Steve Mays @smays@mastodon.technology

“Everything is all there is. Isn’t everything enough?”

— Sam Harris

“ Thieves are planting Apple AirTags on desirable vehicles in parking lots then using them to track the car home again to steal later.”

https://youtu.be/fwGjdbnpK9c

Previous from Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock

“…before you knew it there was a white guy in red-white-and-blue war paint sacking the US Capitol in what the media described as some kind of Viking getup but Rufus knew perfectly well was a Plains Indian-style bison headdress. And just like Comanches with their raids, those people didn't stick around & try to plant their yellow rattlesnake flags on the Capitol dome. They just wandered off, having counted coup on democracy & taken a few cop scalps, & melted back into their nomadic trailer park encampments.”

America in 15 Minutes.
https://youtu.be/_OoylT7KB_U

I’ve watched the first two parts (of 3) of Peter Jackson’s 8 hour documentary “The Beatles: Get Back.” If you weren’t a fan I doubt you’d enjoy this. The Beatles exploded in 1962 and flamed out in the late sixties, neatly covering my high school and college years. A big musical influence in my golden years.

As for the documentary, I’ll refer you to Owen Gleiberman’s review in Variety.

https://variety.com/2021/film/reviews/the-beatles-get-back-review-peter-jackson-1235118878/amp/

Am I going to get a happy ending to this book? You know I like happy endings.

The proper way to use text messaging:

“…infrequently and always with good news or interesting new developments that would brighten (one’s) day or pique his interest.”

From Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock

I wonder if this might be the correct way to use all social media.

I’d like to have an app that would create a word cloud of my thoughts once an hour. The larger the word, the more often it showed up on consciousness.

It's possible I might live just long enough to see the end of humanity. But it will be close.

https://youtu.be/kLPBWSycO0g

@jackbaty
Have you read Distraction by Bruce Sterling? Something about Termination Shock reminds me of same.

Volumes have been written about the importance of the first line of a novel. Here’s how Neil Stephenson begins his latest:

“Houston’s air was too hot to support airplanes.”

SEVENEVES might be the most depressing novel I ever read. I have a bad feeling about TERMINATION SHOCK.

The Real America can be found in this Social Security Administration waiting room. The lady in the leopard pants talks exactly like the Gary Oldman character in True Romance.

https://youtu.be/CDJ8ocSN5GE

“Is the present moment even a moment? Why would anyone choose to look at this vast sky through a straw?”

— Sam Harris

“We’re all hallucinating all the time. It’s just that when we agree about our hallucinations, that’s what we call reality.”

— ibid