#benefits of olive

[themarychain]

ok okokok GASP. when farleigh and oliver are playing fuck marry kill and farleigh says that he’d like to fuck richard iii because ‘he’s insecure, so you know he’d put in the work’… oliver has been insecure all his life and doesn’t fit in anywhere. oliver told elspeth ‘unlike you, I actually know how to work’. richard iii allegedly killed his way to the throne just like oliver did. farleigh was attracted to oliver because he put in the work !!!!

[k-wame]

Emerald Fennel Writer/Director of 'Saltburn' Breaks Down the Arrival Scene from 'Saltburn' for Vanity Fair Magazine via Youtube

[iltrpls]

It doesn’t have to mean anything, that’s what Buck had said the first time.

But Eddie can’t help it, he can’t help himself as he feels Buck finally cum into him, throwing his head back with his eyes shut, a blissed and tired look on his face. Eddie can’t let it go, can’t ignore the nagging feeling that he wants it to mean something.

OR :buck and eddie friends with benefits situation that spans over the years and comes to an ultimate end when Buck and Tommy becomes boyfriends and makes him insecure about being big, which Eddie… cannot accept. the friends-with-benefits, cheating, belly kink fic

[mihrsuri]

I made this for me.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dinkclump Linkdump

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in LA (Saturday night, with Adam Conover), Seattle (Monday, with Neal Stephenson), then Portland, Phoenix and more!

Some Saturday mornings, I look at the week's blogging and realize I have a lot more links saved up than I managed to write about this week, and then I do a linkdump. There've been 14 of these, and this is number 15:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Attentive readers will note that this isn't Saturday. You're right. But I'm on a book tour and every day is shatterday, because damn, it's grueling and I'm not the spry manchild who took Little Brother on the road in 2008 – I'm a 52 year old with two artificial hips. Hence: an out-of-cycle linkdump. Come see me on tour and marvel at my verticality!

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour

Best thing I read this week, hands down, was Ryan Broderick's Garbage Day piece, "AI search is a doomsday cult":

https://www.garbageday.email/p/ai-search-doomsday-cult

Broderick makes so many excellent points in this piece. First among them: AI search sucks, but that's OK, because no one is asking for AI search. This only got more true later in the week when everyone's favorite spicy autocomplete accidentally loaded the James Joyce module:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/chatgpt-alarms-users-by-spitting-out-shakespearean-nonsense-and-rambling/

(As Matt Webb noted, Chatbots have slid rapidly from Star Trek (computers give you useful information in a timely fashion) to Douglas Adams (computers spout hostile, impenetrable nonsense at you):

https://interconnected.org/home/2024/02/21/adams

But beyond the unsuitability of AI for search results and beyond the public's yawning indifference to AI-infused search, Broderick makes a more important point: AI search is about summarizing web results so you don't have to click links and read the pages yourself.

If that's the future of the web, who the fuck is going to write those pages that the summarizer summarizes? What is the incentive, the business-model, the rational explanation for predicting a world in which millions of us go on writing web-pages, when the gatekeepers to the web have promised to rig the game so that no one will ever visit those pages, or read what we've written there, or even know it was us who wrote the underlying material the summarizer just summarized?

If we stop writing the web, AIs will have to summarize each other, forming an inhuman centipede of botshit-ingestion. This is bad news, because there's pretty solid mathematical evidence that training a bot on botshit makes it absolutely useless. Or, as the authors of the paper – including the eminent cryptographer Ross Anderson – put it, "using model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects":

https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493

This is the mathematical evidence for Jathan Sadowski's "Hapsburg AI," or, as the mathematicians call it, "The Curse of Recursion" (new band-name just dropped).

But if you really have your heart set on living in a ruined dystopia dominated by hostile artificial life-forms, have no fear. As Hamilton Nolan writes in "Radical Capital," a rogues gallery of worker-maiming corporations have asked a court to rule that the NLRB can't punish them for violating labor law:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/radical-capital

Trader Joe’s, Amazon, Starbucks and SpaceX have all made this argument to various courts. If they prevail, then there will be no one in charge of enforcing federal labor law. Yes, this will let these companies go on ruining their workers' lives, but more importantly, it will give carte blanche to every other employer in the land. At one end of this process is a boss who doesn't want to recognize a union – and at the other end are farmers dying of heat-stroke.

