Day whatever, not even 8am, and I got a popup from Facebook about writing a misandrist comment, warning me about community standards. Whatever. Meta can’t handle my ~creative ~use of ~language.

Pray for my spouse, though. This person has been putting up with me for seventeen years. And I really sincerely do everything I can to disgust him. I mean, I tell him the most unnecessarily graphic bathroom stories, using my full vocabulary and imagination – and hand gestures! – trying to gross him out.

I can’t ever gross him out! He just stands there like “oh yeah” and offers sympathy if relevant. i’m like, “Did you just listen to the complete story that was EXTREMELY GRAPHIC about my bootyregion’s plight of the week?” or like “why doesn’t having my uterine cast wiggled in your face bother you?” and things like that.

This guy is unflappable! One of my love languages in the past was/has been annoying people. I’m not gonna pretend it’s an endearing quality. I’m a youngest child, I learned that negative attention is usually as good as positive attention, and I have really tried to grow out of this with everyone except my husband.

My world is a lifelong attempt to troll my husband into being grossed out, and he is such? a? good? sport? about? it? I think I get disgusting now and he’s just like “aww I love you too.” I just want to BOTHER him and he’s so UNBOTHERABLE and it makes it even more fun somehow.

(It also means that he has been at my side during the most disgusting hospital incidents and nurses praised him for the care he gave me, which is just so romantic. I really don’t deserve him.) (I’m gonna go fart on his office chair and then tell him I did it)

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Having just rewatched Lynch’s Dune, I was absolutely astounded and delighted to read this overview of the half-screenplay Lynch wrote for its sequel. (Ars Technica)

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I’m in the mood to just rewatch stuff, not try anything new, but watching The Blair Witch Project yesterday kinda felt like a rewatch even though it was fresh. Amusingly, Dredd was a rewatch I’ve seen a *lot* before, but not in a long time, so it almost felt new.

I sense I’m going to be going back and rewatching stuff from last year soon – maybe even things I’ve already reviewed. I think what I’ll do when I rewatch something I’ve already reviewed (and I don’t feel like I want to form a new take on it), I’ll probably just write a related essay, like I did with 9 to 5.

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On order to flag articles I wanna comment upon in Sara Reads the Feed posts, I *usually* just star them in my RSS feed reader, then go back to examine them later. Lately I’ve been doing a thing where I star posts that catch my attention in a “this is the state of the country/world/whatever” way, and then I do not end up posting/commenting because I don’t wanna actually think about it. This paragraph stands in the place of an article about a mass shooter, American gun owning habits, the erosion of our already dreadful justice system, prisons desecrating human remains, worsening child labor rights, and similar unpleasant information.

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On the bright side, surgeries for gender affirming care have a much higher satisfaction rate than any other surgery. (Assigned Media) Doctors would love to get some tips to help their patients with other procedures. This is actually, unsarcastically the future the gays want.

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Ars Technica shares details about an exoplanet with a “lava hemisphere,” which might be the coolest and scariest two words stuck together ever.

Also from Ars Technica: You can now get “Those Games” by the guys who did Katamari’s remaster. Basically it’s the games in the mobile ads that look good, which you can never play, because the mobile games are not what they advertise. The Katamari remaster was one of my favs from last year so I do want this.

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Kristen Stewart says she won’t do anything else until she finances the biopic she plans to direct. (Variety)

The way she talks about female storytelling piques my interest, though not without a knee-jerk urge to criticize. I’m feeling burned out on boss babes like Gerwig and Robbie. I don’t think Kristen Stewart is a neat comparison to them, though. Her queerness is something she can’t seem to hide to please the male gaze as much as the aforementioned women, and I just really sympathize with her awkward….everything. Maybe she’s a better comparison to Elizabeth Banks, who is a bit of a boss babe, but so messy that it’s interesting.

It’s actually really cool to see KStew growing into her own as an artist and looking at projects that let her express her matured sensibilities. Also I’m still completely in love with her and I want her poster to hang on my wall so I can practice kissing.

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Lily Gladstone’s grace in handling complex conversations surrounding Killers of the Flower Moon is something to behold. (Variety) She just seems like a thoughtful, generous person, and it’s nice to see a grownup out and about on the awards trail.

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Valve seems to be changing its stance on fan projects. (Engadget) They don’t want TF2 ported to Source 2 and they asked Portal 64 to cut it out. Bummer. My Valve-loving aspirational game developer 13yo is going to be really disappointed.

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They’re removing the dam on the Klamath River. That’s gonna be a big change through the area, I think? (NPR)

We are going to learn that a lot of language and art generators not only steals from people, but relies upon Mechanical Turks. I mean there are literally a bunch of people in something that (hopefully) looks like a call center hurrying through work touching up your essays and pictures in those seconds between pushing a button and getting a result.

Labor exploited to exploit stolen artwork.

When someone uses something currently advertised as AI, it will not enrich them. It will enrich the tech companies. It will make everyone more vulnerable.

