More a nitpick for the overall series, but if I were a swordweilder I’d just start terraforming Mars or Venus and constantly be saying, “Hey, what a lovely planet we’re making. It could look like anything, be home to anyone. I sure do wonder if our interstellar neighbors would like to have it in exchange for us maintaining some autonomy? Maybe a mutual partnership? A jointly operated particle accelerator?”

hyperactive immune cells of the city organism

love to psychoanalyze people who I only know exist through headlines, gotta be one of the great pastimes post- Johannes Gutenberg’s big ink machine.

comment that causes the LED screen you’re using to emit Havana Syndrome at you

right? Like, masturbate if you feel the need. It’s not really taking a break if you are still thinking and talking and posting about it. Sounds more like cold turkey withdrawal than anything. Maybe they should consider just introducing a slightly longer interval between sessions.

except this is about militarizing orbit, which im pretty sure goes against some international treaties

Seeing the headline: Any more overlap on the military/contractor Venn-diagram and you get a circle

I identify with a lot of this. I feel pretty isolated in conversations with people, at work, with family, with friends and acquaintances. I cope by listening much and saying little… which…doesn’t help with feeling isolated… but… someone will surprise you. I think there’s cool people everywhere, it’s just hard to tell at a glance. People often say horrible things without meaning to, or without realizing they’re horrible. It sucks, I want people to be nice to one another, to think before talking, to care about even the strangers around them. At work, when I talk it’s mostly qualify the shit my co-works say unthinkingly in front of customers and each-other. I don’t wanna be the conversation police. But I also don’t want to foster a hostile environment. It’s maddening.

But… sometimes you notice the person who also notices the horrible things being said. Sometimes they notice you putting out fires before they catch and spread. Some people smell the smoke that was almost there. Silver lining stuff is usually hokey “stop feeling bad, it’s bad to feel bad” shit. I feel like shit so much and I just keep it to myself cus I worry it’ll just make things that much worse if I let it out. But… I’d rather recognize horrible things being said. Sometimes you find someone who recognizes it too. Then you go and drink and complain with them and maybe it feels better?? I hope??? I don’t know, I’m still working on it…

headlines you write when when you definitely studied the history of urban pathology

We likes our ruling class. We puts em’ inna li’l terrarium, let the Queen out for sun in an opened top drive every year or so. And, O’corse, it gives the fish wrapping som’at to print about.

now that is an interface

Watch out, a British publication is about to tell us how to avoid economic stagnation

but what about the inverse? How might we use them, too?

Encourage spiritual scholarship - like, “hey, they’re trying to use our own beliefs to trick us, so let’s study up and expose the fraudsters”. Spiritualism, religious practices, even lower-case ‘o’ “occultism” (haven’t got a better word for it, sorry) – these are as much a part of shared culture as this or that film franchise or book series or local sports team or music genera. Yankeedom doesn’t like talking about belief and that’s bullshit. A religious reference can be just as clarifying to a discussion as a film reference or talking about systems like mechanics in a game.

And there is a spiritual component to people’s feelings - this sense of bigger things, of being a part of something even while we’re distinct. Denying that or treating it as taboo is silly. I’m agnostic but I won’t deny feeling spiritual things. But I also won’t limit myself to a single set of cultural explanation. Any materialist movement that actually wants to help people shouldn’t avoid the spiritual. It should treat it carefully and with respect, though.

this swinging pendulum and half of a torn-open Barbie box are very thretening

i’ve been interpreting the puffer fish as a persons ability to offload mental tasks into the spaces and tools around them - is that a decent read or am i doing surrealism wrong?

and here I was thinking plants were lucky for munching down on starlight

Thank goodness the equipment is alright! Pretty sure legs grow back, but I’m no doctor or anything

simpsons but everyone is pink and marge gets to be the central focus rather than homer

…and now that I type that, there was this fan comic i saw years ago about Marge being in lesbians with the character known primarily as Ned Flander’s Dead Wife

Welcome to Boise, we ghettoized the asian population as soon as they had enough votes to flip one mayoral election.