The right wing coalition that has put this demand before the court has all sorts of demands, from forced birth to (I kid you not), the end of recreational sex:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/02/getting-rid-of-birth-control-is-a-key-gop-agenda-item-for-the-second-trump-term

That coalition is backed by ultra-rich monopolists who want wreck the nation that their rank-and-file useful idiots want to wreck your body. These are the monopoly cheerleaders who gave us the abomination that is the Pharmacy Benefit Manager – a useless intermediary that gets to screw patients and pharmacists – and then let PBMs consolidate and merge with pharmacy monopolists.

One such inbred colossus is Change Healthcare, a giant PBM that is, in turn, a mere tendril of United Healthcare, which merged the company with Optum. The resulting system – held together with spit and wishful thinking – has access to the health records of a third of Americans and processes 15 billion prescriptions per day.

Or rather, it did process that amount – until the all-your-eggs-in-one-badly-maintained basket strategy failed on Wednesday, and Change's systems went down due to an unspecified "cybersecurity incident." In the short term, this meant that tens of millions of Americans who tried to refill their prescriptions were told to either pay cash or come back later (if you don't die first). That was the first shoe dropping. The second shoe is the medical records of a third of the country.

Don't worry, I'm sure those records are fine. After all, nothing says security like "merging several disparate legacy IT systems together while simultaneously laying off half your IT staff as surplus to requirements and an impediment to extracting a special dividend for the private equity owners who are, of course, widely recognized as the world's greatest information security practitioners."

Look, not everything is terrible. Some computers are actually getting better. Framework's user-serviceable, super-rugged, easy-to-repair, powerful laptops are the most exciting computers I've ever owned – or broken:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/13/graceful-failure/#frame

Now you can get one for $500!

https://frame.work/blog/first-framework-laptop-16-shipments-and-a-499-framework

And the next generation is turning our surprisingly well, despite all our worst efforts. My kid – now 16! – and I just launched our latest joint project, "The Sushi Chronicles," a small website recording our idiosyncratic scores for nearly every sushi restaurant in Burbank, Glendale, Studio City and North Hollywood:

https://sushichronicles.org/

This is the record of two years' worth of Daughter-Daddy sushi nights that started as a way to get my picky eater to try new things and has turned into the highlight of my week. If you're in the area and looking for a nice piece of fish, give it a spin (also, we belatedly realized that we've never reviewed our favorite place, Kuru Kuru in the CVS Plaza on North Hollywood Way – we'll be rectifying that soon).

And yes, we have a lavishly corrupt Supreme Court, but at least now everyone knows it. Glenn Haumann's even set up a Gofundme to raise money to bribe Clarence Thomas (now deleted, alas):

https://www.gofundme.com/f/pzhj4q-the-clarence-thomas-signing-bonus-fund-give-now

The funds are intended as a "signing bonus" in the event that Thomas takes up John Oliver on his offer of a $2.4m luxury RV and $1m/year for life if he'll resign from the court:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE-VJrdHMug

This is truly one of Oliver's greatest bits, showcasing his mastery over the increasingly vital art of turning abstruse technical issues into entertainment that negates the performative complexity used by today's greatest villains to hide their misdeeds behind a Shield of Boringness (h/t Dana Clare).

The Bezzle is my contribution to turning abstruse scams into a high-impact technothriller that pierces that Shield of Boringness. The key to this is to master exposition, ignoring the (vastly overrated) rule that one must "show, not tell." Good exposition is hard to do, but when it works, it's amazing (as anyone who's read Neal Stephenson's 1,600-word explanation of how to eat Cap'n Crunch cereal in Cryptonomicon can attest). I wrote about this for Mary Robinette Kowal's "My Favorite Bit" this week:

https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit/my-favorite-bit-cory-doctorow-talks-about-the-bezzle/

Of course, an undisputed master of this form is Adam Conover, whose Adam Ruins Everything show helped invent it. Adam is joining me on stage in LA tomorrow night at Vroman's at 5:30PM, to host me in a book-tour event for my novel The Bezzle:

https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Cory-Doctorow-discusses-The-Bezzle

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/23/gazeteer/#out-of-cycle

Image: Peter Craven (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aggregate_output_%287637833962%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[shitakimooshrooms]

I spent like an hour writing my au for Percy Weasley’s 7 years at hogwarts + the aftermath with my headcanoned group of friends/polycule that he has and I’m not even done. I will post it tomorrow if I finish it then. (Please read tags for more info)

[trivialbob]

Oliver hasn't been to a brewery in a long time. Last weekend we left him and the other dogs with a sitter (at our house).

