A lot of kids already use TikTok instead of Google for many things

I've heard this before and it's crazy to me because TikTok has the worst search functionality of any service I've ever used. Reddit's was better. Also the content just isn't designed to answer queries? How can you use TikTok to look up literally anything? I don't think there's anything I would ever type into a search engine that could be better served to me by TikTok, unless it's a video trend that is only on TikTok, like grimace shakes or whatever's popular now.

On an unrelated note I always found the comments section to be totally useless, at least on any post with more than 10k likes. The top level comments might be alright, but if for some reason you want to open up the replies to a comment they load newest first. Numerous times there'll be a comment either elaborating on the original post or explaining why it's wrong or something but because TikTok has like a 20 character limit they'll have to reply to their own comment to continue their thought. But if a comment has even only a couple dozen replies it means that the reply you want to see is pushed to the bottom, and it only loads like four replies at a time so it just takes forever to get to the comment you want to read.

I used to like and use TikTok quite a bit but recently I've been turned off from the app. It just feels like every third post I see is an unofficial ad with somebody trying to sell me something through their TikTok Shop page. And then I get a bunch of posts that are engagement bait like "click on the template to eggplant emoji." And I'd swear I never interact with those posts but they keep coming up.

All social media is brain poison actively trying to destroy me.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/is-mastercard-a-queer-ally-is-this-tv-show-my-friend

Posting this so I don't forget the origin of the format and search for it, wasting five minutes of the only life I'll ever have. Again.

WoT is funny for me because if you look at who I am (demographically speaking), at the age I am, and at the sorts of books I enjoy I should love them. But I read them at exactly the wrong time in my life and hated them, and now I feel like it's pointless to revisit them, that that first experience with them will forever taint my opinion of what I suspect are, at the very least, perfectly serviceable fantasy fare, certainly nothing worthy of hatred.

I happened to visit a used bookstore, while on vacation in a different State to the one I live in, and there was a box with copies of all the books that had been released up to that point (I think this was right before the first Sanderson book came out). Of the 12 books, 7 were hardcover and in very good condition, though the 5 paperbacks were a little beat up. Got the whole set for, IIRC, $38. Bought the Sanderson ones too, even though I never did get around to reading them, just for completion's sake.

I recently read For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway. In my opinion a very very good book. It's about a young American man, Robert Jordan, who is fighting as a dynamiter in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Republic. In particular, the book is mostly about him briefly working with a Republican guerilla group, with him carrying orders that they're to blow up a bridge.

I've owned a copy of the book for a while, but what spurred me to finally read it was a scene from Cyberpunk 2077. The player character, V, will pick up a copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls and then recite an apt and haunting quote at a funeral, if the player makes the correct choices. The only problem is, as I discovered upon finishing the book, the quote isn't actually from For Whom the Bell Tolls it's from a book of short stories that Hemingway complied, including some of his own, titled Men at War. I'm not sure if the quoted short story is even one that Hemingway wrote. That said the quote feels like something that could've come from Tolls, so I'm not too upset about it.

I can't say if it's a good book because I've only read a tiny bit of it but I am currently reading Ancient Persia by Josef Wiesehöfer. I'm only reading this book because I saw a recommendation to read the book From Cyrus to Alexander by Pierre Briant for people looking for a good work on ancient history that's still approachable for laypeople. And not even in the introduction to that work but in the fucking Translator's Preface it says, paraphrasing: "readers not already familiar with the entire history of the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, and the entire corpus of Ancient Greek literature on those subjects will not find this volume useful. I recommend any reader not so familiar to read Josef Wiesehofer's work on the subject." So now I'm reading this.

Scrolled through the interview because I couldn’t believe these quotes were real. From the parts I skimmed this woman seems comically vapid, speaking mostly in buzzwords. Though she is talking to a journalist, maybe she just knows she can’t say what she really thinks about Logitech.

Best part I saw, right before the bits about the rent-a-mouse, was when the interviewer offhandedly mentioned smart homes. And she said (paraphrasing) “those are discontinued.” So the interviewer asks what people who bought smart homes will do and she answers:

We’ll continue to support, of course, what we’ve sold for some time.

Which we can agree is probably a blatant lie unless smart home owners would have grounds to sue. And then almost immediately after that they start talking about her new forever mouse.

