Fear and Tooting in Las Vegas

Reading through a list that attempts to give a recommended biography for every US President, and in the summary for Bush the Elder is the phrase

"and never even sniffed at any kind of scandal"

Kind of an odd way to refer to Iran-Contra.

https://www.readmorebooks.co/p/best-president-biographies

@freediverx@mastodon.social @aral@mastodon.ar.al Is it true that Britain withdrew from the EU because of behind the scenes influence from the British face-eating leopards industry?

@aral@mastodon.ar.al "But what if we raised our own face-eating leopards, instead of these costly foreign imports...?"

Happy birthday, Hunter. It's probably for the best for your legacy that you got out when you did, I don't think that the last 20 years would have been kind to it if you'd been around.

Your writing had clearly declined, but even towards the end there were breathtaking moments of clarity, and I don't think there will be a better dissection of when things went off the rails in America than "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail."

Res Ipsa Loquitur

Buy the ticket. Take the ride.

"Why do I keep going to the break room and grabbing a thing of Reeses Pieces? Because I don't have the same awkward conversations with HR when I come in reeking of cough syrup and airplane glue."

@sohan@freeradical.zone Do France next!

YouTube: "To see this video, we need to verify your age."
Me: "OK, what, just like selecting a date and clicking 'Accept'?"
YouTube: "Would you like to upload a selfie of you with your license?"

Welp. That browser tab closed.

@cstross@wandering.shop I will pay GOOD CASH MONEYS for a World Cup final where the US loses BIGLY to Iran. Even better would be if the US is getting bounced by Iran from the runner-up cup. I know that there is no shot of this happening, but damn it I have dreams too......

@cstross@wandering.shop I'm still waiting for when one of these Next Level Geniuses seriously and unironically names something "Torment Nexus".

It's Cinco de Mayo, so the work chat channels are predictably becoming insufferable.

@arclight @munin No, really, my photo ID is Snidely Whiplash.

@mwl@io.mwl.io Is this one of those "Lord of the Rings was better in its original Klingon" memes?

@drwho @arclight There's a general mindset that once something is "done" it's in production and suddenly into some sort of protective shell where it doesn't ever need to be touched.

"Empanadas are Hot Pockets that studied abroad."

Don't mind me, I'll just be sitting here in the dark catching my breath.

Damn @mhoye@cosocial.ca and his "Oh, here's a link to Angine de Poitrine on YouTube for you" shenanigans.

@arclight Current practice is somewhere around "LEEEEERROY JENKINS!!!!!" I think I'm one of the last admins that cut their teeth doing everything -- servers, storage, networking, backups, phone systems. All the domains are now little fiefdoms, nobody knows how anything works in the other fiefdoms, and I spend a distressing amount of time knowing just enough to eventually get things spanning groups resolved. Plus Security as a Haley's Comet like thing that flies through the orbits on occasion.

@grimalkina Modern-day burning of the Library of Alexandria happening right before our eyes.

@hrbrmstr@mastodon.social @noamross@ecoevo.social Glad to see you posting again as well, thought the Mass natives had swarmed you early this year like hordes of poorly driving zombies.

@cstross It probably means she was *apprenticed* to Ghislaine Maxwell.

@cstross@wandering.shop "No, no, I saw it online, this will *totally* work."

@cstross@wandering.shop I am giving my work's AI ALL THE THINGS!!!!!1!1! noise a side eye, but after seeing the Christmas mural that you passed along I'm thinking I really want to go hard on AI for PowerPoint slide generation. "Whoops! Looks like that was based on a still from John Carpenter's 'The Thing'. My bad."

@cstross@wandering.shop Can we pay someone to mutter "the angles are all wrong" and then skulk away?

@cstross@wandering.shop "....and that, my friends, is how we summoned the Hounds of Tindalos to rampage through six major metropolitan cities at the same time. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk."