Did anyone else who grew up in a house with carpeted floors like to rub their hands across the carpet very fast and feel how simultaneously smooth and tingly they felt afterwards?

Or was that just me?

I had to go unsubscribe from one of the streaming services—Glorp, I think, or maybe Jarbo—because I had used a free trial to watch the first two #Mariners games of the #ALCS.

First, I went to my TV's settings, but couldn't find an unsubscribe option, so I logged into my Treepy account on my desktop. But the unsubscribe option wasn't there, so I was redirected back to Roku, where I finally found the option to "turn off auto-renew". Not "cancel", though. "Turn off auto-renew."

And, it seems straightforward enough, and perhaps it is, but trying to navigate corporate websites in 2025 feels a bit like negotiating with a powerful and tricky genie. I'm staring down these subscription pages, trying to ensure I've done the right things so that I'm not going to get charged ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS AND NINETY-NINE CENTS in 24 hours.

Even when companies aren't using dark patterns, the general proliferation of dark patterns just leaves me jumpy and suspicious. So glad it's the future.

So, I was eyeing the Murena Fairphone 6 for my next smartphone, in an effort to #degoogle.

However, Google's latest fuckery with developer verification, and the apparent death knell it represents for F-Droid, makes me uncertain. I don't have the technical understanding of how the pieces fit together with alternative versions of Android.

Can someone more knowledgeable than me weigh in here? How is Google's developer verification for Android likely to affect alternative Android versions like /e/OS?

#Android #degoogling #fairphone

Murena Fairphone (Gen. 6)

THE MURENA FAIRPHONE (GEN. 6) WILL BE SHIPPED IN SEPTEMBER ! Brand new deGoogled Murena Fairphone (Gen. 6) ! The Murena Fairphone (Gen.

^{Murena - deGoogled phones and services}

The opening paragraph of this essay is so sharp it makes me jealous. Just trying to corral the words to describe what I like about it feels like I'm chasing a gaggle of runaway toddlers on trikes, while Burneko launches his motorcycle off a ramp, winks, and flips me off.

The first sentence is just such a clean, economical expression of contempt, and it sets the tone for the whole piece. Confident, clever writing like that always makes me think of Douglas Adams. If I have any writing goals, it's to write like that.

Only Kevin Roose's Editors Despise Him More Than I Do | Defector

Grave editorial failure only seldom can be located in something as precise as a single word choice. The following block-quoted sentence, from a Thursday article by New York Times technology reporter Kevin Roose, contains one, and it feels like journa…

^defector.com

HOT DAMN MUÑOZ THAT CATCH

#Mariners

I am adept at assembling flat-pack furniture. I have good enough visual-spatial reasoning, and I pay attention to details in the instructions enough that I'm rarely caught flat-footed.

And with that said, I believe that somehow, the design of IKEA furniture acts as arcane DRM, because there is there is no way on this green planet that even the most talented human being can assemble a thirdhand IKEA bed without wanting to scream for days.

Threat to free speech: People booing my "edgy" transphobic jokes

Not a threat to free speech: A government that brutally tortures and murders critics

Cowards and sellouts, the lot of them.

US comedians defend decision to play in Saudi Arabia: ‘They’re paying me enough to look the other way’

Usual supporters of free speech are under fire for signing on to Riyadh festival despite the government’s human rights abuses

^{Guardian staff reporter (The Guardian)}

note on a front door in Seattle, written in a child's hand:

"sorry, we're DEAD"

A+ Halloween decor, kiddo. I'm spooked.

The ESPN commentary on today's #Mariners game is absolutely horrendous.

They spent almost the entirety of Josh Naylor's at-bat cut away to the announcers booth where the Astros mascot was bringing them food. Because who wants to watch the ballgame, am I right? 🙄

I missed the end of the #Mariners game last night due to extreme sleepiness, but it was the middle of the 11th when I went to bed and things weren't looking good.

So when R came to bed, I asked, half-asleep and pessimistically, if we had lost.

What a nice surprise.

Jesus Christ this game is tense

#SeattleMariners #Mariners

Someone is making a documentary about the death and rebirth of #Netrunner!

kickstarter.com/projects/jwilk…

As usual, the big tech moguls and eggheads occupy a fantasy world of Pure Reason, where everything is solvable without sacrifice if the right people just think about it enough.

Dare Obasanjo

2025-08-17 03:09:18

I’m constantly amused by the idea that we will invent AGI and AI will solve all of our problems. We don’t need AGI to solve our problems, even ChatGPT can already tell us obvious solutions to our current problems.

We already have good answers on how to reduce gun violence, infant mortality or climate change. The problem is too many people have a vested interest in the problems being unsolved. It isn’t because we haven’t invented smarter than human AI. When we do, we’ll ignore it too.

Holy moly, this is a yummy non-alcoholic tea cocktail. Recipe template from Dan Fellows on YouTube.

#mixology #cocktails #zeroProof

In seems to me that many of us are concerned about beating movies, solving them before others and then being afraid to get the “what was it really about?” question wrong in front of judgmental peers. But ultimately, I believe that’s a disservice to film analysis, and to the films themselves. We’ve weaponized the idea of being right or wrong about movies, and it’s a boring state to be in. There’s no harm done in taking an educated analytical swing in good-faith, because every piece of art is about something, many things, and that’s what keeps art alive.

I haven't seen the film yet, but I am very appreciative of this reviewer's push for personal engagement with texts.

Weapons: Audiences Disagree On Movie's Meaning

Audiences are arguing over the meaning (or lack thereof) behind Zach Cregger's horror hit — but the truth is there's no such thing as a correct answer when it comes to the film.

^{Richard Newby (The Hollywood Reporter)}