Random Dent

Reading House of Leaves feels like you’re looking at something you’re not supposed to be seeing.

It’s also a book that I don’t think could be adapted into anything. I’m not sure how you would even make it an eBook.

“Come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off”

I have no idea if this is helpful or not (and sorry if it isn’t) but I generally tend to approach things as like:

Can I do anything about it right now?

If YES —> Do the thing ----> Don’t worry about it.

If NO ----> There’s nothing to do ----> Don’t worry about it.

Obviously that’s super simplified and doesn’t apply to everything, but I find it helps to just sift out the small-medium sized annoyances.

So for example with your boat ticket:

If you have proof you paid ----> Send proof -----> Nothing more to do.

Could they reject it anyway? ----> Maybe but you can’t control that -----> Nothing more to do.

And then if they do reject it, you can start the loop again from there, which I guess would either be escalate or just let it go etc.

This was the one I came to mention lol.

You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.

Also from the introduction/short story The Day Before The Revolution:

My novel The Dispossessed is about a small worldful of people who call themselves Odonians. The name is taken from the founder of their society, Odo, who lived several generations before the time of the novel, and who therefore doesn’t get into the action — except implicitly, in that all the action started with her.

Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with; not the social-Darwinist economic “libertarianism” of the far right; but anarchism. as prefigured in early Taoist thought, and expounded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism’s principal target is the authoritarian State (capitalist or socialist); its principal moral-practical theme is cooperation (solidarity, mutual aid). It is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political theories.

I’m on a big Kim Stanley Robinson kick lately (currently reading Aurora) and I haven’t heard of this one. Definitely picking that up lol

Not related in the slightest but this one always gets me: https://youtu.be/L1WAOByxzYA

The Big Lebowski is sort of like this too I think. I actually can’t remember if he even gets his rug back lol, but also it doesn’t matter.

Take control of the media.

People don’t like to admit it and they hate it when you say it usually, but TBH if you put something on blast on the news, most people will go along with it even if it’s fairly crazy. Or at least, enough people to get what you want done.

There’s a reason why oligarchs almost always buy some sort of media network once they get to a certain point of wealth.

There’s a long standing rumor where I live that the Hell’s Angels own a bunch of infrastructure stuff like vehicle registries. I dunno if that’s true or not though.

Also a suspicious amount of old buildings that are protected for historical reasons seem to catch fire right after being bought for development.

I use Filen, I don’t know if they still do it but you used to be able to buy a lifetime plan for a one-time fee that was like 50-100GB or something like that, and you could stack them. So I just bought several during a Black Friday sale.

Yeah socks first then shoes, because I’m not American so my shoes are by the door lol

Master of the Difference Engine

Brit here, I never really thought about it but you’re absolutely right, Angels is such a “please leave now” song lol

Adam Sandler is really interesting because it seems like he mostly takes low-effort roles that are basically just paid vacations for him and his friends, then once every 10 years or so he drops an absolute banger just to remind everyone he can, then goes back to having fun again.

I also like topgrade for this.

Here

Someone chucked a milkshake at Nigel Farage a couple of years ago and got a 13-week suspended jail sentence for assault. Along with endless pearl-clutching from the right and Farage talking about how distressed he was.

Which is funny when you compared it to back in the 90s when someone threw an egg at John Prescott and he immediately punched them in the face lol.

As far as I can tell there aren’t really any rules anymore if you annoy rich people enough. They just sort of come after you regardless.

Coming soon: layoff devs, pay monthly fee for an AI suite and hire an AI “expert” to run it that collectively cost more than it would have to just keep paying the original dev. And gives worse results, but FASTER

My first computer was a VIC-20 lol