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Posts Tagged ‘imaginative fiction’


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Fuck everything about this.  –  anonymous BMW owner

Policing for Profit

There are many ways for cops to enrich themselves at others’ expense:

[Cops typically] use…their authority to line their own pockets…[but] members of Georgia State Patrol…[came up with a new scam:  they] filed or attempted to file insurance claims against drivers they…in[tentionally rammed with malicious intent to cause a wreck]…a…tactic…[euphemized as the “]PIT maneuver[“.  They were caught when a superior over]hear[d them teaching others about this new scam]…to receive a “check”…[the cops] sent crash reports to [shyster] Tina Maddox, who then issued demand letters to insurance companies seeking payouts for alleged injuries such as stress, soreness and anxiety…despite not reporting injuries at the time of the incidents…[the scammers] received…settlements of $25,000 each, [of which the shyster skimmed off a third.  When interrogated, Hunter Waters admitted to getting three settlements]…Tyler Byrd…admitted to submitting more than a dozen crash reports…and receiving two [payou]ts…Isaiah Francois…expected a settlement but [had] not rec[eived it yet]…The…demand letters…never identified the claimants as [cops, n]or [admitted] that the[y had intentionally caused] the [accidents]…Joseph Curlee [is] a supervisor who was aware of the practice, took no action to stop it and even consulted Maddox about filing a claim of his own…In…an…“extremely unusual” [outcome]…all four [conspirato]rs have been fired…

Welcome to the Future (#1473)

Is a shiny new status symbol really worth being spied on and harassed?

BMW…suddenly started pushing ads for Spider-Man: Brand New Day onto [its] dashboards…and some drivers who forked up to $160,000 for a [status symbol] aren’t very happy about being spammed when they start their cars…BMW has been pushing increasingly intrusive videos onto its dashboard…[one owner explained] “They started off with mostly just celebratory videos, which slowly became ads about their own products, and now…third-party ads…with the screen controlling almost every feature of the car, you’re essentially forced to watch the ad before you can interact with your own property.”  Several commenters compared the…ad to Apple’s famously backfired 2014 stunt of putting a U2 album into the iTunes libraries of more than half a billion customers.  BMW’s press release branded the [intrusive, unwanted commercial] “a special surprise”…[even though the] company previously [lied] it wouldn’t sell ads on its dashboards…

Served Cold (#1512)

Thanks to the Trump regime, Tim Ballard’s partners in profiteering have salvaged their scam:

A…[rescue industry] profit[eer] in Utah whose [disgraced] founder [became notorious for]…sexual abuse [of his marks] has [been corruptly handed] a federal contract to provide legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children in [concentration camps, netting the con-men]…$244,034,658…seven times…[their total assets] in 2025…Our Rescue conducts [grotesque theatrical “]operations[“] to [frame people as “]sex traffickers[” in foreign countries where officials can easily be paid off to look the other way while their citizens’ lives are destroyed for the self-aggrandizement of soi-disant “heroes”, because US officials recognized his “operations”]…as stunts to lure donations…[while callously discarding its minor] victims…[by condemning them] to…an orphanage in Haiti where…[they] are raped and subjected to forced abortions…the [current] CEO is Derek Benner…a [veteran] of [Father]land Security…[who] set up a fake university in Michigan to lure foreign nationals…[so they could be robbed of millions, then deported for] obtaining student visas [to attend]…the school…the [government had tricked them into thinking was real]…

Panopticon (#1574)

Some readers implied I was a crank when I predicted this exact development 13 years ago:

…hundreds of [US cop shops are now]…deploy[ing] autonomous…surveillance drones…capable of following a single vehicle across an entire city, capturing footage through apartment windows, and generally [spy]ing [on people] from the sky without [a warrant.  These]…surveillance [programs are euphemized] as…”drone-as-first-responder“(DFR) programs…[using] fire departments and other [actual] first responders [as cover for the fact that] the vast majority are [spying for] law enforcement [purposes]…The automated drone push comes as…residents are packing city council meetings across the country to demand restrictions on…mass surveillance…as new surveillance tech empowers the state to violate privacy in entirely fresh ways…Flock…boasts that its automated “first responder” drones…can read license plates from above up to 2,000 feet away…

See also “Panopticon” below.

Pyrrhic Victory (#1639)

Women should assume any man wearing pervert glasses is up to no good:

A woman who accompanied a friend to a post-op [breast lift] appointment [strenuously objected] when she saw…the doctor was wearing…[pervert] glasses…“Why, why, why are you wearing [those] in this room with a patient’s titties out?”…The doctor[‘s idiotic defense was]…that he likes to see his text messages coming in…“There’s no reason for you to be worried about texts when you’re in here,” she said…he…then f[ollowed that with a series of disingenuous excuses culminating with]…“[I have] a nine-year-old and a wife,” [to] which…she [replied] “Am I supposed to believe that every man with a wife and kids is a saint?”…

Panopticon (#1643)

Fascists will destroy society to make a few more bucks:

Flock S[surveillance]…cameras…are…stationary, [so]…to track where a vehicle travels…Flock would need mobile ALPR coverage.  That is why it planned [a collaboration] with Nexar, a dashcam company, [to]…expand…its network to around 350,000 Uber, Lyft, and…delivery…vehicles…turn[ing] their vehicles into mobile surveillance platforms…the [scheming corporations were not able to agree on the division of loot, but that is only a temporary reprieve]…Uber [and] Lyft drivers would [not] have been [asked for their consent to be part of the fascist panopticon.  Rival copsucking corporation]…Axon…al[ready] supplies ALPR cameras to [cop shops] for use in p[igmobiles]…and…two ALPR companies now owned by Motorola, Vigilant…and…DRN…install…[ALPRs] in [repo men’s] vehicles…

The Cop Myth (#1656)

Being kin to a cop is no protection from his violence:

A…[typical and representative] Philadelphia [cop named]…Kenroy Cummings…[murdered his uncle] and fle[d his fellow cops]…on Friday, July 24…[the victim,] Shakair Moncrieffe, began to threaten hi[s son]…the boy [ran away and told] other family members, including…Cummings, [who decided]…he [was justified in shooting] Moncrieffe in the head multiple times…[which he] later [absurdly claimed]…was in self-defense…Cummings [then] fled the scene in a…[car]…at…over 100 mph and weaving in and out of traffic…[as fellow cops pursued.  The boss hog thought the most important fact] was [that Cummings was not wearing his magical clown costume when he callously murdered another man]…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Jail erodes every aspect of a person’s agency.  –  Lindsey Krinks

I recently watched all the Charlie Chan movies Chekhov had in his collection.  The low-budget Monogram Chan pictures of the 1940s weren’t as good as the 20th Century Fox ones of the 1930s, but though Mantan Moreland, who played Chan’s chauffeur in the ’40s pictures, was typically paired with Benson Fong as “Number Three son” for comic relief, a couple of the films included guest appearances by Moreland’s former vaudeville partner Ben Carter, allowing the two to show off the very funny ‘indefinite talk” routine which made them famous.  The links above the video were provided by Jesse Walker, Anarres Ansible, Mistress Matisse, IncarcerNation, Nun Ya, T. Greg Doucette, and IncarcerNation again, in that order.

From the Archives

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A classicist recently pointed out on social media that the ancient Greek notion of heroism is so different from the modern idea that mythological heroes like Odysseus must either be adapted for modern audiences, or else they end up looking at least somewhat villainous.  It’s especially apparent when moderns try to adapt Hercules into what we would call a hero, and end up with a character who only barely resembles the one in the myths, because the ancient Greek word which is generally translated as “hero” has nothing to do with morality, self-sacrifice, etc.  As a kid who loved both mythology and comic books, it was always a little jarring to see how differently mythic characters like Hercules were portrayed in the one vs the other.  The most accurate depiction of Hercules on the big screen that I can recall was in Jason and the Argonauts, where he is clearly shown to be a bully, braggart, and delinquent who gets his friends killed and nearly wrecks the entire mission.  Of course, the same movie elides Jason’s awfulness, and ends abruptly to avoid having to deal with the whole ugly business of Jason and Medea, which only goes to demonstrate our initial premise once again.