The claim that these complex algorithm models are ~the future~ and inevitable are MARKETING. That’s it. It’s marketing to cover up the exact same nonsense humans are always trying to do to each other. We cannot change the fact humans are always trying to take advantage of each other, but if we’re the kind of person positioned to exploit instead of being exploited, we can simply choose not to be that guy. I don’t relate to the big boss with his cigar telling people to work through holidays; I relate to scrappy heroes doing the right thing even when it’s uncool.

We face the Chidi Anagonye issue when it comes to necessities like food. We cannot escape the entire food chain so we aren’t complicit in human rights abuses. Maybe we choose veganism to avoid killing animals; instead, unprotected migrant labor gives us almond milk. It’s an ongoing devil’s bargain of life that we can *only* navigate systemically (and I am always optimistic we will find ways to improve).

But there is literally nothing forcing us to use AI to generate art, text, or ideas. You can just choose not to do it. You can just be the scrappy cool hero of your fantasy novel saying, “I am gonna carry the Ring to Mordor even though the eagles don’t wanna carpool and it means walking my feet off!” You can just choose not to exploit other humans on this matter.

And stay out of self-driving taxis.

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Amazon used a lot of words to explain why they don’t care about consistently employing people in a country where employment is tied to human rights. (Variety)

our industry continues to evolve quickly and it’s important that we prioritize our investments for the long-term success of our business, while relentlessly focusing on what we know matters most to our customers. Throughout the past year, we’ve looked at nearly every aspect of our business with an eye towards improving our ability to deliver even more breakthrough movies, TV shows, and live sports in a personalized, easy to use entertainment experience for our global customers. As a result, we’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact. As a result of these decisions, we will be eliminating several hundred roles across the Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios organization.

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My biggest fear about the next election is honestly immigration. Trump has extremely fascist hopes for deportations (including for legal citizens) (Rolling Stone)

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France has a new openly gay prime minister who is also Islamophobic. So there’s that. (NPR) Ironically waving sad rainbow flag.

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I didn’t hear *anyone* talking about the Secretary of Defense going missing?? (Lawyers, Guns, & Money)

My anxiety has been on a rampage for a couple days. I have really severe money-related anxiety, regardless of the reality of the money situation, and I have discovered I absolutely cannot rationalize my way through stress surrounding it. I have to see myself being anxious about money and just say, “That is an anxiety problem.” And then treat it as such.

This ties into business generally. I keep trying to edge back into working on publishing matters, but the emotional burden is so intense. It’s a minefield of triggers turning me insensate. A real issue.

I emailed around looking for local therapists who do EMDR, since it was recommended to me specifically as a treatment that might help, but I have not had any luck.

On the bright side, I can safely say the level of my anxiety has nothing to do with the precarity of my money situation. It’s just one of my brain’s favorite hits to play when I’m freaking out. I have a few categories of Brain’s Greatest Hits off the anxiety playlist: I’m So Fat, I’m a Bad Mom, We Are Going to Lose Everything We Have, My Husband Secretly is Sick of Me, etcetera.

The fact I only took a couple three days to work through this protracted panic and realize it *is* just a panic is actually kinda record turnaround though? It’s encouraging to see growth in myself. I am not yet where I want to be.

In the absence of EMDR for now, I sincerely think I just need to work slowly, but persistently, work on mindfulness with my support system, and maybe even write up a few affirmations to remind myself of what’s going on when my head’s too muzzy to distinguish Brain’s Greatest Hits from Actual Reality.

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Lawyers, Guns, & Money shared a really interesting article about the quality of AI writing essays. It’s so good, I don’t want to summarize it or bury it. It’s not very long. Give it a read, Trek nerds.

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A new publication asserts that the Cerne Abbas Giant may represent Hercules (Ars Technica).

A major attraction of Dorset, England, is the Cerne Abbas Giant, a 180-foot-tall figure of a naked man wielding a large club carved with chalk into a hilltop. A pair of historians offers a strong case that this figure was originally meant to represent Hercules from Greek mythology, perhaps to inspire West Saxon armies, who could have used the site as a muster station. […]

“It’s become clear that the Cerne giant is just the most visible of a whole cluster of early medieval features in the landscape,” said co-author Helen Gittos, an early medieval historian at the University of Oxford, told The Guardian. “I think we’ve found a compelling narrative that fits the giant into the local landscape and history better than ever before, changing him from an isolated mystery to an active participant in the local community and culture.”

There are whole levels to how much I love this. First of all, because I love getting a sense of prehistoric civilization. It’s really easy to imagine calling some artists together to work on a giant penis dude to get the Saxon armies hyped. Imagine showing up to your muster station on day one of the new battle against whoever you’re fucking with this time, and y’all have this giant art piece to inspire you.

Sincerely, it makes me feel so vividly in the time-and-place. Knowing that they were decorating these spaces with a ~mood~ in such a way makes me think of, like, conventions in Las Vegas.

Also, lol penis.

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A bit of frippery perhaps. A doctor on People Magazine suggested super-sour Warheads for interrupting panic attacks. It sounds silly, but I can actually understand what he’s getting at here. People seem to misinterpret it as “eat candy and forget about your problems,” but I think this is just a literal interruption to a maladaptive chemical feedback loop.

