Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1016
Suburbia. The Cult. Work and death. Amazon antitrust. Wishful Apple thinking.
Good morning. Hello. How are you? I am good. Slight headache, resisting 5 ibuprofen and 2 Tylenol. Jane didn’t want to go to school, had a lot of hiccups and obstacles, but in the end, we got her there on time and she seemed excited. We followed the neighbors the whole way there. I was hoping Jane could get out of the car and see some friends but they are pros and got out and zipped into the school before Jane could get her seat unbuckled. It was cloudy so the sun didn’t blind me on the drive. Three minutes late so fewer cars in the line. I saw a guy slink past the pylons in the car line, cutting a good chunk of the line. Parent rebel. Actually I just assume it was a guy. I suppose, statistically, it was probably a woman. Got home as my partner neighbor drove by headed to a job site. Didn’t pick up my prescription because the pharmacy doesn’t open till 8 which is just insane. But the CVS is helmed by lunatic pharmacists and I cannot handle them.
Just another day in suburban/rural America.
Listening to the last Cult record. Someone on “the internet” said it was good. They were not wrong. Couple real bangers on it. Impressive.
I would like to apologize for labeling yesterday’s issue number one thousand and fourteen. It was, in fact, issue number one thousand and fifteen.
I would also like to apologize for telling you guys to not comment in a certain manner. I said: “And if you are one of those ‘oh I don’t mind it’ people well you can just keep that to yourself, thanks, I definitely don’t want to hear it.” I should not have said that. Never tell your commenters not to comment. I saw that in a “how to be a teen hearthrob content creator” TikTok. That is a lie. I do have a Facebook friend who does that all the time — asks people their opinions then says something like “please read this closely: I am asking for a good restaurant recommendation, not comments about restuarants or recipies, etc” something like that. It’s a bit on the spectrum, I think. And I always bristle when I see it. Except, of course, we all feel it and we all have gotten utterly unhelpful comments and sometimes as we’re writing something we know the comments are just gonna be terrible. But this is a community, dammit, and I welcome all your comments. We are ecumenical. Even if I will silently grumble inside sometimes. That should be silent. And you should never know about it. Please burn this paragraph after reading.
Set your computer on fire. Never bad advice.
I’m a bit over death today. To be completely frank I had a terrible day yesterday and I was 100% not up to the work things that were expected of me. Not my finest day. Barely scraped by. I give myself a C-, which really is unacceptable. I am in finer form today and I hope to improve upon my performance. Work is very hard. Work is so hard. I don’t write about work much. I work in a web of NDAs and trade secrets and such and it is very exhausting and depressing and one day I will be able to write about it but, alas, today is not that day. But I took a half a gummy last night and it was very strong for half a gummy and I watched a two hour Civ livestream and then Lower Decks, Only Murders in the Building and Ahsoka all of which were very good, quality night of stoner television. Made me forget about death, which is just the way I like it: never thinking about it ever ever ever ever ever, as my daughter says about things.
Like Pierre Cardin, who didn’t write a will, didn’t prepare his papers, did nothing. Quality, universal denial. Had no kids, bunch a nieces and nephews and shit who are now all fighting for his money and I bet that’s exactly what that dude wanted. I wonder if you can sell off your right to sue for a piece of an inheritance off like you sell off bad debt: for pennies on the prospective dollar. That’s what I would do in that situation: take a lowball cut and run. The only way to win is to not play the game. Maybe Joshua the Wargames computer was a nephew of Pierre Cardin.
Amazon got sued by the FTC for being a monopolist. Seems about right. Took me forever to download the actual complaint because news outlets love writing about the existence of a new document without fucking linking to the document it really is something. Thank you, Ars Technica, for being the only media outlet with a shred of integrity on this matter. Started reading the complaint last night. It is very focused on their retailing practices and the way they chisel and rob the wholesalers and other retailers and I gotta say, I’ve only read the intro so far, but it’s a solid complaint. One kind of interesting thing is how much of this document is redacted, just loads and loads, even in the intro. This wasn’t the case in the Google complaint. Really makes a guy curious. I want to know more about these secret projects and I want to know why someone thinks we don’t get to read it. Also struck me how often the government, in its complaint, relies on “studies” and “industry reports” for its statistics. Of course, this could be because Amazon stonewalled them for info, which the government accuses. Its reasoning is almost completely redacted except for the tantalizing “using the encrypted Signal app.” So that sounds fun and cloak and dagger.
Take em down, I say. Amazon is garbage now. Hopelessly enshittified and impossible for anyone to actually replace using legitimate competitive means. Just absolute garbage. Also, fucking hilariously, this morning, as I search for things I’ve recently purchased that had 100% enshittified results, Amazon is delivering results ad-free. They seem to have turned off a vast amount of their advertising since yesterday. Clearly this was part of their planned response to the FTC but also, thank you FTC. If we even get one day of results that aren’t completely enshittified, well, you have accomplished something.
The big argument, of course, will be the same as the Apple/Epic suit, the same, I suspect, of the Google suit: what is the market we are defining? If it is retail, the government has lost (ahem Walmart). If it is online retail, the government will probably win. If it’s some online marketplace thing, they’ll have a fighting chance but eBay’s existence will be a bit of an obstacle. This is the large logjam Lina Khan is really trying to break: Amazon is clearly a monopoly. But of what? Is the internet a separate world or is it real life? We shall see, we shall see.
I do wish Lina would hurry up and go after Apple, though.
Accidentally updated one of my computers to OSX Sonoma yesterday and it was kind of a mess. Reset my desktops and screensavers to an ecological catastrophe masquerading as a scenic tourist attraction money trap in California. Did not fix the horrific system settings app which is just abysmal, hateful toward humanity. Made the login screen look like a giant iPhone which is just so, so sad. Other than that, it’s fine. I suspect it’s got a few more tricks up its sleeve both positive and negative but, yeah. The days of this shit being exciting are so long gone. It’s a chore now, it’s always a chore.
The OSX update I want does like five things:
Remembers where your apps, icons and windows were when you restart, and lets you put them all back where they belong — and on the correct screen — with the push of one button.
Changes the System settings to an alphabetical list and doesn’t hide 40 of them under inscrutable sections like “general.” What the hell is general and what is not?
Lets you set a permanent zoom level on your mail content window
Lets you Airplay from Spotify
There are probably more. They are all bugs. We need a bug-fixing and lifestyle improvment OS again. Bring back Snow Leopard.
Snow Sonoma.
Oh man this mix is so good I’m not even joking. Something for everyone. Except people who like anything but alternative rock and maybe a little pop. You know. Something for everyone in my very small niche of the wide world of music. Decent number of oldies. I am feeling nostalgic today. Thinking about old friends, old guy friends, old best guy friends. And how I’ve had, mm, maybe ten in my life? Three I am in touch with regularly, and hey, they’re probably still my best guy friends. Three I am in touch with sporadically. Couple I’m non-communicative Facebook friends with. The rest not so much.
I miss them, my old best guy friends.
Here’s to old friends.
Re: Telling ppl how to comment. I always struggle with myself not to make some comment when I post something to the effect of "Going on tour, anyone want to host a show for me in ____" and ppl either just like the post, or they comment something like, "Cool, I just saw (insert band way bigger than me) at the so and so." Um, cool story bro, but like I am scrambling over here obsessively trying to book shows and the message asked for anyone who wants to book me to DM me. Hah.
Always here for a Joshua/WarGames reference