Year: 2025

Dele

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.

Friedman

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.)

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

IRBad

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.

  1. At least for the subjects she cares about.

Luck of the Draw

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.

Chill Links

Global Stocks over the Long Term: the S&P 500, the Big Standout vs the Markets of Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Canada.

Big Ass Data Broker Opt-Out List.

Charging for Essential Software Security Features Undermines Digital Safety.

How scamming has changed Nigeria.

The Cat in the Tree: Why AI Content Leaves Us Cold.

Farmers are abandoning their land. Is that good for nature?

Facebook and Instagram Ads Push Gun Silencers Disguised as Car Parts.

World’s 500 Richest People Surpassed $10 Trillion in Wealth This Year.

Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized Hatred For Job.

Companies are making a string of intentional decisions to devalue workers, particularly Gen X (those between the ages of 44 and 59). Because we cost the most as we know what the hell we’re doing.

Witch One

Chill Movies

I love Ex Machina but I think The Witch is the best film made in the last 20 years at least.

Just such a goddamn good film that stays true to itself throughout. And everyone gives stellar performances. It is one of the few flawless films that I’ve seen.

Crime Against

Chill War

There’s a lot of people who scream “war crimes” about combat footage who don’t seem to actually realize that people get killed in combat.

Yes, it’s horrifying. But it is what happens. It’s a crime against how the world should be, but it is not a war crime.

Sort by Likelihood

Chill Annoying, Lying Liars

These people are fucking delusional and are still claiming the near-certainty that phones serve ads based on overheard conversations is a conspiracy theory:

I’ve told it before but I’ll relate it again. I was hanging out with a friend in a hotel room. Neither one of us had used our phones to search for barbecue grills. Ever. She has no interest in barbecue grills and doesn’t own one. I at that time did not own one and had not for a while.

So we were joking around about barbecue grills for some reason. It was all of a 20-30 second bit of a longer conversation. After we were done talking, she got on her phone to look at something and said, “That’s odd. I just got an ad for a barbecue grill. I’ve never gotten an ad for that before and we were just talking about it.” She went to a few other sites and also got some ads for grills. I confirmed with her after that she’d never searched for barbecue grills, didn’t own one, and had never had one as an adult and that no one in her household did or was likely to have searched for one.

Now, what’s more likely — that her phone was listening to her, or that a random ad for barbecue grills (that, again, she had never seen before) just happened to pop up 2-3 minutes after we’d discussed it?

Hmm, I wonder.

People just accept the corporate line without even a single fucking thought in their heads, don’t they?

Smithy

Chill Evil, Trynabe Funny

United Healthcare Accused of Denying Claim of Woman in Coma in Deleted Post.

To the tune of this song:

🎵
Woman in a coma
UHC knows
UHC knows
It’s not serious

UHC hopes she won’t pull through
UHC hopes she won’t pull through

Woman in a coma
UHC goes
UHC goes
Hospital care should be up to us

There were times
When they could have treated her
But you know, they would hate anything
To stand in the way of a transfer
To the incinerator

Woman in a coma
UHC says
UHC says
Treatment is superfluous
🎵

And I’m sure that doctor got ordered by the powers-that-be to delete his post ASAP; they are really cracking down on dissent now since Mangione.

Hackity Hack

Chill Annoying, Tech

Most of what I do in the tech space these days are absurd and ridiculous hacks to attempt to get applications and services to work like they should and that they formerly did, rather than as their authoritarian makers are attempting to herd me to into.

I don’t herd well.

I realize that most of it is about ability to steal data and personal info, but that’s not any kind of excuse. I miss the days when I was in control of my own machine and what it did. They were far better.

Chill Links

It’s great to believe that accepting migrants from difficult circumstances is a moral obligation. But that doesn’t absolve us of carefully accounting for the burdens and benefits of taking on that moral obligation.

How Big Pharma Is Wrecking the Inflation Reduction Act.

The No-Hunger Games: How GLP-1 Medication Adoption is Changing Consumer Food Purchases.

Paiute War.

The remote Kazakh Steppe that became a gateway to space.

The Players on the Eve of Destruction. The insanity of war has returned to our world. And we’re just at the beginning of the beginning.

What to know about string of US hacks blamed on China.

Russia furious: China’s electronics aren’t battlefield ready.

Still on the hunt, the FBI shares new details about pipe bombs placed ahead of Jan. 6.

Neurologists have grappled with a cluster of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis cases in France, where a fondness for a toxic wild mushroom may hold the answer.