16) Stole this one from a recent skeet I saw: If generative AI could REALLY make the next GTA in 6 months with 10 staff, or write the next bestseller, or produce 10 blockbusters a day? They wouldn't be trying to sell it to YOU. They would keep it for themselves and guard it from you ferociously.

17) Big houses, supercars, and bustdown watches aren't signifiers of wealth. They're signifiers of debt.

18) You'll never be able to justify alcohol being legal, but coke and heroin being illegal, to me in a way that's remotely coherent. We should legalize and legislate controls for all potentially dangerous recreational substances. They do more harm illegal than they would if they were legal.

19) "We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel is more educational and exhaustive than many public school history classes.

20) "Nepobaby" is going the way of "woke" in its rapidly-approaching meaninglessness. "She's a nepobaby, her mom had a cousin who babysat Kim Basinger's kid for three months in 2001! That's why she got her record deal" Like what the fuck, do y'all even hear yourselves

OK, been at this for a hour, that's enough putting off work. More later!

21) "That band is astroturfed, it's one guy's project, he hired everyone else" OK COOL, SO WHAT? If the music's good, I can't bring myself to care? And some people physically cannot produce the sounds they want for their music? The Go! Team guy was never going to be able to singsong jumprope rhymes?

The Mountain Goats are John Darnielle and whoever he feels like working with at the time (sometimes their just John Darnielle)

Arggh! 'they're'

Hey, it's good work for session musicians and have these folks never heard of band leaders?

22) I miss the truly unhinged early days of Kickstarter. The "fund my nuclear reactor in low-Earth orbit" days. The "I have discovered infinite energy, but I need $300" days. That shit was delightful.

23) There are multiple dog breeds it should be illegal to perpetuate. They can't breathe, they can't regulate their body temperature, they can't give natural birth, their eyes literally pop out of their skulls. It's ridiculous we allow that to continue.

24) We should all go back to forums. Not exclusively, obviously, and not like Something Awful, but private, 20-person, passworded forums on someone's homepage. Cuz respectfully, a lot of you treat this place like only your friends read what you write. That's a mistake.

This one confuses me because... so what? Not every band needs to be the story of The Commitments or something and not every performer is an ensemble. Frank Sinatra wasn't singing AND playing all those instruments...

That was literally Nine Inch Nails for a good chunk of the band's existence. Nobody claimed "Head Like a Hole" was astroturfed because it was Trent Reznor and some session musicians.

Fun aside: my year had lessons that included and explored that song during GCSE History (ages 14-16), in Northern England, UK. This would have been the mid 90s, so less of a gap than now.

It annoys the hell out of me that the Fall Out Boy "update" ISN'T in chronological order like the original.

Have you read the Poisoners Handbook by Deborah Blum about the birth of forensic toxicology in the roaring twenties???

my recent new understanding of AI is that it works much the same as pro-wrestling insofar as you must BELIEVE it's real for it to be useful. So its in everyone's best interest to continue that kayfabe storyline. It's not a real tool but they have a vested interest in EVERYONE believing that