h. Play

A 1987 French animation movie. I saw it in the early 90s and I remember thinking that it was pretty great and strange. Just rewatched it, still is. The animation is tight although the style might be a bit slow and corny. It was produced in North Korea apparently? Design is from a comic artist. Of course there’s the classic trope of brown skin being inferior and the very colonialist view of seeing brown folks as nice and servile. The sound design is quite awesome yet sometimes really lame.

There are good ideas and it’s nice to see another aesthetic in animation. The story is pretty smart and engaging. It’s worth watching.

Wondering if my upstairs neighbor is making Pink Sauce at night because it sounds like a centrifuge.

It’s time to admit that kids today are not okay; of course YouTube would take down something shared to 8 fucking million redditors. That’s why you stay quiet about it. That’s why you shut up.

Because it’s all playlists and the same videos IDs, once the videos are tagged and taken down, you can’t really reverse that, and it impacts everything. It’s horrible.

I was enjoying those pixel-ish regular games from the 97-98 Bulls season, still, and now they’re all gone.

All of that because a 30 year old boy was thirsty for Reddit clout. Vain ass bitch.

I am here to report that being nice and doing the work, also pays very well.

Green Flag City. Here I stroll.

Going through this list of cult movies. I love the fact that it lists all cult movies and not just Americans’. So you have this one for instance (a classic with good French people) or this one (even more of a classic with French people with taste).

I hadn’t seen 1982’s The Beastmaster.

Bro! I would have loved it as a kid, I think. The music is fantastic and in terms of production value I mean: live animals, huge props, helicopter cams and all… It’s pretty glorious. And quite bad, of course.

Going through the list I saw Bloodsport being in there so I had to watch it again since probably the early 2000s. Man, it’s hilarious. And bad in a good way.

Bad is fun, fun is smooth. Or something.

It’s a legendary skate spot in San Francisco.

There are so many spots with probably incredible stories. I’d love to hear them all.

The battles with the spot, the ground, the owners, the authority -vigils and cops-, they are part of the unknown.

All we see is one trick perfectly landed, hiding a forest of high variables.

It’s good to see who up’d who, while everyone is respecting each other.

I need more of that stuff, Thrasher. As a matter of fact, you need to do a whole series of those.

Yes, this is the main argument in Clay Shirky’s "The Case Against Micropayments" (2000) [1]. It holds up pretty well 20 years later.

Micropayments are not "pay $2 or $3 per month" (either flat-fee or average), there are plenty of successful examples of that. Micropayments are "pay $0.004 or $0.02 for reading this article or using this service now". As Shirky noted, the problem with micropayments are not the technology or transactions costs. The problem is that they require a huge amount of user time and attention, relative to the value of the item being bought. This has not changed in the past 20 years.

The Case Against Micropayments

“The problem with micropayments are not the technology or transactions costs. The problem is that they require a huge amount of user time and attention, relative to the value of the item being bought.”

Fuck. He’s right. And that’s a huge issue that can’t be fixed; no one wants to ponder all the time, as we already do that.

But! We definitely need to nurture independence, without corporations. With fairness in mind.

Maybe the government should absolutely take on that task. Brazil did it in 2019 with Pix, a very successful instant payment system 100% public-owned. Brazilians can pay 24/7 instantly anyone, any business, any bills. You can have up to five different accounts to pay for different things and all you need to login and pay is an email address, a phone number or a taxpayer number.

That’s what we want, and nothing else. C’mon ‘Murica.

Got this as a birthday present from a great friend. Trying it out.

Edit: So, it’s a toothbrush. It’s brushing alright. Feels good in the hand. There’s toothpaste, doing its thing. Pretty satisfied.

“I am in my mid-thirties, working four days a week, and making over 100k. I have a house, a good relationship with my wife, and young and healthy kids.I work from home. My job is technically interesting, and I still learn/improve. I do not have meetings. One or sometimes two 30 min calls a week with my boss. Most days, I do not have to interact with anyone from work, not even customer contact.If I knew I could have a job like this ten years ago, I would have thought that’s it, the dream.But somehow, it isn’t. It’s never enough.I dream about doing my own thing or retiring early to do other projects. It is probably human to always want more.So HN, how did you settle and slow down and become happy with the way it is without always wanting more?”

Explore. Question. Invent. Ponder. Challenge yourself. Do more.

There’s no slowing down, only management to last further. You keep doing until the wheels fall off. Ask young retirees in their 60s or 70s. The day they stop having something to do is the day their health declines, almost every single time, no matter what.

So keep learning and improving. Settle into the move. Forever.