Criminally Underfunded Mad Science

What does it take to get a grant for the ethically dubious but insanely interesting

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

how it feels to message a friend who's having Problems that you can't do anything to help with.

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

req'd by @heliager

adding or subtracting? I can deal with your paperwork if it's subtracting and provide a recipe sheet but if you're adding I gotta refer you to @satan-offical

text: I'm going to affect the trout population

[seat-safety-switch]

For centuries, the British have been making brilliant fibreglass roadsters, extremely temperamental boxlike trucks, and a variety of commuter vehicles that are best remembered as warnings. What they've never done is create anything as majestic as the Ford F-150.

Yes, I know and agree that the Triumph Spitfire is way better than the F-150. Otherwise, I couldn't get up in the morning. I'd much rather drive one of those to the grocery store. That said, have you looked at the parking lot of your local grocery store? That's a lot of F-150s. Nobody can deny it now: the market has spoken.

Once, a long time ago, the British came up with another great idea. It was called the "locost," which is probably short for "low cost." By stripping a bunch of busted-ass old British cars, likely placed upside down in your local ditch, you could build your own kick-ass roadster for not very much money. Unfortunately, these busted-ass old British cars are no longer clogging the highways, byways, and cautionary tales of the year of our lord 2026, so a new alternative has to be developed.

Friends, I think we can bring back vintage British motoring. We just need to find a vehicle that has massive popularity, frequently gets crashed, and sometimes develops intractable electrical problems that make their owners freak out and junk them. I am speaking, of course, of the F-150. With a tactical application of a sawzall, I think we can turn an extended-cab pickup into a very ugly and somewhat large V8 roadster. Then we just need to add little Union Jack stickers to the fenders, and loosen about half of the grounds. I'll be seeing you at the tweed-blazer car meet.

[northshorewave]

Freddie DeBoer attempts to purchase and install several Smart (tm) Google (tm) fire alarms and is driven to madness.

It would be cliche of me at this point to say that a lot of "irrational, reactionary" anti-tech and anti-AI sentiment is not in fact irrational, but the direct result of "AI for everything" making ordinary peoples' lives objectively worse, in measurable ways, ways that did not and could not exist 20 years ago, so that some soulless parasite's stock portfolio can ride the bubble a little longer. But if you or someone you know doesn't understand why sentiment has turned so sharply against Big Tech, why everything they say is assumed to be a scam or a waste of time by so many people, this article is a good start.

[northshorewave]

"Why would you bother with smart devices in the first place, everyone knows they're a scam" is a convincing counterargument, as some in the notes have argued. I will say:

-He spends like 15% of the word county groveling over what a bad decision it was, should have known better, what did I expect, etc. I think he gets the message.

-And even with that, I think this situation is less "If you're not a savvy customer you'll end up wasting lots of money" and more "You should be able to try a new restaurant, even one you don't think you'll like, without worrying about the food being poisoned." (Because it's not just being out 800 bucks or whatever, it's the phishing scam that Google's LLM explicitly recommended as a way to solve the problem)

-Don't forget that anyone who even has the remotest chance of seeing this post (mine, not Freddie's) is probably in the 90th percentile or better for How To Deal With Google's Bullshit. Hence why there's so much status jockeying around it, and how anyone who slips up gets laughed at as a gullible old fart. Classic status dynamics. The world has to function for the rest of us too. If your solution is "everyone just needs to learn to tell when an LLM is bullshitting them"...well, good luck.

-Basically every homebuyer from the last ten years who doesn't like or want smart devices has a story where they explained to some salesman or another that they don't want a smart thermostat, they'll pay extra for a non-online air conditioner, they'll kill anyone who tries to slip an Alexa into their house. At some point it becomes harder to avoid this shit than to consent to it.

