Watching Pr0n for the Plot

Your love is like: eating screwdrivers

When Elon Musk bought Twitter, the hue and cry was unprecedented. I, naturally, enjoyed the hell out of it. I like to watch things burn.  But I had no problem with Mr. Musk and found the entire affair overblown. I spend a lot of time skewering things and it's only fair to admit when I was wrong (should it ever happen). Well, it happened. It looked like there weren't any insane policies springing up, and there weren't. Then he got busy sawing off the limb he was standing upon, the latest being reading limits. Huh? Do tv stations have watching limits? The entire idea is to get you to watch ads. So why is Musk imposing a limit? News also indicates a horrible spam problem, this time of an adult nature, that can get into your DMs. You can't read anything without signing in. Free speech, of which Musk claimed to be an absolutist, has been curtailed. I have to agree with the Twitter escapees - it's time to go elsewhere. Farewell to a fine institution - where everyone went for the pre-press breaking news. Even the press went to Twitter. Bluesky, a decentralized social network, has halted signups because of the multitude of defections from Twitter. Threads had over 100 million signups the first week. Unfortunately you have to have an Instagram account to use Threads, and if you delete your Threads account, your Instagram account goes with it. BFD - it's Lord Zuck and the Faceyspaces crowd... it's just another suck of your information.

I hate to say this, but there is only one free-speech platform: GAB. GAB has a terrible reputation for alt-right and nazi users. Well, that's what happens when you allow free speech. Mute the bastards. Besides - I'd rather have them where I can see them. Once you mute the garbage, it's a nice place to hang out. The owner is a born-again Christian and there is a huge push to get Christianity back into the mainstream, which also has to be watched, only so no First Amendment violations occur. I'm providing a less than stellar review, but the people are really nice and I want to support Free Speech. Any Twitter user will be able to operate it without instructions. There are special interest groups (GUITAR) too. Take a look - the worst that can happen is you decide it's not for you.

Next: Reddit has gone insane, charging $20 million (adjusted) for access to its main feed. This means any program you use to access Reddit cannot be used unless they pay the $20 million ransom. The net effect is that you're stuck using the official Reddit client, which is also insane. The other programs exist because the official client 'doesn't fulfill everyone's needs' (is poop). Many many subreddits went dark to protest the ransom and Reddit held its position, threatening to throw the (unpaid) moderators off.

Mexican mayor weds crocodile in harvest ritual

Husband subsequently missing left arm, half of right leg, and the means to consummate the marriage.

Florida mosquitoes test positive for malaria as officials spray area

Quick - somebody dig up Fauci.. we need to vaccinate the mosquitos!

 There's something I never saw before.... 

We were in a restaurant, having the traditional breakfast of pizza and burgers, when I saw something. She was an elderly lady, but she was a brunette. She was on the way to her table and I couldn't help but notice her gait... I don't mean to be impolite, but it looked as if her head was too large and weighed too much to carry, so it sat kinda  tilted sideways. I have seen much more normal looking 105 year olds. Perhaps her body rejected her head and the head never got the memo. 

I said to myself 'there's something you don't see often.'  Then I looked over to her right to see another quite elderly brunette. The good news was that her body had not rejected her head. In her case, the bottom part of her body had rejected the top half. This took the form of most of the top of her leaning over to one side as she walked. So it looked like she was going 2 places at once. Very clever in its simplicity.

I finally figured out what was up when a young person in scrubs sat down: the young person was chaperoning the old ladies on a trip away from the farm, or wherever it was they came from. Considering the healthcare system, she was probably making an exorbitant amount of money, which could account for the fact that she didn't care, and flip flops were perfectly ok in healthcare and restaurants.

Old Lady #3 (you knew there were more) was less than thrilled with their seating arrangements and proceded to half walk, half stumble to other tables in the general area, to determine suitability for her derrierre for lunch. We weren't sure what the criteria were and we were afraid to speculate. Mrs. lefty heard a conversation among the Seated Ones about the booth not being to their liking. We suspect Old Lady #3 was examining cleanliness of the tables and that none were to her satisfaction. Had we waited, we probably could have seen her wet her finger and hold it up to determine wind direction and speed, as well as the angle of the sun vs the tinted window glass. I felt sorry for the poor healthcare lady, who had to ride herd on 3 or 4 Old Ladies (I can't count that high). I suspect they sometimes use their age to distract her while one of them sneaks off for some nookie (or a cupcake). That poor health aide earns her salary. Next time she's going to lock the ladies in her car while she goes to the restaurant for takeout. Even if one of them fiugured out how to unlock the car, none of them could get out without assistaqnce.

We just looked at each other said said we weren't going to pick on them because that could be us one day. Except they had all their hair. 

• I just made a list of all the lists I have to make

Like everyone else, I have been watching the progress of EVs (electrical vehicles). I think it's great that many are adopting the same plug (Tesla, for better or worse), so more hardware isn't needed.  My concerns remain...

1. I will spend the entire ride looking at the battery gauge, nervous about how 'full' my tank is and how long til it runs out and will I get stuck (even with a planned stop to charge).
2. If I'm concerned about pollution from gas vehicles, I can also be concerned about pollution created in making electricity to charge EVs. Double Secret Neurosis! 
3. Can my mechanic fix it? How much more will it cost? (it's NOT going to be cheaper)
4. Is the cost close to my gas burner?
5. OMG, the tracking.
6. OMG the hacking.
7. NFW a Tesla. Too many bugs and flames.

Interesting to note that if you ride a cycle, you're a person strapped to an engine. In an EV, you're a person belted to batteries. If you happen to explode, the fire company needs special chemicals - water won't work.

Readership at ThermionicEmissions is up. Way up. 

Of course this causes me to question things. From a handful of daily readers to a thousand or two seems somewhat dramatic. I'm inclined to think the algorithms or other stats have simply gone insane. Why can't I just leave it alone and allow it to stroke my ego? You'd think I started posting naked ladies...

• There is just no feeling like the feeling of getting to your desk with a fresh cup of coffee.
• Other than finding your coffee full of grounds... or a fly. Happy Morning, folks!

• P.S. the coffee grounds fall to the bottom. The flies don't (don't ask).

Sarah Silverman and many others are suing ChatGPT for scraping their books and sites.

We are in agreement with the suers - it's their content. Fortunately we here at ThermionicEmissions don't have to worry about this: most of the content at TE isn't allowed to be used in ChatGPT, due to voluntary censorship/sanitizing. 

She was a little young - she still had some acne. But she was very pretty, especially if you stood back a little, where you didn't notice the acne. If you backed up another step or two, she looked even better. Her voice... unfortunately her voice did not share the beauty of her face. It's not that it was shrill, but nails on a chalkboard told me her voice was grating and scary. So from across the room, she was a solid 8, especially where you couldn't hear her. At that point, she looked even better, like a model at a bar. After 5 years, I found myself 17 miles away. I couldn't see her, I couldn't hear her, and she couldn't find me. I was a happy man.