Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

TAKE ACTION - The BLM announced a plan to fell Oregon's last great forests. Submit comments to help put a stop to this catastrophic plan: friendsofanimals.org/oregon/

I take no leave of you, 2025. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE was released 79 years ago today. One of the most beloved of all Christmas movies, and among the most popular films of its star James Stewart, the tale of how it was created is like throwing a lasso round the moon… 1/47

How to keep yourself safe from vampires this Halloween

No kings.

Many men struggle romantically because they have trouble seeing women as friends and people. Nietzsche said the key to a successful marriage is cultivating friendship with your wife, because friendship is the one thing that lasts. “Marriage is a talent for friendship.”

Word of the Day is ‘snerdle’ (19th century): to lie warm and still beneath the covers for as long as humanly possible.

it's an especially good weekend to log off and do soul-nourishing things: board games, gardening, writing, hiking in late summer splendor, picking basil, reciting poems, reading for education, reading for joy, reading for any reason whatsoever.

Etymology of the day: ‘dog day afternoons’ are so named not because dogs seek out the shade, but because, during the hottest days of summer in the northern hemisphere, the Dog Star Sirius rises with the sun.

if a loved one writes my eulogy using ChatGPT, I will come back and haunt them

My husband was bumped twice today at JFK by @AmericanAir, which claimed to be overbooked, but he bought a ticket on @priceline no trouble. Much more money, though! Seems like a scam! @NewYorkStateAG He needs to get to @Gen_Con tonight!

I had to take a not-dissimilar test for an ordinary copy-editing job at a daily newspaper in 1995. (Slightly different reference points, but the same vibe.) Expectations of general knowledge were much higher overall.

Underrated life skill: Pausing. Life doesn't slow down on its own. You have to do that part yourself. Take a walk with your spouse. Sit with your kid a little longer. Call your parents to hear the same story you've heard 1,000 times. Savor the days before the years pass you by.

Yes. Writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. Writing *is* thinking. Students, academics, and anyone else who outsources their writing to LLMs will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.

Reading this as I try to leave work in time to do my laps outdoors before my town pool closes…very aware that Labor Day is now less than seven weeks away.

People who live in areas with brutal winters always overdo summer. Try to fit in as many activities as possible. You can feel the tension with them. Winter is always on their mind, even in the middle of July

I concur. When I stand 10 feet from shore amid the waves, the joy just bubbles up.

Kyriak Kostandi (1852-1921) from Odesa, "Sunny Day", 1890🌞

This 100%! As a cub reporter, I wrote 15 stories a week. That volume honed my ability to quickly analyze and parse what was important to convey about a story. I didn’t dither because there wasn’t time. As a result, I developed skills that remain useful today.