I thought the most interesting part of the speech were the several moments where he struggled to read the teleprompter. And the times I got the feeling from his cadence and tone that he wasn’t comprehending what he was saying.

I hate that anyone who makes less that one million dollars a year has a positive opinion of Joe Biden. Mass Incarceration, opposition to desegregation and what was left of the New Deal when he got into power, lifelong corporate bagman. Stalwart champion of Israel. Just sucks. Just what a fucking asshole. But years of decent press as Vice President, and a mostly friendly media as President, and pretending like he's a champion of American Labor and it seems like everyone just forgets or ignores what this guy stood for his entire career to date.

The weirdest thing about Harris for me so far is a bunch of leftists on Twitter suddenly coming out as shooters for Kamala. Clearly some of these people are left libs, not meaningfully anticapitalist in any way, who call themselves leftists. But where it gets confusing is that some of these I've seen are from bigger accounts that are popular on actual left twitter. I've been seeing a lot of talk about her perfect left voting record or just about how they think she has the right stuff to beat Trump or otherwise uncritically praising her. As if she wasn't just another neoliberal. Isn't she literally the one who said, back in like 2019, that she was in favor of tax incentives given to small businesses that operate in underprivileged communities for at least two years or whatever the terrible quote was. Idk, maybe that was Warren or one of the others, I can't remember now Even if it wasn't her that quote sums up her politics, from what I've seen (I haven't poured over her whole voting record or anything, just read a few articles). I mean it was just a debate!

If she was leading the charge for a return to, like, New Deal era Kennedy style plans for making America into a soft welfare state I could get why nominally leftist people would be excited for her. Sure, that welfare would be predicated upon global empire, but it would make many people's lives here better, so I could at least see the logic. But she's not even offering something like that.

The only positive thing I can say for Harris is that her public persona comes off as so dorky and strange that it makes her seem like a genuine person, which is a welcome change after Joe Biden's soulless platitudes or the madness of Donald Trump or the faux profundity of Obama. But even then, I'd say something similar about George W. Bush so it's not exactly a compliment.

What the fuck is Weren Ice? Is that a knockoff Dentyne Ice competitor? Did you get bit by a door-to-door chewing gum salesman? Bud you gotta go to the hospital for that one, you’ll definitely get an infection. Unless Weren Ice is a special antimicrobial gum that turns the mouth into a microbial wasteland, in which case you should still go to the hospital but when the guy comes back to sell you more gum don’t buy any otherwise you have to eat a little bit of poop from a microbially healthy person.

Trump: He was so young. So young.

This is going to sound like I’m making fun of your desire to crossdress, but I mean this genuinely. I wish I could wear the outfit of an early medieval peasant. Maybe a relatively well-off peasant. From the depictions I’ve seen I think the clothes look cool and comfortable. An undershirt, a linen tunic, braies, leg wraps, turned leather shoe. A straw hat if you’re working out in the sun. Maybe a nice cotte for traveling, and a cloak. The same outfit but in wool for the winter time, with a wide-brimmed felt hat.

But there’s two reasons why I’ll probably never put together that outfit. One, I’d need to lose about 150 lbs or else instead of looking like a guy wearing a tunic I’ll look like Homer Simpson wearing a muumuu. Two, even if I wasn’t fat people would respond to it poorly. Unfortunately, dress is part of social language and I don’t think I’m brave enough to buck those norms. Younger people will ask where the ren faire is. Middle aged people would write me off as a weirdo. And older people would always be saying “Oh Wilfred, we missed you down the parish church on Sunday, Wilfred. Father Adelbert said Arthur’s coming back. Isn’t that wonderful, Wilfred? He’s coming back with his sword, oh won’t he have his sword, and he’ll build a perfect kingdom here on Earth just for us. That’ll be lovely. Don’t you agree,” and I never know what the fuck they’re talking about.

I know I did devolve into a bit of a joke there and I guess I should offer some support, but I don’t know what I would do if I wanted to crossdress. I wouldn’t be brave enough to wear a monk’s robe in public, let alone a flowy sundress. You should live your life however you want. But, you know, I don’t know where you live or how you present, so, like, stay safe too.