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I’m not sure why Amazon decided people who send gifts from others’ wishlists don’t need to be thanked, but that’s exactly what it has done.  It used to be possible to send a sender a “Thank You” email, which may be superfluous if the sender and recipient know each other in real life, but is very important to those of us who receive gifts from those who admire our work online.  For several years now, though, I had noticed that though it was still possible to send such a message, the gift sender rarely received it.  Then some months ago I realized it was no longer possible to even send one; when I got three anniversary gifts recently, I decided to dig through the “wishlist help” to see if they’d merely hidden the function in some submenu somewhere.  But no; I soon found a clear statement that it was not possible to send it at all.  So I really hope the readers who sent me a DVD of Sinners, a collection of four Kurt Vonnegut novels, and The Lensman Anthology, all see this and accept my thanks for your generosity; I never want anyone to think I take such gifts for granted, even if Amazon believes such respect for one’s audience is somehow outmoded.

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There is nothing as good for anxiety as feeling supported and cared for!  –  “Diary #625”

It’s hardly incisive criticism or inspired analysis to point out that children see and enjoy different things in a movie or show than adults do, or that young adults and older adults may enjoy different things about the same show.  –
“The Eye of Childhood”

Art cannot exist as handmaiden to politics.  This is not to say that art cannot be political; “Guernica” is art.  But if the artistic impulse does not precede the political one, the result is mere propaganda.  Artists can make political statements, but partisans can’t make art.  –  “Tweets Aplenty”

Grief, loss, and pain are transmuted [by the brain’s alchemy] into art, much like a compost heap transmutes organic garbage into humus for growing new plants.  –  “Diary #782“

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Hello, I am…a…toaster.  –  Google’s “AI summary” algorithm

Pyrrhic Victory (#1465)

The UK wants a flawed computer algorithm to officially override migrants’ self-reported ages:

Age verification is consuming the internet…[and] is about to seep into the offline world…Starting next year, the British government is planning to introduce facial age [guessing software]…to [overrule] the [self-reported] age of asylum seekers…[using the excuse that] many asylum seekers…[do] not have documents proving their age, [so the government can officially]…class…[many legal minors] as adults…strip…[them of] legal protections and [hurl them into] adult-only [concentration camps]…an internal UK government report…shows how the systems regularly mistake [adolescents] for adults…[especially when] deployed against…Sub-Sarahan Africans…[which are typically] off by an average of 4.6 years, meaning that a 13.5-year-old girl could be assessed as an 18-year-old adult…

Enshittification (#1468)

How long before Google becomes completely useless?

If you Google “SCP-565” — an iconic entry in the collaborative fan fiction universe known as the “SCP Foundation” — the [so-called “]AI Overviews[“] describes the nonexistent entity as though it were entirely real, without a single acknowledgement that it’s a piece of online horror fiction…Ed’s Head is a made-up “anomaly” among the many fictional “objects, entities, and phenomena” dreamed up by members of the SCP Foundation fandom.  As the lore goes, the SCP Foundation is a non-government organization that collects and contains supernatural discoveries.  Writers catalogue these fictional phenomena — which range from the terrifying to the downright bizarre — in the form of fake records, studies, research documents, and logs, all of which are indexed in a sprawling archive…[but] Google’s [Chatbot] Overviews…[predictably] present…entities from the expansive SCP universe as real items, events, or beings…We first caught wind of th[is when]…social media discovered that a Google search for “SCP-426” — a fictional toaster that causes anyone talking about the toaster to refer to it in the first person — returns an…Overview in which the [chatbot] discusses the mysterious entity in the first person, as if [it had] itself…been impacted by the toaster’s supernatural effect…

Once again: chatbots are incapable of telling fantasy from reality because they are incapable of understanding that the word fragments (“tokens” in industry jargon) they process correspond to anything outside of the chatbot itself.

