t see the first fucking ad anywhere in the OS.

Hide U

January 5, 2025, 1:25 AM Chill Evil

Re scams, I think Microsoft/Safari are doing users a disservice by hiding URL paths….

Of course it does. But the whole point of hiding the URL was so that it’s not clear when you’re on a scammy advertising site or area of a site or the address you intended to visit.

In other words, it was done to enable scamminess. Which is the dominant mode of the economy today — so hiding URLs fits right in.

January 5, 2025, 12:04 AMJanuary 5, 2025, 7:22 PM Chill Links

China is currently experiencing ~1% deflation (official PPI) alongside 4% nominal growth.

Medicare Advantage Is Scamming You. That’s what it was designed to do, so mission accomplished?

Trump Voters Are in for a Rude Awakening. He sold them countless, often conflicting fantasies. In 2025, he’ll face political reality.

Fast radio bursts originate near the surface of stars.

‘Battlestar Galactica’ Was Always About One Particular Kind Of Guy Failing Upwards. Yup.

Predistribution over Redistribution: Beyond the Windfall Clause.

Ukrainian Su-27 Flanker Pilot’s Rare Account Of The Changing Air War.

China’s EV Sales Set To Overtake Traditional Cars Years Ahead of West.

Advertisers Keep Avoiding News Sites and Publishers Have Had Enough of It. Clownish.

Washington Post Cartoonist Ann Telnaes Quits After Bezos-Owned Paper Kills Trump Satire Piece.

It is long past time we grapple with the violence imposed on Americans from our exploitative for-profit health exploitation system.

So V

January 4, 2025, 6:58 PM Chill First Ten

Disag

January 4, 2025, 1:21 PMJanuary 4, 2025, 1:23 PM Chill Killin' It

I’m not sure what it means, but I think it’s interesting that my very strong streak of disagreeableness made me much more attractive to women than if I’d been exactly like I am except for leaning agreeable.

People are strange.

The redpill dudes aren’t exactly right that it’s better to be a jerk. That is not in fact the optimum male config that most women find attractive. However, many women do (oddly) mistake jerks for the confident. I’m not a jerk, I think. But I am both confident and extremely disagreeable and that historically has allowed me to punch above my weight (and height) with women.

Not a Friend

January 4, 2025, 12:13 PMJanuary 4, 2025, 12:22 PM Chill Annoying, Clowns

Laid off – systems broke 😆.

Why do people think anyone at work is a friend? That’s almost never true. The CIO here definitely is not and absolutely 100% did know about the layoff in advance. I guarantee it.

That said, I’d be charging them like crazy for repairing this mess they left themselves in. A few years ago, a company I’d worked for a decade prior contacted me about fixing some complex scripts they had moved around and attempted to change and could not get to function any longer. I’d created those as something temporary a developer was supposed to consolidate into an actual fully-thought-out reporting application later on but never did (of course).

They’d brought in several consultants who could not duplicate what I’d done as it involved (among quite a few other things) complex manipulations of obscure Windows permissions in a very specific way to achieve what they wanted.

Anyway, they requested that I fix these scripts and add some related new features for free. I said no way and quoted $250 an hour, 10 hours minimum¹, paid in advance. They wouldn’t agree to that so I told them good luck.

Fine. I heard it never got fixed.

This is probably pretty close to the actual time it would’ve taken me to do what they were asking for.

Dele

January 4, 2025, 7:49 AMJanuary 4, 2025, 8:36 AM Chill Annoying, Tech

Did you get used to the changes that comes with managing / directing?

I’ve been doing it for a long time and I’m still not accustomed to it. The very hardest part of management is willingly handing off something to someone junior that you know you can do in 15 minutes only to have it take them two entire weeks to implement. Even then, typically the task or project still inevitably has to be revised seven times before it’s ready to release to production.

Delegating like this is hard but necessary. Otherwise, the junior team members never learn anything and never advance in capability or project leadership competence.

But I still am not great at handing off. Not as much as I should.

Sis Mid

January 4, 2025, 7:41 AM Chill Movies

Sister Midnight (2024).

I want to see this film but it is apparently available nowhere, not even the seven seas. Please release.

Friedman

January 4, 2025, 7:14 AMJanuary 4, 2025, 7:17 AM Chill Sex

The idea that all kinks are the result of trauma is just plainly and obviously wrong. The kinkiest girl I ever knew in my life (way, way too kinky for me¹) self-admittedly had a “vanilla, boring” childhood, had never been sexually assaulted, described her parents as “amazing and perfect” and had many friends. And this is not unusual from what I’ve seen.

All that Dr. Debra Soh is demonstrating that she is probably prudish and anti-kink in general. (And I say that as a person who is not 100% vanilla but absolutely no one would describe as into kinks and the like.)

She was into CNC, choking, degradation, free use, group sex, exhibitionism and many other things I have no interest in.

IRBad

January 4, 2025, 6:34 AMJanuary 4, 2025, 6:35 AM Chill Regular-ass Post

It’s notable that Aella conducts more valid and interesting social science surveys than nearly anyone in academia¹ as she is not constrained by IRBs, prudishness or lack of curiosity.

That says really bad things about how our academic culture and practices have developed.

At least for the subjects she cares about.

Luck of the Draw

January 4, 2025, 12:50 AMJanuary 4, 2025, 8:44 AM Chill Killin' It

This is not about sex but applies to sex too: you can really increase your luck by deliberately putting yourself in places and situations where you are more likely to get lucky.

Most of the reason I’ve had success is that I just tried a lot of things, went to a lot of places, bought a lot of different stocks, talked to a lot of girls. People sometimes make fun of me for my attempts to preserve optionality. But it’s not about avoiding commitment or being wishy-washy, as they imagine.

It’s about when the chance of a lifetime is right there in front of you, that you first, notice it (many people do not), and that you have the freedom to act on it.

Put yourself where the action is and better things are more likely to happen to you. Easy principle, though harder to do than say. Still worth it, though.