C'mon my guy, I mean what the fuck? You're deliberately obfuscating his great accomplishments? I mean this is the man who has been lauded throughout the nation as the most progressive president since FDR! Remember, I think it was about a year after he crushed that rail workers strike, when he stood in that UAW picket line and said some platitudes? That was the single greatest victory for American Labor since the five-day work week. Remember when he made some appointments to the NLRB that were actually on the side of (business) unions rather than being there just for the execs? Another win. Remember when he curbed inflation? Sure it's in a way that seems to be entirely invisible to working people on the ground but the news and some economists say he did so it must be true. I was going to make fun of the 2021 infrastructure bill that was passed, but it seems like that might legitimately be a success? Or at least I was able to find this quote from the Brookings Institute "pumping $306 billion into state coffers and direct investment projects [in the first two years since the bill was passed]." I don't know enough about anything to know if that's good or not. Maybe all that money goes to, like, graft and corrupt construction executives and state officials? Even if literally all that money goes to repairing bridges I guess having a bill that gives money to states so that they will build infrastructure as basically your only actual domestic accomplishment as President isn't super inspiring, is it? Wait, excuse me, that's not Biden's only domestic policy win. Remember when he flanked the far right to the right by doing an even more draconian border action than they wanted? And remember how that was a flailing bid to deny Trump a talking point on the stump? And how that didn't even work because Trump just talks as if that didn't happen and Biden's actually weak on the border, so many thousands of people are suffering and it wasn't even for anything? But anyway, Biden secured our border, another Biden win.

And let's not forget, Joe Biden protected Ukraine from Russia, and he protected our ally Israel (no need to go into who or how he protected Israel. Just remember that America stands with its allies). Remember, Putin is a crazy madman who will definitely, 100%, willingly trigger global nuclear holocaust by invading a NATO country. He's just that kind of guy. And if you don't vote or vote for someone besides Biden or Trump that's still the same thing as voting for Trump, and a vote for Trump is a vote for Putin.

I watched part of this, nothing too interesting. Biden seemed mostly on message, didn’t really lose his train of thought or reference people long dead as if they were still holding office. But I didn’t watch the whole Q&A.

Only funny thing was when asked if he thought Harris could beat Trump he said “I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump if I didn’t think she could be President.”

Biden’s hubris coupled with the cabinet’s refusal to invoke the 25th ensuring that democrats cannot win the 2024 election.

Hmm… I’ve got a pretty mild illness right now. Must be the first stages of fatal bird flu. Oh well.

I feel like if you're wealthy enough to make a mistake this costly and foolish then you should have to go in front of a jury of your peers and they should decide to revoke your drivers license for five years.

I'm starting to think the brilliant minds at the Navy built this $320,000,000 pier out of bondo, plywood, cardboard, and duct tape.

How could the terrible might of the sea break our beautiful pier, which was constructed entirely of thrifted porcelain and sugar glass?

No you don't understand. It's an arms deal, not aid. Israel has to pay for those guns. Which means that, on the US's part, there's no moral quandary whatsoever. The Biden Admin is just acting as a totally neutral arms merchant, and it's definitely not Biden's fault that Israel will use those weapons to massacre an entire people. There's no culpability at all! Vote Blue!

I don't know about this one chapos. I mean, can you imagine what it would be like to live under a dictatorship? They'd probably do crazy shit like ban bodily autonomy, ban protesting, make it illegal to criticize regimes that are in league with the dictator, ban mass communication platforms, crack down on immigration, allow friendly corporations to operate their own mafias they'd use to kill whistleblowers, and just generally crush poor and working people. I wouldn't want to live under a rule like that.

I think my favorite narrative I've been hearing regarding these protests, and you heard this a lot in 2020 too, is that all these protestors willing to engage in property violence and physically clash with the police are actually outside agitators. And in this case they're outside agitators occupying a privately owned building, which the media is happy to compare to a private single family home. That's right, protestors occupying a private university building is exactly the same as them occupying your home, you braindead TV consumer you.

Sometimes the 'outside agitator' narrative has merit. I imagine we've all seen videos of obvious police plants trying to rile up people in order to get them arrested. Maybe some of you have witnessed such things in person. I vaguely remember reading that the guy who started the fire that burned down that Minneapolis Police station was actually a chud trying to make things worse. That sort of thing, I guess, really does happen. But it's also such a convenient narrative. "Oh, it wasn't concerned student activists and professors and ordinary people trying to stand against a genocide. It was wild-eyed barbarians, outsiders from outside, and thus all the police violence wielded against these people protesting a genocide was wholly justified."