I've been watching "The Expanse" and "Star Trek" again, and thinking about how Sci-Fi depicts AI automation. In Star Trek, you hear the character use a wake word, "Computer, build me a database..." In "The Expanse," they don't use a wake word at all.

Both shows have something interesting; the response is not some sycophant response. Just a beep or an acknowledgment if the computer can't do something. Not this BS "Wow, what a great idea. Let me get that going"

Real life is more dystopian

I absolutely love the Davidson Reserve brand by Pennington Distilling, and I initially wanted to write this post to gush over them, but their website is broken in Safari, Firefox, and Vivaldi. I’m not going to download Chrome to try it, but now, I’m just pissed at web developers, and a little bit drunk.

https://www.penningtondistillingco.com

I'm on the server floor of a "highly secure data center with 24/7/365 surveillance, direct access control and robust perimeter security".

An actual duck just walked by. 🦆

The panic is absolutely glorious. I think this just became one of the highlights of my life.

Inconceivable.

Cartoon by Joe Heller.

This from Wil Wheaton is lovely (and it opens with what is probably my favorite paragraph in all of literature)

Later in the piece he says this

https://wilwheaton.net/2025/12/this-is-such-a-painful-loss-my-heart-is-broken/

This is what it was supposed to look like.

/cc @Crell @mwop

At least my message shows up there. I can’t say the same for externals.io, where it looks like I posted a blank message. https://externals.io/message/129077#129610

I can’t even begin to imagine what rough formatting beast slouched its way into my mail client to produce this atrocity: https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/129610

(Apple Mail on iOS needs a plain text option.)

#MonsterdonAlert

Sunday, Dec 21, 2025, 8PM CT (2AM Monday UTC)

IT'S #MONSTERDON

we will be watching:

Tales From the Crypt (1972)

BECAUSE

it has an evil Santa in it and this week is

#MonsterdonSavesChristmas !!

Monsterdon is raising money for charity this week and you can win some cool stuff that monsterdonners have made!

its a giveaway. (not a raffle) we're not collecting money or selling tickets or anything

how it works:

any time this week before monsterdon (or like now if you want 👀) make a donation to charity, screenshot it (scrub your personal info! we don't want it!) and DM the screenshot to:

@xoagray

(NOT to ME. we want to keep the tally straight)

we are recommending as charities the Trans Lifeline and the Rainbow Railroad but you can give to a different charity if you want

donate any amount you like (also if you can't afford to donate you can still be entered. you will have the same odds of winning something regardless, one entry per person, void where prohibited, etc etc)

also if you're one of the people donating an item for the giveaway please post about it with the hashtags #monsterdon and #monsterdonsaveschristmas so people can see what they can win!

boosts appreciated!!

I really enjoyed this interview with Ethan Hawke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9knw1clkrE&feature=youtu.be

Oh, wow! Rob Reiner and his wife were both found dead yesterday, and police are investigating it as a homicide.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/director-rob-reiner-has-died-police-investigating-homicide-in-brentwood-0d6827c5

My brother-in-law (and all the rest of our family) absolutely love #NationalLampoons #ChristmasVacation. His sister made him these cookies. They are art. Amazing. I’m totally jealous.
#baking #cookies #christmas

Have you just made a git commit that's too big? Learn how to split it into 2 with the help if git reset.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPXuXW3bCBQ&list=PL4ENURnhqMwvi31ELaUf0HrJIkH9wIuN8&index=14

In 30 minutes it’s #Monsterdon! This week, we’re watching The She-Creature (1956).

Join us! Start the film at 8pm CST (2am UTC), follow the #Monsterdon hashtag, and contribute your own zany commentary. Cheers!

#Monsterdon: https://timeloop.cafe/@Taweret/115713677120271143
#MonsterdonBingo: https://bingobaker.com/#693f656da0d016e6
#MonsterdonDrink: https://mstdn.plus/@JoeWynne/115708082898379353
#MonsterdonStream: https://miru.miyaku.media

The $100 Trillion Disruption: The Unforeseen Economic Earthquake
https://wildfirelabs.substack.com/p/the-100-trillion-disruption-the-unforeseen

Most solids have a crystalline structure at the molecular level. The molecules form a rigid, repeating pattern. Glass does not have this property. It is amorphous; the molecules have no defined arrangement.

In 2017, a study computed the rate of flow of the medieval glass in Westminster Abbey, and they “calculated that the maximum flow rate of medieval glass is 1 nm per billion years, making it impossible to observe in a human timescale.”

Science teachers in middle school taught me that glass is a liquid, but today, I learned that is a myth.

Glass does not flow. “The sags and ripples observed in old glass were already there the day it was made.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass#Reputed_flow

Maybe I learned this long ago and forgot—it happens—but…

TIL Nintendo was founded in 1889.

They made arcade games for yakuza-run gaming parlors.