[bunjywunjy]

Has a baleen whale ever been kept in captivity for any length of time? If so was it successfully released or did it die?

there have been several instances of young baleen whales running afoul of something and being captured for rehabilitation, yes! they were mostly gray whales.

which makes sense, gray whales are slow enough to get caught in the first place and hardy enough to not immediately stress themselves to death over being poked and put in a tank (as long as hundreds of pounds of delicious shellfish are on offer, anyway)

none of them were ever kept very long, they were rehabilitated to a healthy weight and then released. (healthy weight for a juvenile gray whale is almost 20,000 lbs. BIG baby)

[bunjywunjy]

[mtraki]

this lives in the post now

[theprofessional-amateur]

This sketch is incredible. Perfect moment to capture. 10/10 for the artist.

Link to post

Luigi Mangione's hearing delayed a day after DA failed to tell jail he's needed in court

A hearing in Luigi Mangione’s state murder case in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was postponed until Wednesday after pr

[ambrosial-sunshine]

[hotvampireadjacent]

[quietwingsinthesky]

friend is trying to convince me this is a common experience and I do not believe her, so

Do you expect to be paid back if you pay for something for your friend while you’re hanging out? (I.E. a ride, a meal, a trinket.)

Yes, always

Yes, but only if it’s above a limit of money

No, never

I don’t buy things for my friends.

bald button

Remaining time: 9 hours 20 minutes

For a more illustrative example, say you go to the movies with a friend and you buy them popcorn, do you expect them at some point to send you money back via cash or through an app of some kind? Will you be upset if they don’t?

[depsidase]

[seat-safety-switch]

"Sir, do you realize you're still using a car, like some kind of caveman?"

My ears perked up. The highway patrol constable was speaking an entirely different series of words than he usually does. My attorney strongly recommends that I not tell you the normal sequence of words, being as they are likely "building evidence of an anti-social pattern of behaviour," but he's not here. You know what? You seem cool, I'll tell you the new words that this mountie told me.

"Hot air balloons are the new thing, man. If you don't get rid of your car and switch to this, you'll be left behind forever."

Not wanting to argue with the mounted policeman too much, I still gently push back. Hot air balloons aren't for me, man. I like to do my own driving. Go where I want.

"Listen, pal. If it doesn't go where you want the first time, you can just take off again and see if it works then. It's so much less work than driving. I barely have a job, now, with all the hot air balloonists overhead." He points to a series of dirigible-adjacent aircraft, repeatedly bumping into each other. At least half of them are the ugliest fucking thing I'd ever seen. None of them seemed to be going anywhere, honestly.

"And the emissions? We can only get more helium from the moon. We shouldn't be just burning it in order to maybe travel to the Kay Bee Toys."

That did it. I had stated enough words of a certain pattern to be billed as an adversary in this officer's mind. An intricate crystalline structure of indisputable scofflaw behaviour had been constructed in the very air between us. I was now an "IA hater" – one who opposes the inevitable dominance of inflatable aircraft. There was nothing to do but to engage in a high speed chase about it.

As I wound the engine to 5K and popped the clutch, I could just barely hear the redshirt squeak: "they're getting better every day, dude! Pretty soon you'll be able to steer!"

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

Babe we NEED pics of your rubber cuck collection

so actually ☝what i collect is DUCKS

[beardedmrbean]

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

This is what having auditory processing issues is like.

[energyprison]

yeah man open it up in tf2 for me

[godlessondheimite]

can anyone find the satiric newspaper headline that might have been something other than the onion that was along the lines of “‘This Is More Relevant/Timely Than Ever,’ Says Theater Company About to Put on Oldass Play Worse Than Has Ever Been Done Before”

[playwrongs]

[godlessondheimite]

thank you…i should have known it was him

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

[aromantic-goldfishdeactivated202]

genuinely I cannot fathom trying to use Tumblr like any other social media. I just thought to myself “why does Tumblr even have a ‘Best Posts First’ feature? why would I want to see good posts?” and then I had to stop and consider that for a second

[bnyrbt]

“source: pinterest”

no the fuck it isn’t