Sour to induce whatever chemicals sour induces (maybe we register it like pain? adrenaline? dopamine?), and then inducing different facial expressions will also change the chemical process in your brain… Yeah, I see what he’s getting at. It’s using candy like medication.

And it’s not denying whatever issues are at hand, either. Like, panic attacks aren’t necessarily about something immediate. You can have a meltdown over a trigger when nothing is going on. Or maybe you’re panicking over a fair issue, but the size of the panic isn’t appropriate. Snapping yourself out of it with a Warhead isn’t a bad idea.

This is the kind of frippery I enjoy.

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Dog meat is officially illegal in South Korea. (NPR) Although this seems like an easy win from an animal welfare standpoint, I’d like to offer another perspective: dog meat is a food associated with lower income communities, rural areas, the like. I think it’s kind of a hardship food that has grown traditions around it, as often happens.

While we’re celebrating dog safety, I hope there is also no rush to increase policing on socially marginalized groups. Changing traditions takes time. And I think it’s kinda universal in all countries that more cops in poor neighborhoods is a bad idea.

The bill would make the slaughtering, breeding, trade and sales of dog meat for human consumption illegal from 2027 and punish such acts with 2-3 years in prison. But it doesn’t stipulate penalties for eating dog meat.

The bill would offer assistance to farmers and others in the industry for shutting down their businesses or shifting to alternatives. Details of outlawing the industry would be worked out among government officials, farmers, experts and animal rights activists, according to the bill.

“Details are going to be worked out later now that we’ve passed the law” is always worrying. I guess it’s normal. But I’m normally worried about government compassion for the people it governs.

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This column by John Cassidy in The New Yorker makes me wanna yark.

Simply put, they greatly improve the welfare of countless Americans, including some of the neediest ones. In many ways, indeed, keeping the jobless rate low and the labor markets tight is the most effective and cost-efficient welfare policy there is.

Actually, welfare is the best welfare policy.

Democrats are so wrong-headed by insisting on the marriage between work and human rights. Not everyone can work. Work should not be perilous. Life doesn’t have to be this hard. I’m steamed.

This is the stuff they’re gonna shove down our gullets leading up to the election. We’re supposed to be motivated to vote Blue by this human-hating capital-loving nonsense.

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The Navajo Nation objects to human remains interred on the Moon. (NPR) Frankly, I agree. I kinda don’t want humans chucking random junk up there, period. Why in the world do we feel we have any right to littering the Moon with commercial payloads?

I believe in human expansion into the stars someday, but right now we’re only capable of doing it in the ways we know how: disrespectfully, exploitatively, and commercially.

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Breivik is suing Norway for human rights abuse (AJE). This was a mass shooter from a few years back. This incident really shook me.

I am opposed to solitary confinement. If he’s in solitary confinement, that is a human rights abuse. But this sort of thing shows me that I do have limitations in who I think is human. I’m like, does a man who hunted teenager have human rights? The answer should be yes if I were idealogically consistent to the end, but here we are.

My most American stance is that someone like Breivik (not even all mass shooters, but ones like Breivik) should not occupy any societal resources or time at all, and it’s unfortunate he ever got off that island to be put in solitary confinement. Whatever happens to him after that is hardly a tragedy.

Breaking: I am a petty human like the rest of y’all.

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Margot Robbie is happy to see Harley Quinn mythologized and reinterpreted by Lady Gaga (Variety). I am too.

I’m thinking more broadly about Robbie and Gerwig’s career goals, though. From Robbie in this article:

“We want to make more films that have the effect that ‘Barbie’ has. I don’t know if it has to be ‘Barbie 2.’ Why can’t it be another big, original, bold idea where we get an amazing filmmaker, a big budget to play with, and the trust of a huge conglomerate behind them to go and really play? I want to do that.”

I’m sure they would. Gerwig and Robbie have made it clear that their goal is to win at this system we have right now. They’ve identified their gender as the only thing standing in their way of winning at this system.

I thought Barbie would make a legitimate run at the awards seasons, but it kinda looks like Pretty Things – the “feminist” movie made by men about a dead pregnant woman who becomes sex-crazy after having her fetus’s brain put into her body – is going to take a lot of the awards I expected Barbie to get.

Losing to some guy making some weirdo movie about his idea of a sexy weird woman is probably going to validate their worldview – that it’s hard being a woman. It also validates my worldview, which is that the system is a wreck, they’re wasting their time trying to be good at an abusive system, and I hope they are happy with the work itself because how you spend your days is how you spend your life and the work might be the only reward they get.

Well, and a gazillion dollars. Being a white blonde woman in a man’s world isn’t without benefits. People wouldn’t beg to be picked if it wasn’t good, yeah? And I’m sure Gerwig and Robbie are making enough money to buy their own validation at this point?

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Thank goodness Peter Jackson understood The Lord of the Rings. The studio wanted him to kill off a Hobbit. (The Guardian)

I think the level of studio intervention in the Hobbit movies is why they’re so terrible. Everything is rushed, the studio got its wants, nothing makes sense with the canon, and the movies aren’t popular.