i boycott stuff that gives off even the slightest whiff of ai

when i get 2x whiffs from the type and the imagery, i make a boring post about it

MARRY ME

not saying this is ai

it’s the feeling of the type

that rounded gross-ass stuff

i wonder if there will be sort of a slow crawling-away from typefaces like this

and digital typefaces in general

and toward hand-drawn type

i hope so

DIVORCE ME

Premodernist: The boring truth about the Library of Alexandria [22min].

Michael Reeves: Gaslighting the Clankers.

Tor’s Cabinet of Curiosities: The Most Hardcore Railroad Crossing Ever [22min].

Not Just Bikes: The Laziest Excuse for Bad Cities [29min].

2025mixtape now available.

Taskmaster: Drink All the Vinegar [9min].

Bike update #293. There is not much to tell. Today, for example, I was in the “PED XING” of a major street, had already crossed three stopped lanes of traffic very slowly on the Dutch bike, and a truck with tinted windows zoomed past in the fourth/final one. I saw it coming, tinted windows always spells trouble, trucks spell trouble, trucks + tints = bad news. So, as one does, I yelled “HI!!!!!” about three feet from wherever his head would have been. He stopped just up the road, because the .1cc of blood in his system had gone from his brain to his junk. I counted off for him. One ... two ... three annnd he started back on his exciting journey to the liquor store.

So that’s what happens about one out of five outings. Truck person does a stupid fuckhead thing, gets angry when there’s blowback, but then sees that it’s going to take awhile for me to ride up to where they stopped (if it even turns out I’m riding in the same direction), so they give up. Sorry, I would have peddled faster had I known you had an important message/fisticuffs/bullets to impart. The more experiences I have with humans on this planet, the less I like you as a group. It just isn’t working out. My friends are jpgs of cats and dog videos now.

I got an ebike. It mostly functions as a coat rack, but it’s there in the clutch when I need to move typewriters and art and bulky junk. The point of the Dutch bike is that it is a workout. One speed. So I’m not going to pedal-assist my way to Even Less Exercise. I am packing a lot on the ebike in the future days/weeks/months, I am tired of having things. I got an “ABUS” frame lock for the bike but the old “AXA” frame lock on the Dutch bike kicks it in its frame lock ass. Go with AXA if you are shopping for frame locks. Everything is a lot more snappy. Just ... get a black one. At one point they sold them in some weird sickly light tan color when my bike was purchased. Maybe they stopped. Take it from me, Squirrely Joe, the safety woodchuck. They are sometimes called ring locks. I like “frame lock,” it sounds more sturdy. The thing about frame locks is that you also buy a “plug-in” chain that ... plugs in to the frame lock. AXA ring/frame locks. If you buy one of these (and the chain), you are 87.2% more secure than most everyone I see locking up bikes in the East Bay, who clearly went to [shitty big box store here] and said “give me your thinnest, crappiest U-lock” or “you got one of those cable locks you can cut through with a cheap pair of tin snips? Tight.” Cable locks are ass. All of them.

I have to build a little drink holder for the ebike and the Dutch bike for little cans of Suntory BOSS Flash Brew Cold Café Au Lait. Maybe get a better kickstand for the Dutch bike, but I’ve been getting by w/o using the fold-down one which somehow is barely functional, though I can’t see how to re-balance it w/o getting out a welding torch. I do not have a welding torch. Was it installed like this, ready to collapse w/the slightest touch? Apparently.

Tired of people, tired of having things. I kind of just want to be a pinball machine or a really good bakery. Or a chocolate bar metal mold. That would be okay.

Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching [2hrs].

TODALLY EXTREME!!!!!!!111!11

In sad weblog news, New Shelton Wet/Dry is packing up shop. Safe travels and thank you for the thing with the stuff.

Laura Kampf: I Built A Hovercraft Suitcase [30min].

Someone in the comments mentioned a sphere form factor, which reminded me of the Q Drum. Look for my Non-hovercraft Q Drumee Luggage Rollerer in participating Kresge’s 5 and 10s.

Fern: The Evil Design of Communist Surveillance [22min].

Kiwami Japan: Engagement ring made from human nails [2019; 17min].

Angela Collier: Dyson Spheres are a Joke [53min].

First Official World Tram Driver Championship [6hrs 24min].

