Month: September 2023

  • How LinkedIn Got Weird

    It's not just you. LinkedIn has gotten really weird.

    It’s not just you. LinkedIn has gotten really weird.

    Divorce, trouble peeing, and stealing hotel food: Why did a job network become everyone’s favorite place for oversharing?

    via Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-linkedin-got-weird-work-life-blurred-lines-of-oversharing-2023-9

    Take one post from Peter Rota, an SEO specialist from Massachusetts. “I have a secret,” he wrote to his thousands of followers in August 2022. “Most people are not even aware this is a real thing. Since 2015, I have struggled with peeing in public restrooms.”

  • The Golden Fleece, by Joe Kloc

    The Golden Fleece, by Joe Kloc

    The Golden Fleece, by Joe Kloc

    A historical adventure

    via Harper’s Magazine: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/10/the-golden-fleece-kloc/

    Chris rang him up as Virginia brought out the store’s most expensive paperback, Orgy of the Dead, from 1966, which she estimated was worth about a thousand dollars. The cover featured a painting of a naked woman standing in the fog. Behind her was a werewolf in a button-down and jeans next to a tied-up couple. The group studied it and laughed.

  • Salt Lake City, Utah

    Salt Lake City, Utah

    A woman with a 32-ounce soda approaches me on the street. She asks me if I’ve heard of “source” and “non-source” people. I immediately start recording

    Her: And so I would be a source and you would be a non-source. There’s fillers and players. So I would be a player and you would be a filler. Because you’re on a movie set type thing.

    Me: Yeah.

    You got it. You should look into it. It’s a real thing. And people are playing, they’re gamers. And they’re playing games with people’s lives. And it’s real. I’m not okay with it.

    And then there’s, I think the non-source people are robotic. With skin and they have no soul. I mean just check it out. Like I, I believe some of it, but I can’t believe that it would be so extravagant like this. Do you know what I mean? If it was a movie set, like come on. But it’s weird because at night I can see almost like people in the background like and there’s lights lighting like, like it would be a stage or a set. It’s crazy.

    So would it, would a non-source person know they were a non-source person?

    Yeah, and the source person doesn’t know.

    So I, I wouldn’t know that my life is a movie?

    Okay.

    But you would. Wild. I gotta look into this.

    Man, you do. And then there’s a thing called Pareidolia where you see faces in trees, in dirt, piles, wherever you look. It’s a real thing. Haven’t you ever looked and seen like, like people, like I see, sometimes I see people in trees. Sometimes I see people in places that there really shouldn’t be and they’re blended in with whatever it is, wherever they’re at.

    Like I, I drove up and sat behind the LDS conference. Where it goes up that hill. And I sat on the hill and I, I, I would give you my life that it was real. There was a person dressed exactly how the back of the building was and he was just, you couldn’t see his head, but you could see his shirt and it had a black stripe. And I could tell it was a freaking person. Just standing there. Just standing there.

    Whoa.

    And I, I don’t know what their thing is or what the motive or agenda is. You want to see something really weird. Go to 8th South and 2nd East. And halfway down there’s a Catholic church. Drive into the back and pull in and start watching the plants. I shit you not, I would have gave up my life once again and my soul that that was real. They’re people and they’re all doing nasty pornographic shit. You can see their faces, their arms, their movements.

    Whoa.

    And dude, I would have gave up my life that very moment. And I said, I’m going to find out what’s wrong. I got out of the van, walk towards the plant and there was nothing but heat. So like is it when you get close, it goes away.

    How do they get out? How do they get away?

    There’s a door there that they can go. I feel like there’s doorways to different realms. Okay, right next to us that we can’t. That’s why all these weird paranormal creatures are coming into play and shit. I’m not I don’t know what to believe but really ultimately I have faith in God my creator and I want to believe that but so many things down here at the grass. When you have your eyes open, you’re looking you’re looking around. So you’re seeing How about how’s that saying go believe 90% of what you see and 10% of what you hear? Or something like that.

    Well, let me ask you this. I’ll look into the source non-source. Is there anything you can do to protect yourself or or what is what do you do there?