This week he hasn't left my side. It's been hot outside, which doesn't make him happy. Sheila is out of town tonight. That means I can only bring one dog to the brewery.

It had to be him.

[praetoravila]

can u tell i’m in olive hyperfixation mode?

[dreams-in-daylight]

.

[trevlad-sounds]

Invisible Club 16

05.06.2024

🔊🫥♣️🔗🌳🔊

Spotify playlist of “all” the Invisible Club https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3H73nyf3Pct3BFU5GfTrg0?si=dd4a9284a14b4086

Hello. Trevor here. It’s time to enter the Invisible Club. 16 tracks from 16 artists for how ever long that takes.

Invisible Club 16

Invisible Club comes out every Wednesday and is a compliment to Invisible Waves. With less talk and more action. Enjoy…

Intro 00:00 Bushmeat Sound System-Mission AD 01:22 Uomo Meccanico-Accuminciamm 09:16 The Galaxy Electric & Droog Mulholland-Red Ball 10:40 Matthewdavid-9_WALKONMEDLEY 13:51 James Adrian Brown Featuring Benefits-The End Of Radio 15:40 Serge Geyzel-Side A – Quick Time Traveller 19:49 Moray Newlands-The Wasp Factory 24:18 David Douglas & Applescal-Breakaway 28:28 Escape The Loops-Bob’s Green Mazda 31:59 Romare-Priestess 36:38 Quiet Dawn, Oliver Night-Follow Your Instincts 40:42 HDRF-Kristallgarten 4 46:10 Christ-White Count 48:53 Julio Tornero-beta 53:31 Xylic-Óberon 56:40 Futuregrapher-Geimhús 59:11 Outro 1:04:34

[oliveroctavius]

got a script running in the background during my workday that will autoblock any new blank blogs that follow me. fingers crossed this helps

[livvyofthelake]

this woman will be totally beefed out with a middle school boy who doesn’t care because he just thinks she’s the coolest lady on planet earth and she doesn’t even give a fuck…

[iltrpls]

It doesn’t have to mean anything, that’s what Buck had said the first time.

But Eddie can’t help it, he can’t help himself as he feels Buck finally cum into him, throwing his head back with his eyes shut, a blissed and tired look on his face. Eddie can’t let it go, can’t ignore the nagging feeling that he wants it to mean something.

OR :

buck and eddie friends with benefits situation that spans over the years and comes to an ultimate end when Buck and Tommy becomes boyfriends and makes him insecure about being big, which Eddie… cannot accept.

the friends-with-benefits, cheating, belly kink fic

[expatesque]

Real random question but, how would you manage income disparity in a relationship? I’m from a working class household, family struggled most of my life, went to Cam, fell in love with a boy whose family are titled, went to private school, million pound homes etc, and I can’t shake the feeling of feeling inferior.

This is the best problem. I'm sorry, I don't mean to minimize, it is a real issue, it's just such a great issue.

So: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent (Eleanor Roosevelt). This is a very ~therapy~ sounding answer but I do think it's the real one: why do you feel inferior for succeeding against harder circumstances vs someone who had a much easier time of it? Is someone (or ones) making you feel inferior or is this a purely you thing? In what ways exactly are you inferior? What do you think you're lacking or not up to par in and, if they're important enough to you, can you change those things?

Because of course, there will be superficial things like what clothes you're wearing and certain table manner nuances and probably a social cue or two that you won't pick up on, but the vast majority of that can be learned or bought. And with your degree, you can go off and earn enough money to pay for the things to fit in. Whatever else you're missing, start reading vogue and world of interiors and any of the less sexy conde nast publications and you can pick it up. And ask your boy of course, he can fill you in when needed.

But if someone in his family is making you feel inferior, that's a you and your boyfriend problem that you need to talk out. Because this disparity is something the two of you should be navigating together, it's not purely a you issue and you will definitely need his support if the issue is coming from within his house. And I want you to be honest with yourself (and him) about whether he's doing anything to make you feel that way -- intentional or not, it's important to nip this in the bud before it festers and rots.

I know class is complicated and highly contentious here in the UK but you've jumped the system by going to Cambridge, now go do something fabulous for a career and you're sorted. Go enjoy the houses and the holidays and remember that generosity is a two way street - by graciously accepting gifts, you're being polite and respectful to your hosts. Be kind and grateful, always show up with a hostess gift (homemade or thoughtful is definitely best in this case, flowers are always a good backup), and enjoy yourself. He loves you, you love him, this problem is completely overcome-able as long as you get out of your own head. You've got this babe.