Maybe I’m pondering
Nothing much has changed in the past couple of weeks, has it? The world keeps turning and common sense is still wandering around the Coney Island Pier with a bottle of tequila and an Adderall prescription. The sycophants are in the house, spinning some tales of how the computers are definitely capable of sometimes determining how many Bs are in the word blueberries, and fawning disgustingly in an attempt to gain more money and power despite the unlimited money and power they already have. They are stealing our water and orchestrating total AI surveillance and playing with our health and money and lives because apparently no one ever read them a Berenstain Bears book.
And they all want to be immortal.
You know what really burns my biscuit? It’s not just that these chintzy AI tech bro dorks messing around with the fabric of society, the oozing stupid and carelessness floating around has all the press all the time. I’ve said it before, what would happen if we just started surfacing the incredible feats of humanity that happen everyday? Just this week I learned that some Japanese scientists invented a plastic that dissolves in salt water. It happened like eight months ago. Jaguars (the cats not the cars) are making a comeback in Mexico, they found an ancient dance floor in Peru and a bunch of strangers formed a dam with their bodies to save a little boy from drowning.
Wish we didn’t have to work so hard to maintain hope, even if we were made for this.
- Can modern LLMs actually count the number of b’s in “blueberry”? > https://minimaxir.com/2025/08/llm-blueberry/
- Sam Altman, Tim Cook, and other tech leaders lauded Trump at a White House AI dinner >https://www.businessinsider.com/whos-who-tech-leaders-attended-dinner-white-house-altman-pichai-2025-9
- Healthy living, science and an army of doctors: Putin’s pursuit of longevity > https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/05/healthy-living-science-doctors-vladimir-putin-pursuit-of-longevity-xi-jinping
- Scientists in Japan develop plastic that dissolves in seawater within hours > https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/scientists-japan-develop-plastic-that-dissolves-seawater-within-hours-2025-06-04/
- What went right this week: the good news that matters > https://www.positive.news/society/good-news-stories-from-week-36-of-2025/
- Pre-incan ‘Floor of thunder’: ancient dance floor unearthed in Peru reveals booming rituals > https://positivenewsfoundation.org/good-news-world/pre-incan-floor-of-thunder-ancient-dance-floor-unearthed-in-peru-reveals-booming-rituals/
- Rescuers Form a Human Wall to Dam a River with Their Bodies to Save a Boy Trapped by the Current > https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/rescuers-form-a-human-wall-to-dam-a-river-with-their-bodies-to-save-a-boy-trapped-by-the-current/
- We were made for this > https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/we-were-made-for-this/
Maybe I’m peddling
Phacelia photo cc-by-sa Peter O’Conner
My mind is empty. It’s been empty. I have not been remembering or anxiously awaiting the future. I’ve just been here, peddling the peddles and turning the gears. Going through the motions.
I recall purpose and drive. I recall ambition. I recall passion. But I don’t have any of those things right now. FWIW it doesn’t seem to be depression, just a strange numb acceptance that absolution belongs to the Children of Men as we, like all beings, are nothing more than moon farts*.
I could write to you about flicking the strings of an out of tune bass or what it sounds like when a pear hits the ground after falling from 25 metres above the Earth. Describe the way the roots of the crab grass loosen from the soil or how easy it is to pluck weeds from soil fertilized by phacelia. I could tell you about a yeast party happening in the fermenting grapes. A process party with foam guns aimed at the ceiling of the living room. I could tell you how the cat mint stained the tiles or that an entire bucket of plums resulted in only two worms. I can tell you that cutting open a plum with a worm in it is probably the equivalent of someone shoving a helicopter blade into the side of your house and ripping it apart.
I have provided the neighbourhood with plums, I’ve made two plum sheet cakes, given another two buckets away and there are still about 30 litres of plums in my freezer.
It’s yellow bin day.
Fanny found a kitten in the blackberries and that’s how I learned this woman’s name. I have seen her on the street for the last 12 years at least. I saw her at a Patty Smith concert 6 or 7 years ago. I learned that her dog passed away and that made me sad. The arborist parkoured over the fence. I invited him in, but the fluid movement of this middle-aged man flying over a fence caught me off guard. How can he move his body that way? He did it one handed. His feet never touched the fence.
This week reminded me of the time the cops came by to ask me about the 14 headless chickens.
All of life is happening everyday and we’re just blindly bopping through it. We pay so little attention. Or we focus our attention on these abstractions of what life really is. We allow ourselves to be distracted. Maybe I paid too much goddamn attention this week.
*Here’s a thing I like – I like using a biblical phrase in the same sentence as “moon farts”, which I’m fairly certain no one has ever said before ever… I checked, I searched for it, do not do that. I didn’t invent “moon farts”. Don’t go looking. I promise, the Internet is not using it the way I just did.
- Draw Audio > https://draw.audio/
- FBT on Salves and Shortcuts > https://www.laurahilliger.com/fbt/fbt-on-salves-and-shortcuts/
- Photos of surfing dogs hanging ten in annual competition > https://apnews.com/photo-gallery/world-dog-surfing-championships-california-1f8b9d496351e5272a6d869146338c57
Maybe I need help
Eh.
Featured Image The Legend of Giants: An Immortal Artwork by Natalia Rak