Twitter's marketplace of ideas Nov 23, 2025
I feel like "old twitter" was sort of a marketplace of ideas -- you know, the thing right wingers are always clamoring for.  It was free and open, and the marketplace (a.k.a. the userbase) allowed good ideas to percolate and bad ideas to be ridiculed.  People with bad ideas didn't like this system because it didn't allow them to spread their bad ideas. 

Enter Elon Musk, prominent Nazi.  Musk didn't like the marketplace so he simply bought it.  He changed the structure from "free and open" to "pay to win" so that paying customers would have their voices heard more.  Instead of good ideas rising to the top, bad ideas bought their way in.  On top of that, engagement became the new currency, so the bad ideas with the most engagement dominated the marketplace.  Twitter's marketplace of ideas is now a swamp of shit with the absolute worst people and worst ideas on the very top. 

Critics will say Elon had to do something to make Twitter profitable.  That sounds reasonable, but I have my doubts.  Tech companies absolutely don't need to make money.  Most corporations don't need to make money.  Private investments, stock buybacks, corporate restructurings, and mass layoffs are how pretty much all companies operate at what appears to be a profit.  It's all made up and doesn't matter at all.  The point is, Elon destroyed twitter because he's an awful lunatic attempting to curry favor with the most despicable human beings on the planet.
Government shutdown 2025 Nov 15, 2025
The government has been shut down for the past almost month and a half due to a funding disagreement.  As an employee of the federal government, I've been sort of unemployed this whole time.  Certain projects at work were in an "excepted" state which meant work was to continue as normal, while other projects were simply put on pause until funding resumed.  Some people have been doing absolutely nothing, while other people have been going to the office and working full-time.  I lucked out due to my funding level on one of those projects, and only had to work "to my allotment" which was 25%, which meant I did two hours of work per day and then called it a day.  If there's any doubt about this type of work schedule, I can firmly state this is the ideal amount of work that should be attempted in one day.  Two hours is enough to focus on something, make some progress, maybe complete a thing, and then call it quits.  It's the perfect work/life balance. 

The only downside was that we weren't getting paid.  There was an expectation that we would get paid after the shutdown ended, and this was even codified as a law after a previous shutdown.  But I no longer have confidence in the government's ability or willingness to follow laws.  Working without pay is fine for a short time, but it brings up some interesting questions after a while.  Like, how long do I feel like working without getting paid, and how hard do I feel like working?  At what point should I consider a different job, preferably one that pays me?  Because as much as I like my job, at the end of the day, it's a job.  If I didn't have to work for a living, I wouldn't.  If I could devote my time to something while not getting paid, it wouldn't be my job. 

But the other interesting question was:  What the hell should I do with my time?  It's hard to predict when a government shutdown will end, so you don't want to make any big future plans or anything.  So I mostly did nothing with my newfound free time.  I played video games, watched TV.  Standard things I would do with my downtime in pseudo-vacation mode.  But after a couple weeks, I decided I should probably be productive in some form, so I did a few house projects that have been waiting around for months.  Again, even with two hours of work and a few hours of home improvement work, it's still a great work/life balance. 

Which, by the way, I think the last time I had this much free time in my life was when I was maybe 15 years old, before I started working a summer job.  After that point, it was work, high school, college, summer internships, and then a full-time job.  High school and college weren't easy, stress-free times for me, so I've basically been "on" for the past 28 years straight. 

The source of the government shutdown was a disagreement between the president's budget proposal and congress's acceptance of that bill.  Now that the furlough is over, government employees have been assured they will receive back pay both for the actual work they did and also for the work they didn't do, i.e. they'll be paid for not working.  As a taxpayer, this is an absurd situation.  But as a government employee who had no say in whether or not the government was shut down, it's a no-brainer.  Pay me what you owe me, bitch.  I signed up for this job, I've created a life based around receiving a certain annual salary.  A political disagreement is honestly not my fucking problem.  And honestly it's a weird situation, where it's unclear who benefits from a government shutdown.  Surely the government workers don't benefit, and neither do the businesses and restaurants and all manner of other trickle-down economic players who aren't receiving that routine flow of cash.  But also the taxpayers don't benefit because not only are those tax dollars still being spent, you're also not getting the work production value out of them.  As far as I can tell, the only people who benefit are the small-brained politicians who get to essentially take hostage the entire national economic apparatus to exercise their silly little power plays. #politics
Football shape Nov 8, 2025
I think it's funny that the literal shape of the ball plays an important part in the game of football.  Most other ball sports that I can think of off the top of my head (baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, golf) have balls that are spheres, so the shape doesn't really come into play.  The texture (basketball), seams (baseball), and material (golf) all play a role, but not the shape.  A football is weird because it's oblong and pointy.  It makes it easy for a quarterback to throw, a ball-carrier to hold, and a receiver to catch.  But if the ball bounces off the ground, it literally exhibits unpredictable, random motion.  Sometimes that's good if you're punting or kicking and don't want the other team to have the ball.  But other times it's bad if you're trying to scoop up a fumble.  It's never not funny watching a group of large, athletic men chase around an chaotically bouncing ball. #sports