Good morning. Hello. How are you? #924
Whoops sorry meant BLUESKY is a privacy nightmare. Lina Khan's setback. MTG LOTR OMG WTF BBQ. John Wick 4. Starting to think about studio wiring.
Good morning! Hello! How are you? Wednesday innit? Let’s take a peek at the ole calendar. Oof. Not great, Bob. Alas. One of these days I will have some time to create some actual “work product” and not meetings. But in the immortal words of Aragorn, today is not that day.
Speaking of Aragorn I now have a boatload of Magic The Gathering™ Universes Beyond™ Lord of the Rings™ Tales of Middle Earth™ card game cards and I still have not gotten a single Tom Bombadil card WTF. I have three Goldberries but no Tom Bombadil. I am very sad. One item has still not shipped, and a few were cancelled because of rapacious dealers who did not like selling the item for the price at which they offered it. I mean the one ring card has been found now can we chill out on these prices? At least until I get a Tom Bombadil card? I have a need.
Speaking of Amazon I use my cart there as a sort of shopping list, there are hundreds of things saved in my cart. And Amazon helpfully has a “check out if anything in your cart is on sale during Prime day” functionality and lol nope. Exactly two things, both like one or two dollars off. Alas.
Finished John Wick Chapter 4 last night. I watched about a half hour each night I had off from Jane, so it took, like, I don’t know two weeks to finish the thing? That sucker is long! It basically felt like a season of television the way I watched it. I really enjoyed the first John Wick movie on a lot of levels. There was the wacko gunfights that have continued throughout the movie, but there were also these other elements that were really fun — the simple act of revenge, the simplicity of a man’s love for his dog, these hints of a complex underworld. But we have lost a lot of that as the films progressed. The fleshed-out version of this underworld and the High Table and whatnot is absurd and pointless and a parody of itself. The dog is barely an issue anymore, nor the wife. The fights are still really fun and the cinematography is amazing and operatic, but the films have subtly shifted from “mostly unrealistic but plausibly realistic” to “less realistic than a super hero film.” And I guess that doesn’t bother me, but it does make them a different sort of film?
Also all of these people put way too much faith in their ballistic suits and I know bulletproof suit jackets are a real thing but a bullet has momentum. One out of the hundred or so your flimsy suit jacket blocks is gonna, you know, knock you over? It is just too absurd.
But I still kind of love them for their absolute unabashed absurdity. John Wick says maybe a hundred words in the film and you can predict about 80 of them before he even says them. That is very satisfying.
Oh by the way PSA I put the wrong Twitter-replacement platform in the header of my GMHHAY yesterday, though not the body. Of course Threads is a privacy nightmare, my point is that Bluesky is also a privacy nightmare. Honestly I doubt a single one of these new Twitter replacements is even remotely GDPR compliant or CCPA compliant, but Bluesky certain is not. Not even close. I know it’s a bureaucratic pain but a) it’s the law, and b) if we can do it over here with only a few people, so can all these incredibly well-funded organizations. It kind of pisses me off they’re all just… ignoring the law. Except Threads.
Still enjoying Threads, it is probably going to win this battle, the battle may even be over, save for some holdouts. But, then, Twitter had holdouts. It is only day seven of threads and I’d say it feels almost like Twitter did in its heyday. Most of my news orgs are over there, a good number of my favorite pundits — though not Elie Mystal, game’s not over until Elie shows up.
And yes, of course — of course — I’m not happy about Threads winning, I would have preferred, I guess… Spoutible to win? Definitely not Bluesky. I was mostly enjoying it just fine but the fundamental underlying business structure is not any better. The people behind it are not any better than Threads.
And… like… what? What are the infrastructure costs on something like Twitter? If Bluesky were to win it would be spending, oh, I don’t know, let’s keep it simple and say $20 million a month on infrastructure. Where is that money going to come from? Forever. Rich people gonna keep donating $100+ mil a year to a B-Corp that isn’t even a non-profit or a tax write off? Nah. Eventually it’s gonna have to make money. Best case is it manages something like Firefox or the Wikimedia foundation, but that is wildly ambitious, because it’s not a nonprofit. Is it gonna be paid? Advertising? Leave it to a bunch of hobbyists in the Fediverse? I mean, look, I'm up for being along for the ride if Bluesky wins but those who are pretending it is definitely somehow more noble are, I fear, overly optimistic.
Also at this point when it comes to data I will choose the company that’s under the microscope with Lina Khan and the FTC than the one that’s under the radar.
God I wonder what’s going on at the FTC today. They lost their Activision/Microsoft case. Mostly. Judge denied them a preliminary injunction, the deal is going to go forward. And immediately following that, the UK was like “yeah okay we’ll work something out and let this deal go through.” The FTC of course can still press its case against the merger, but it will be doing so in the face of a fait accompli. That is a tough decision, and the whole thing is a major blow to Khan’s re-energized, assertive FTC.
And now one of the, mmm, gonna say four or five companies that they are constantly keeping an eye on just, out of the blue, in a move no one thought they were capable of, in the span of a week, completely reset the playing fiend it social media. What are you gonna do about that, FTC?
I do think that the very possibility of the FTC making a move regarding Threads is keeping Meta a bit careful. I find it highly unlikely they’re gonna monetize Threads any time soon. I also see plenty of evidence that Meta is treading carefully with the FTC, which, of course, is more than we can say for Elon Musk. That careful treading should work to our short-term advantage when it comes to Threads.
Of course, everyone might see the Microsoft decision and decide the new FTC is impotent. But I don’t think Lina’s gonna give up, and I think Meta winning the new Twitter is a much more clear-cut case of monopoly than Microsoft and Activision, which most gamers knew wasn’t really that strong of an argument.
And of course we should say that congress should have acted about all this. The obvious problem to all of this is that the courts are dubious about any non-monetary “market,” like a market for eyeballs or attention. This can only be rectified by congress. I would think there are enough Republicans out there that agree to this that we could act now, but even so, it’s another thing, along with Codifying Roe, and a bunch of others, that the Dems didn’t do when they controlled all three branches. And god knows when they will again. Grr.
Been starting to think about the wiring of the studio in the attic of the new house. Learning about lots of new wiring technologies, like XLR over Cat5e, which will simplify a lot of wiring. Thinking about patch bays, trying to decide between 1/4” and TT. Getting ahead of myself. Wondering if the layout in my head is even the right one. I’m probably a year out from having to actually do any of this part but it’s good to start thinking about it and learning it.
I’m also obsessed with those automatic feeding drywall guns. I really want one of those before I put up a bunch of drywall.
I finally found a structural engineer to check out my plans before I make any major moves. But I emailed him and he said those deadly words you hate to hear from any vendor: “Give me a call and let’s discuss.” My god. I emailed you. Just email me back. That is just cruel.
Jane got through swim lessons and art camp just fine yesterday. It was not, in fact, “too much for one day.” She did say she was sad because she was too busy to watch her videos, and that was kind of sad and hilarious, but, then, her videos are highly educational shit about space and elements and whatnot, so I mean, that’s fine. We promised she could watch some this morning. She seemed mollified.
Got a W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe playlist for you today. All new except for James. Working my way through the four-hour deluxe version of Laid. Haven’t listened to Laid in ages my god it is such a good record. Every song is perfect. And the super deluxe version has all of Wah Wah which is awesome.
Talk to you tomorrow! Man. Five day weeks. They are something.