Ahh denkushi (伝串) was one of the foulest surprises I had when out drinking around Shinjuku one fine evening. I thought they were little deep fried pieces of chicken but ended up biting into a semi chewy grease sponge of chicken skin. I bought three skewers of the stuff and had to gag them down with a pitcher of Sapporo. At least they were cheap like 50 yen each.

Any computer science courses? I’d love to take an intro to Linux or intro to network hacking class.

Ended up chipping my tooth on a tiny seed in my curry.

Ear infections hurt though.

They’ve been conditioned to not care or even desire it. Smartphones had Siri and Google Assistant as a selling point, which led to ever more intrusive tech that was marketed as a convenience. Facebook took it a step further and had you label people in pictures uploaded to them and you sign away your privacy in their terms and conditions. Advanced marketing techniques were irresistible to social media companies and so consumer profiles of everyone they could get became a thing.

Jokes about seeing ads that smartphones can overhear made the intrusive spying all the more accepted as just a part of life. Android marks your calendar and reminds you of appointments made using your Gmail account when you never asked it to. Ring doorbell cameras quietly sell their video feeds to the highest bidder, often to law enforcement as a convenient means to circumvent the 4th amendment. And now the latest trend is to have your car do everything your phone already does but take it a step further by monitoring your driving habits so insurance companies can justify raising your premiums.

The average person isn’t tech savvy enough to understand they’re being sold as a product even after paying for their own surveillance gear. They just want modern conveniences without thinking the price they pay beyond the original sale.

The only way to truly avoid that outcome is with enforceable rules around consent, transparency, and control, letting drivers see exactly what’s being collected, who it’s going to, and giving them a real way to say no. That, or skip the connected car entirely and drive something that isn’t quietly reporting back every time you hit the brakes.

Yeah none of that’s gonna happen anytime soon. When my 16 year old car bites the dust my next car will be another one from that same era. I’m not letting big brother know everything about me and jack up my insurance rates for the privilege of being spied on.

A lot of places around here aren’t observing this holiday. It’s kinda sad.

The rest of NATO needs to step up and make a military exercise off the coast of Canada as a show of force that it shouldn’t be messed around with even among allies.

The injuries will be spectacular.

California’s already suffered plenty under the dipshit’s leadership of ICE. I got to see the aftermath of an ICE raid in a busy commercial Latino street. The place was dead when it should’ve been bustling with delivery vans, people, and opened businesses. It was devastating.

Curious. The N91790 tail designation on that sculpture doesn’t quite match up with the Cessna that’s still in use in Florida. I wonder if the FAA recycles their numbers.

It’s for ritualistic burnt offerings of course.

What’s the point of paying for overpriced game cartridges when the software isn’t onboard and are just a license to download them? The Switch 1 was still tolerable because you got to own the titles you physically purchased and could access locally at any time. There’s no long term argument for owning a Switch 2.

Clearly not enough damage has been done since Nvidia’s stock price is still in the stratosphere.

Or that the other branches of government haven’t abdicated their obligations for checks and balances. They’ve given him carte blanche to be a king in this country.

We forget the lessons of the past all too quickly.

Work any non-union corporate job. You can’t pick your boss, you have to do what you’re told as soon as possible, and you are under constant surveillance. You’re also expected to publicly act enthusiastic over stupid management policy announcements. Deviate from any of this and you’re punished by losing your livelihood.

Who said it won’t eventually?

They’ve probably had their parents murdered by a blind gunman.

US swamps must have so many diabetic gators.