That feeling when the year is 2026, you haven’t gone to the post office to mail anything for years, and you partially forget what you’re even supposed to do as you walk up to the counter.

Making a movie that is both scary and funny is extremely rare. Usually if it's funny, that significantly reduces how scary it is. And if it's truly scary, it's unlikely to be funny. Anyway, here's a review of Deadstream (2022) which managed to be both scary and funny. I'm personally not much of a horror film fan, but my husband loves them. So we watch them semi-regularly. Jump scares freak me out, along with the tension leading up to potential jump scares, so I'm that cliche person watching the tv like "nope, nope, don't go in there, nope, why would you do this" while clinging to my husband's arm or something. There's a big ecosystem of low-budget horror films that are made with a lot of care and attention, and this is one of them. It was made by a husband and wife team, and the husband also starred in it. I watched some behind-the-scenes info about it, and the detail that went in was pretty crazy. The non-spoiler premise is that there is a famous streamer who does all sorts of wacky stunts for his audience, but he messed up and got demonetized and cancelled for a while. He's trying to make a comeback now, so he is facing his biggest fear: spending a night alone in a haunted house while livestreaming it. This premise is smart, since it lets them face a lot of horror tropes head-on. Often, horror films are frustrating because characters make stupid decisions like splitting up, or checking on something creepy when they clearly shouldn't, etc. But since this is an influencer doing everything for money and audience, he has rules set up that he *has* to check anything creepy out or he will forfeit the stream's sponsor money, and he has to do certain other things that purposely make it scarier or riskier. It's not an elevated, thematic film at all. Instead, it's a well-executed satirical B-movie that fully owns what it is. Was pleasantly surprised.

I understand why people use AI to generate posts on social media, but I don’t understand why people use AI to generate replies to other people’s posts (other than for influencing campaigns). I see this all the time on X. A small account will reply to one of my posts with something that is clearly AI generated. But it’s actually an attempt at being conversational- it agrees with and summarizes/rephrases my post, and then asks a follow-up question. It’s not some bot generating fake momentum for a polarizing topic or stirring hate and chaos. Not sure I understand why so many people would set up a bot to do those types of semi-constructive replies. I guess they could be trying to grow an account by being perceived as a thoughtful participant, and their human owner might intend to use the account in the future (or in some cases already does use it too) but it doesn’t see to be working for the ones I looked at.

Men and women writing about how the opposite sex is dumb or to blame for everything, has got to be some of the lowest IQ slop on social media at the moment. It’s often framed in intellectual-sounding ways tied to evolution and such, with a kernals of truth, but then it’s cherry-picked and pretty visibly biased, and the same sort of accounts keep putting out tons of it like an obsession. Most of it is a waste of time. Just do cool things.

In a world of AI slop writing, I’m prioritizing brevity more than ever. As Blaise Pascal (not Mark Twain to whom it is often attributed) once wrote, “I only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” I am increasingly putting in the time to make things shorter.

One of the most successful pirates in history was Zheng Yi Sao, a Chinese woman. Historians aren't clear about her early life; she may have been a prostitute. But in her twenties she married a pirate lord who commanded a large confederation of pirates, and thus lived a live of piracy with him for years. When he died in the early1800s, rather than the confederation turning to chaos, she managed to take command of it. She married her late husband's adopted son Zhang Bao as well (she was in her 30s, he in his 20s), and he became basically the #2 in the fleet under her, and that helped cement things. Over the next few years, the confederation grew to hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of pirates. They were one of the biggest powers in the South China Sea, rivaling the navies of China, Portugal, and Britain who were active in the region. In 1810, however, she saw that the future probably wouldn't be so bright for her and the pirates. A pirate confederation is a chaotic thing, and cannot last against multiple navies indefinitely. But pirates rarely ever quit while they're ahead; they almost all end up dying violently. The Chinese and other navies were working together and were pretty desperate to get rid of piracy, and were willing to negotiate. However after months, negotiations broke down between the authorities and the various pirate lords, including Zhang Bao, until Zheng Yi Sao went personally to the Chinese governor's mansion that they were primarily negotiating with, at great personal risk. Just walked right in there with a small delegation, without any fighting force, to negotiate, and got it done. After that, the pirates surrendered from a position of strength. Zheng Yi Sao, Zhang Bao, and others received pardons and got to keep most of their wealth. Zhang Bao became an officer in the Chinese navy, commanding a fleet like he used to. Zheng Yi Sao received land and founded a gambling house. Their marriage was recognized by the Chinese government, having been an unofficial "pirate marriage" beforehand. Zhang Bao eventually died age 39, still in service in the navy. Zheng Yi Sao died at 68, having lived decades overseeing her gambling house, and with children from both her marriages. A pirate lord that retired wealthy and peacefully, and managed to navigate the transition away from piracy in a way that let the most reasonable pirates all quit while they were ahead.

Zheng Yi Sao - Wikipedia

My accountant going through my zaps for tax season like

The Supreme Court just struck down Trump's use of emergency powers to impose global, indefinite tariffs (i.e. the tariffs actually have to go through Congress like other taxes, if they're going to be imposed). -Some specific tariffs, such as those on aluminum and steel, cite other laws for justification and can still be applied. -The Trump administration previously said they'll attempt other laws as justification if the Supreme Court strikes down their use of emergency powers.