The Zombie Internet

There's a great article up at 404 Media about the tidal wave of bot-generated AI glurge that's swamping social media:

All of this, taken together, is why I think we should not view Facebook’s AI spam through the lens of the “Dead Internet.” The platform has become something worse than bots talking to bots. It is bots talking to bots, bots talking to bots at the direction of humans, humans talking to humans, humans talking to bots, humans arguing about a fake thing made by a bot, humans talking to no one without knowing it, hijacked human accounts turned into bots, humans worried that the other humans they’re talking to are bots, hybrid human/bot accounts, the end of a shared reality, and, at the center of all of this: One of the most valuable companies on the planet enabling this shitshow because its human executives and shareholders have too much money riding on the mass adoption of a reality-breaking technology to do anything about it.

You should click through and read the whole thing.

Negligent Discharge

So one of the NYPD cops, an ESU* officer at that, cranked off a round in the Columbia building that was temporarily occupied by student protestors. He was using the weapon-mounted light to find a way to navigate barriers in the dark. Fortunately the bullet didn't hit anyone.

There was absolutely no reason to have an unholstered firearm in the middle of that Punch & Judy Show. That was a job for a handheld light, not the SureFire U-Boat screwed to your Glock. 

People act like just having a light on a pistol turns it into some sort of dual-purpose tool and next thing you know they're using it to direct traffic or look for stuff they dropped under their squad car in the dark. I swear to gawd, it's only a matter of time before we hear about some Officer Fife using it to check for horizontal gaze nystagmus.

*NYPD Emergency Services Unit contains their equivalent of SWAT, but not all ESU officers are SWAT dudes.

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When Concealed Isn't...

This dude doesn't care too much.

Like the folks in these photos, sometimes people just aren't really trying to conceal their firearm, and if there's no legal requirement to do so, fine. That's up to the toter.

But what if you are and you think it's been spotted anyway? Note here that we're talking about a situation where there's no legal reason you can't be carrying and therefore no legal repercussions to being discovered, but you'd still prefer to be discreet. If you think you've been "made", what's a good response? Greg Ellifritz has some ideas.

This dude only sorta cares.

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Automotif CDXCIV...

The fourth generation of Ford's F-series pickup trucks were produced from the 1960 through the 1966 model years. The 1965 models, like the faded Light Turquoise F100 in the photo above, saw an entirely new frame slid under the existing body design, featuring a "Twin I-Beam" swing-axle front suspension in place of the previous solid axle. This basic chassis would remain in use through the '79 model year.

For '65, the F100 could be had with two flavors of inline six: a 150hp (SAE Gross) 240 cubic inch inline six, or a longer stroke 300cid version of the same motor rated at 170 horsepower. The V-8 badge on the hood indicates this one has the 208hp 352-cube "FE"-series big block V-8, which was the most powerful engine that had been offered in an F-series truck up to that time.

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Meme Dump...

So basically...

What happened was that pollen season got started with a bang and I was late noticing and starting prophylactic Claritin use. So both my sinuses and lungs began filling with fluids and then, unusually, I managed to pick up a low-grade upper respiratory tract infection and a flareup of bronchitis at the same time.

I'm finally on the mend, but it's been an unpleasant week

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Here comes the rain again...

And not a moment too soon, either. The amount of pollen in the air has been giving my sinuses fits, such that every time I blow my nose, the bones in my skull creak and groan like the hull of a u-boat changing depth.

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Tab Clearing...

• Wingo: The short-lived indoor shotgun wingshooting game.


• Training Terminology: Flash Sight Picture, Hammer, and Controlled Pair.


• Hipster Tactical reviews the Daewoo DP51.

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Automotif CDXCIII...

The owner had de-badged the decklid of this super-clean Cherry Red '87-'93 Saab 900. With the alloy wheels and spoiler it's probably a 900S or Turbo, but I'm not enough of a Saab nerd to pick up the subtler details.

...and back to Ouch.

Between torn external intercostal muscles from grappling with a very large dude while trying to shoot him with a sims gun, and strained internal intercostal muscles from a day of violently trying to cough my lungs clear of deep-seated nastiness, I gotta say that the former may hurt worse, but the latter is no picnic either.

Robitussin, take me away!

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