    No, I really I really don’t know. That would probably be something very I think would be dangerous to even try and find out because if they know, you know, I mean, you know, I don’t know if I believe it. I mean, it’s just too extravagant. This is all too extravagant. But what if what if I’m smart enough and intelligent enough to implement what if you know and it’s just so crazy, you know, I want you to go over there tonight. I want you to I’m going it right after that.

    I’m going to go check out that conference center.

    You got to do it in the dark. You got to do it when it’s dark. Okay, and I’m telling you sure as I’m standing here. You’re going to see what I saw. And I really maybe get my number and call me after you know, yeah.

    Would you give me your number?

    Okay, and just text me what you saw because I’m about ready to go completely viral. Okay, it’s real but I found out the plant is a devil’s snare. I found out the name of the plant and there was this drunk guy and he fell by the stairs. But as he was laying there, I should you know, I’m not lying. I tell you that on my daddy’s grave when he was laying there where I turned and looked at his head it his head turned into a pig. Whoa, you can see the two ears. And his snout and now when you go over there and look where he was plant is dead. There’s something I don’t know what I don’t know what is going on.

    Yeah.

    I’m telling you something going on. We went to Home Depot to get something and it was really late at night. Yeah, it was closing time and we walked out and there was a semi there with a loading truck and he was loading up about 25 cars. Where in the fuck’s all the people? Where are all the people?

    Right.

    I don’t get it. I need I need somebody.

    I’m sure you’re level-headed.

    I’m a level-headed person. I don’t need drugs. I do Xanax. Yeah, my anxiety. But other than that, that’s why I put my life on it. That’s real and I’ll put my life on it that you’ll see the same shit.

    I’ll check it out.

    It is fucking crazy. And if you don’t feel comfortable take take a buddy with you. Take a buddy always have two people because if you don’t if if you are alone, how are you going to explain? It’s hard. It’s hard to explain. So it would be cool to have a buddy see what you saw and don’t say anything of what you’re seeing. Wait till wait wait until he says. Oh my God. Just show up just show up and let them experience it. Yeah, and see what they say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because that’s the best way to verify that shit. Wow, and if I’ve seen it my friends seen it. When you show the picture people are tripping out on it.

    Yeah.

    Now if you do see it, it’s real right?

  • Jobless, Divorced, on Probation; a Pandemic Hobby Turned His Life Around – The New York Times

    Jobless, Divorced, on Probation; a Pandemic Hobby Turned His Life Around

    Jobless, Divorced, on Probation; a Pandemic Hobby Turned His Life Around

    Danny Cortes was at rock bottom when Covid hit. Then a craft hobby to stay sane during lockdown blew up on social media — and in auction houses.

    Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/nyregion/ice-box-model-nyc.html

    Danny Cortes was at rock bottom when Covid hit. Then a craft hobby to stay sane during lockdown blew up on social media — and in auction houses.

  • Out-Of-Work Journalist Turns to Smuggling Weed – Rolling Stone

    Confessions of a Journalist Turned Weed Smuggler

    Confessions of a Journalist Turned Weed Smuggler

    A veteran reporter looks back on when he was laid off from his newspaper gig and instead of taking a dead-end desk job turned to running van loads of marijuana across state lines

    via Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/confessions-of-a-weed-smuggler-1234825272/

    This is something they don’t tell you about criminal activity. When you’re facing economic hardship, you’re also usually facing mind-numbing, soul-destroying drudgery at the jobs that are available to you. It’s not just that they don’t pay you enough. They also make you feel dead. A lot of people turn to illegal or otherwise questionable activity simply because they want to feel alive.

  • A.I. and the Next Generation of Drone Warfare | The New Yorker

    A.I. and the Next Generation of Drone Warfare

    A.I. and the Next Generation of Drone Warfare

    The Pentagon’s Replicator initiative envisions swarms of low-cost autonomous machines that could remake the American arsenal.

    via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ai-and-the-next-generation-of-drone-warfare

    As she envisions it, there will be “constellations” of these systems “flung into space, scores at a time”; pods of small, solar-propelled boats outfitted with sensors, trawling the ocean and relaying real-time intelligence; and “flocks” of aerial drones, some conducting surveillance and others carrying weapons