Torture Chamber (#1586)

A society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners:

It has always been difficult to get help inside federal prison.  But in recent years, it has become nearly impossible…The rate at which the bureau granted [relief] has fallen from just under 7% in 2000 to less than 2% in 2023…[the vast majority] are rejected without consideration for the content of their complaint, for arcane reasons such as including too many pages or not filing enough copies…[and] a 1996 federal law requires prisoners to complete the internal grievance process before filing a lawsuit…healthcare-related requests…[a]re the third most common reason for…complaint, behind [dehumanizing living conditions] and [sexual or physical abuse by] staff…Of all medical grievances [clos]ed in 2023, fewer than 1% were granted…state [dungeons typically give slightly more relief, with most]…grant[ing it in] roughly 15% of [cases, though some like]…Texas…[h]over [around] 4%…reasons for rejections [are often ludicrously cruel], like writing with a pencil instead of a pen, or a woman reporting sexual abuse who was rejected for misspelling her abuser’s last name.  One…Spanish-speaking prisoner filed a grievance asking for translation services, but was rejected for writing it in Spanish…

No Difference (#1625)

African anti-LGBT campaigns are a lot like US anti-sex work campaigns:

Niger’s military junta announced a new penal code that criminalizes…anyone who “commits or attempts to commit an immodest or unnatural act or practices lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender, Queer, intersex, Asexual…acts”…What does it mean to punish “acts” that are “asexual”?  Does having a platonic relationship constitute an “asexual act” that violates this prohibition?  Ghana’s parliament recently criminalized [merely] “identifying” as [LGBT and invented]…a “duty”…to [rat out one’s friends, family, and confidantes to] police…On the other hand, the high court in Namibia…recently struck down laws against gay sex…[as did] Angola in 2021, Gabon in 2020, and…Botswana…[in 2019]…

To Molest and Rape (#1629)

His involvement with a grooming program isn’t mentioned until 5 lines from the end:

Bethel [Ohio boss hog] Chad Essert [has been arrested] in Florida after a…grand jury indicted him on 70…sex crime…[charges for repeatedly molesting at least one] minor…from…2005 [to] 2010…Essert…served as an instructor with the Young Marines [at] the time…Essert [fled to Florida]…in May [after being rewarded with a paid vacation for some other unnamed crime]…

Mad Libs (#1633)

It’s OK; soon all “healthcare” will just be chatbots anyway:

For more than two years, a D[anish chatbot]…has been listening to Seattle residents’ 911 medical calls without their knowledge…to [algorithmically determine] which callers don’t deserve a[ctual help, but are instead]…route[d]…to a nurse-staffed Texas call center [with a wait time of several hours.  And as is typical for so-called “AI” systems, this is done]…without any disclosure to callers [or] public review…Seattle [bureaucrats describe this as]…a conservative approach [despite]…the…wrongful death of one 911 caller…

I Spy (#1642)

How clueless would a woman have to be to give busybodies this kind of data?

Stanford graduates Jenny Duan and Abhinav Agarwal want to solve two hard problems: create a [gewgaw fools will buy] and measure hormones to help [the government track women’s pregnancies].  The pair is building a startup called Clair Health to track inflammation and bloating markers, energy levels, and cycle phase classification to give [government bureaucrats] insights into cycle irregularities and perimenopause, as well as hormonal fluctuations, and how to [target women for violence using] those changes [as justification].  The company has raised $11.6 million in [fascist] funding…and…uses [buzzwords like “]onboarding[“]…[“]AI[“]…[“]biomarkers[“] and…[“]voice stack[” to dazzle marks with bullshit]…Clair Health’s device has 10 biosensors, including a novel biomagnetic sensor for hormonal [surveillance]…of…women [who can get pregnant]…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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There were two clients who basically were paying for ChatGPT…to argue against itself.  –  Rob Freund

My friend Chester Brown, the well-known comic book artist, plays Merlin in this video from Sook-Yin Lee‘s new album.  The links above the video were provided by Jesse Walker and Dan Savage; IncarcerNation; The Onion; Mike Masnick; Ryan Marino; and IncarcerNation again (x2).

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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