Complaints

A collection of 27 posts

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Complaints

Addicted to potential

Because I like to spend my leisure time making myself mad, I've been reading More Everything Forever by Adam Becker (affiliate link) and getting all het up about effective altruism and long termism. The logic of effective altruism follows this path: you should do what is in your

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The horrors

Epstein is a symptom

No one deposes a king because of their belief in democracy. They do it because the king has used his power to harm people. History is a cyclical thing, and one of the key cycles is this: a given society is fairly stable. There is a system that benefits a

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The horrors

Taking a stripped back, inexpert view at a thing to see if it works, inexpertly: the economy

A thing happens when someone knows too much about a given thing. When they know too much about the theory of a given thing – not so much when when they have a lot of experience of the practical side. In fact I think dismissing the realities of the practical sides

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Film

Oh no! I forgot the most important part of my plan to save cinema! Let me introduce you to The Tea Tour.

I made this whole todo and then I forgot the best bit. I mean there's substantial things I forgot also, stuff about how films are made such as you could save cinema by paying a little more respect to screenwriters. Examples of this include: I'm not

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Complaints

This weekend my off brand Roomba, Jeremy, became a mother

I brought this on myself, didn't I? All that crowing about how I fixed the shower and how enacting competence is good for the mental health all that bragging about exerting agency over my environment it's all come back to haunt me now. Turns out my

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Complaints

Ok, so we all hate tropes, is it?

I don't know why people are talking about this really. I don't even really know how much they are talking about it, but I've seen it float across my feed a few times over the last few days, and many more over the last

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The horrors

We have become slaves to the idea of sounding convincing

I have a real grudge against the Enlightenment. Sure, the scholars of the Enlightenment pushed Western society towards democracy, moved us into a theoretically more egalitarian future, but they also ruined everything for everyone forever. The Enlightenment convinced us all that reasoned debate was the only thing that mattered and

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Politics

Graham Linehan and online harassment: a timeline

Were you on twitter during Gamergate? God, what a time. If you weren't extremely online circa 2015 (brag) let me explain (no, there is too much; let me sum up): in the latter half of 2014 a bunch of the internet's discontented men launched a massive

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AI

Friends fear she has more to say about AI

Once again a thing is going around on Bluesky where someone is defending the use of AI to make art, and there's something in there that's stood out to me. The person describes the process of learning to paint as hazing. So what the fuck is

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Complaints

We continue to barely function

Samuel Johnson (of the dictionary) spent a lot of his life trying to avoid debtor's prison. He's one of the most highly regarded English writers in history but while he lived and worked he struggled to survive. Such is life. What he would do to avoid

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AI

Once again, we regret to inform you, it is AI

This week in death to AI some judge in some case ruled that AI companies using our books without permission qualifies as fair use because it's transformative, and not distinct from authors being influenced by other books themselves. The judge did also say that AI companies pirating books

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Complaints

We need at least some rich people to agree to being eaten

Labour are trying to court Reform voters. The BBC is trying to appeal to Reform viewers. We're all sick of it. There is one common cause, I think, between a lot of us on the left, and many voters on the right and it is this: life fucking

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Politics

Whither the British left?

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Politics

The best things in life are free except stable mental health, which does require some money

I am currently on hold with Thames Water. I am 90 minutes into a phone call with Thames Water to try and get them to refund the £375 they have just incorrectly taken from my account. There's a lot of boring backstory to this involving an incorrect bill

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Art

Why did I feel such visceral disgust at the trailer for Wes Anderson's new movie?

I mean, I like Wes Anderson! I always have! For me his films range from more or less enjoyed it to will love and cherish it until my dying day with the only exception being Isle of Dogs. I'm even an apologist for The Life Aquatic with Steve

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Complaints

Why did we all decide business is sensible?

I've decided that an MBA is the most nonsense degree you can have. And I say that as someone whose degree is in theatre. In another world or in another era this observation would just be idle chitchat but in this world, in this era we've

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Complaints

A list of the ways I am currently providing value for shareholders

Sometimes, when you are having a Rough Time™ it can be helpful to have something to hold on to, to remind you of your inherent and exquisite value as a human being on this earth, living their one and precious life. I am having one such Rough Time™ currently – you

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Complaints

The hell of frustrated optimism

Good lord, it's scammy out there. Have you noticed this? I've been desperately seeking literally any form of income for a few months now, and every day it becomes clearer that this is an activity that involves exhaustively filtering for scams. I have, several times now,

Art Featured

How and why do you make an art

This week we're all het up about this dipshit, who thinks that because making music is hard, everyone will be delighted to use the ecologically disastrous plagiarism machine to do it. To me, this is an example of something I think about all the time: people think artistic

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Complaints

The real trickle down economics is Brian Cox having to do ads for Asics

Every time I see Brian Cox advertising Asics a little spark of joy dies in my heart. He was just in one of the most talked about TV series of recent years! He's seventy eight years old! He's been working since the 60s! He had four

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Complaints

It's time to cancel money

One of the things from the film Anora that has stuck in my mind is the tragedy of Ivan. It's a small part of the story, it doesn't matter as much as anything Anora says and does, but still, I keep thinking about it. He is

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Art

I'm really sick of talking about AI, and yet

So a new 'publisher' is planning on 'disrupting' the industry with AI. They are essentially a vanity publisher – they ask authors to pay them thousands of dollars and, in exchange, they will give the authors AI generated covers, proofreading services, and distribution. It's an

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Advice

Why we are all so fucked up; a non-exhaustive list

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Advice

What You Can Expect From My Benevolent Dictatorship

It's not that I want to be a dictator, so much as it is that I am deeply tired of living living in a society where everything is arranged incorrectly! * If you find a Lime bike or similar left in an obnoxious place, you will be legally entitled

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Art

Let me tell you why I hate The Blair Witch Project

A few days ago, as part of our spooky season viewing, we watched Ghostwatch. You heard about this? You heard about what those crazy kids at the BBC did to national treasure Michael Parkinson? If you've not heard of it before, Ghostwatch was a 1992 Halloween TV special.