Good morning good morning hello hi how are you I am good I am SO WELL RESTED. Slept ten hours my second night in New York, slept on the plane, slept last night, woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:30 feel just great.

Important news I accidentally bought a Cherry Diet Coke at the grocery store just now and… you know, it’s not bad.

I have today off but I am behind on work from my lost weekend in the middle of the workweek, so I am going to work at my computer all day today but that is okay I kinda missed it.

Ailments check!

Knee injury is still slowly growing. It was smaller than a dime when it started, a year or so ago. It is, now, mmm, I’d say roughly the size of a softball. It is not good. It is getting worse. It is slowly expanding like Area X in the Southern Reach novels. It will consume my whole body at some point.

I am happy and sad to report that this scar tape nonsense is working. Isn’t that weird? Just… slowly making my finger thinner again. Very mysterious. That part is good, but the shit is expensive, and it makes the tip of my finger cold and it makes it hard to type since I can’t use my right middle finger much. There is no particular end game in sight, like most of my ailments, so I guess I just wear it forever and spend a fortune.

My cough is still slowly improving after, mmm, three months? Almost gone. Of course I probably gave myself COVID this week in New York like I always do, so… alas.

I have a new, well, two or so months old, invisible injury on my left middle toe I have no idea what is up with that, can’t see a thing wrong with it, do not recall injuring it, but it hurts to walk on so that is cool.

Neck still sucks. Tennis elbow is still there, but barely noticeable after three years. Unless I press on it.

WOO AILMENTS.

Measles! In our town! Cannot believe this shit. Fucking RFK. It is interesting how when you endeavor to dismantle the entire government some parts collapse quickly, others have more resilience. I honestly would not have had the DOJ and the CDC to be the two to collapse quickest. I woulda thought, like, FEMA and the NEA or something. But as it is, we have Measles in this town, you will too before too long. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Except get the vaccine. But you already knew that because you are sane. It is not 100% protection though and I swear to god if this fucker gives my daughter measles… Well, let’s just stop with that line of thinking.

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We are listening to my new box set re-issue of William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops, which is great writing music. I stupidly ordered this thing from England even though it came out on an American label because I get so excited on, like, the day a record is announced, I start looking around online for anyone who will sell it to me. I did not realize these reissues were on Temporary Residence. I saw some label like “The Arcadia Archive Edition” and thought it was an even rarer, cooler, European reissue. But nope. I just blew, like, $50 in my impatience. Cool, cool. Also took like two months longer to arrive. Yay me.

Just did it again with the new Cindytalk record.

BUT also, when I arrived home I did have a record from Europe waiting for me, one that I cannot in any way obtain in America. It also took like four months to arrive, and I bought it from a seller with whom I had never transacted before so it was a real risk. But it is here, and I am happy. The second LP from the one-man depressive aggro indie-dance poet from Ireland, For Those I Love. My god I love that guy.

Hey good news Amazon/Ring cancelled their partnership with Flock. Or they say they did. But I’ll assume that’s true for a day. Trust but verify, etc. etc. But still, that is a thing activists made happen and well done all of you. Sometimes things work.

DID Ice leave Minnesota yet? No, right? Whole thing was just a press release to pressure democrats to cave in the DHS shutdown negotiations, right? My feeds seem to imply this is the case. Tim, you can weigh in and give me an update. I am excited about the end of DHS funding and yes it will take months and yes the dems will probably cave again as they get scared people will think the TSA shutting down is their fault. They are totally going to cave, aren’t they? God, imagine if they didn’t cave. That would be so great. How pathetic do you have to be to cave when your demands are: follow the law.

And then we have the big AI essay everyone read this week, Something Big is Happening, telling us we are all going to lose our jobs in a couple of months. Very divisive work. The guy who wrote it is not an engineer, and was previously caught falsifying data, so, you know, grain of salt. Noted AI curmudgeon Ed Zitron did a whole note-by-note takedown of it that borders on the absurd, does have a factual error or two, but is also not terrible. And I do think the author is, as all AI people are, utterly off on timelines. I stand by my 2026 bingo card that “not much will happen with AI in 2026.” Speed has always, always, been AI’s biggest misstep, all the way back to the turing days. But of course past failures do not guarantee future failures.

I think that there is a lot of confusion about what, actually, people do in jobs and in professions. BUT I also do know lawyers, and doctors, who are saying things that are not dissimilar to what this guy is saying his (quite possibly made up) lawyer and doctor friends are saying.

AI seems to have this magic ability to make people lose all nuance, mayhaps myself included. But I think I am allowed to hold a few different viewpoints that rare not, in fact, contradictory:

• AI is fucking evil for a bazillion reasons

• AI is going to have a big negative impact on the world, including a bunch of people losing their jobs

• AI might maybe have some positive impact maybe

• None of this is going to happen in six months

Reading that essay gave me a sense of… well I wouldn’t say obsolescence in the way Silicon Valley thinks of it. I’m not, like, “oh god the world is changing and I am old I can’t keep up.” Nor am I like “oh god this is going to make my skills obsolete.” I mean maybe it will, maybe it won’t, I don’t actually care that much.

But rather I feel like obsolescence in the way that Rorschach does in Watchmen. My sense of morality is becoming passé. It is becoming increasingly clear that the dominant moral code of this culture is irreconcilably at odds with mine. Thus far, I have been able to skirt that line and stay employed and feed my family. But I worry that this will come to an end soon. You can only make so many moral compromises. Well, no. You will fucking make them because you’re a parent.

But you will hate yourself and the world that forces this upon you.

I resent how you cannot opt out of this shit I resent them all so much for that.

So! That’s where things are going for me, personally, when it comes to AI.

Cheers!

Took Jane to school but she forgot to bring her purse full of little toys and I stupidly, so stupidly, told her I would bring it to her and drop it off. Do I do this? Has she forgotten about it? It could really go either way. I was backing off on the promise by the time she left the car, but… I dunno man. What have I done.

Got a goth playlist for you today seems fitting what with Valentine’s Day tomorrow and all, right? Mix of old and new. Your cold black heart will thank you for the listen.

Have a lovely weekend. Very excited about Walmart and attic studio work. Will regale you with tales Monday. Xoxo Gossip Girl