A charismatic technology shapes the whole field around it, the way a magnet organises iron filings.
"AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying", Kevin T. Baker for The Guardian
Submitted by Anne.
Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.
Via Pope Chicago.
Man is basically a battlefield, a dark cellar in which a well-bred spinster lady and a sex-crazed monkey are forever engaged in mortal combat, the struggle being refereed by a rather nervous bank clerk.
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, Norman F. Dixon
Submitted by Julia via an essay in Bloomberg.
In order to hide you need some fairly vivid details.
This Year: 365 Songs Annotated, John Darnielle
"I'm not taking credit for anything that's in the game, other than we got to sit there in the room and throw completely absurd ideas at the wall and have them say, 'Wow, that is a crazy idea,'" said Bucklew, who in a previous interview with PC Gamer said the ideal form of life is a limbless sphere because we have only wielded our appendages towards ungodly ends.
"The co-creators of Caves of Qud, our favorite roguelike fever dream, worked as narrative consultants on Marathon—which mostly meant they 'got to sit there in the room and throw completely absurd ideas at the wall'", Lincoln Carpenter for PC Gamer
Submitted by Tully. It's a mouthful, but I appreciate the "show don't tell" of demonstrating the level of crazy idea this guy is capable of.
I wonder if I could put down for a moment my burden of lies.
The Fever, Wallace Shawn
Ramsey and I saw Wallace Shawn perform this at a theater on Monday night; in my notes I had it written as "bundle of lies" and maybe that is what he in fact said in this performance. Shawn had a copy of the script on stage, set on a little side table just in case he needed to refer to it ("As it so happens, I am old", he explained, "and when you get old, you forget things"), but he never consulted it in the full two hours of monologue so maybe it was a slip on his part. The slippage of "bundle" and "burden" could also be me rendering the lies a tidier collection rather than a weight.
In prose, this is the full sentence (I interpreted the em-dashes as separate sentences):
And I feel such joy—the coolness of the breeze—I wonder if I could put down for a moment my burden of lies, of lying—just put it right down on the floor beside me.
Other sentences I noted during the play:
Then there's another guard, a woman whose face is like a cake that's soaked in rage.
I myself was a funny-smelling doll.
Was everyone now a communist but me?
There's never enough consolation.
While you lean on a technological crutch of grammatical mediocrity to drag your essays over the finish line, I’ll be metaphorically zipping past you on my “magic carpet” of words emerging directly from my own declining and unpredictable brain.
"Go Ahead and Use AI. It Will Only Help Me Dominate You.", Hamilton Nolan in his newsletter How Things Work
Submitted by George.
As residents get more acquainted with the multi-wheeled entities with anthropomorphic eyes that blink and wink, it raises the question of why a company would roll out robots in a city known for murdering them.
"Philadelphians are messing with Uber Eats delivery robots. It’s hitchBOT all over again.", Henry Savage for the Philadelphia Inquirer
She owned a water purifier that bulged like a malignancy on the kitchen sink faucet.
John Henry Days, Colson Whitehead
Submitted by Komara.
World’s oldest tortoise caught in viral crypto death scam
A headline in The Guardian
Megalithic monuments were destroyed by the construction of bunkers.
Wikipedia entry for Île Longue
Submitted by Kelsey.
By then, I knew I made a poor ghost.
Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, Jacob Silverman
Voters want kindness paired with the ability to throw a punch — leaders who look like a cinnamon bun but could actually kill you.
"What the Staples Baddie should teach us about politics in 2026", Amanda Litman in her newsletter
Submitted by Wendy.
You just read issue #171 of Perfect Sentences. You can also browse the full archives of this newsletter.