Something something US driver was disqualified beccause something something car cult kickbacks something individualism something.

Comedy jokes. In actuality, US came in 25th. Out of 25. Honestly, surprised there was even someone there for Usa.

Hundreds of Beavers (2022; 1hr 48min).

Innovative slapstick for the now-now generation. I laughed a lot, and didn’t pause the movie every five minutes like I do with everything else lately. I highly recommend it.

Digest of Telephone Patents: Telephony 1904-06: Vol 7 Issue 6.

I wrote a paragraph for the upcoming patron monthly blab [2] about the State of EBook formats 2025. I’m a sputtering plane, flying high above, looking down at all the weird-ass runways people have built for all the planes in the sky. It’s a big mess. If your plane is this long, you’re going to have to land on the runway sideways, etc. If you are “targeting” Kindle readers, your ebook should be formatted like this. Welcome to Reverseland.

Anyway. We’ve all been swimming in urls for how long now? 30+ years, yeah? I’m re-doing my internal “feed reader” because the one I’m using that was written by several people has all of these bells and whistles vis-a-vis networking etc, stuff I’d have to crack some books to weakly understand but instead of being robust routinely crashes on feeds. Sometimes, on the last character. Cool story bro. It is useless. I just used some on-the-shelf components, bog standard “grab this website source” for Python and hey lookit there, I’m reading those “erroneous” feeds. It’s just the parsing that’s annoying, because everyone who waddles up to the feed bar is doing the same thing as the Ebookers: “I’ve never done a format before, but I’ve got some great ideas.” They go off-book, or come up with crazy innovations like hiding your Christmas gift in twenty continually-smaller boxes isn’t that fun. You’d think with bigger sites there’d be more of a desire to stick to a given format, but no: more people = more wacky, more power = more wacky. Be a Microsoft or a Google, get notions that you can control the narrative/format spec to benefit your platform/browser and your god-damned stockholders. Today’s example follows.

There is an ugly odd way to provide feed readers with thumbnails for a given site’s feed entry called “srcset.” Here’s one from Booooooom.

srcset="https://cdn.booooooom.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/JiWonCha24.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.booooooom.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/JiWonCha24-600x499.jpg 600w, https://cdn.booooooom.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/JiWonCha24-400x332.jpg 400w” sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px”

Three thumbnails of varying sizes, information separated by commas. What you never do with data is add more data with the same delimiter buried inside it. Also, you never put commas in a url. It’s 2025. 30 years of this knowledge. Don’t use delimiters in a non-delimiter fashion, heck, that’s been common knowledge since the 1960s. I think srcset is poor, but it’s got a beginning/end (quotes) and a delimiter (the comma). Here now, in 2025, is some feed data from Cabin Porn.

srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QCme!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fed284ce3-c182-4e41-b901-52d30e57c005_5973x3982.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QCme!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fed284ce3-c182-4e41-b901-52d30e57c005_5973x3982.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QCme!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fed284ce3-c182-4e41-b901-52d30e57c005_5973x3982.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!QCme!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fed284ce3-c182-4e41-b901-52d30e57c005_5973x3982.jpeg 1456w”

Commas. Colons. Goin’ ham. I wonder what Google has to say about that, I mean like from ten years ago (side note: of course the original google link doesn’t work and I have to use this SEO site as a back-up source: comedy). This is ... basic stuff. Feeds are supposed to be succinct encapsulations that cling to easy standards so everyone isn’t ... running back to the programs over and over and over and over to carve out exceptions for your ineptitude. So yeah, luckily I’m in the parsing phase right now, I carved out a more robust srcset handling bit just for this garbage instead of coming back to my code a year later after a crash and scratching my head for awhile.

Speaking of garbage. If you are on Substack, this is a good hub of gathered information about how/why it’s more beneficial to leave: You Should Probably Leave Substack: Unfortunately, Substack willingly platforms, and allows bad actors to monetize, hate speech and misinformation. Four years of a wide spectrum of articles ticking off a large number of malignant themes.

HI RUBE! Candy and Toy packaging. Unknown manufacturer/date.

LAZY PEON fresh avocado pears trademark Cal-Royal Co., Inc., 1942.

Michael Reeves: I Built a Car out of Scooters [17min].