The internet sucks lately. Well, not lately. There has been a rot that has been setting in for years, now more accelerated by rising interest rates making “free money” technology ventures very unpopular and risky. What we’re seeing today is what Cory Doctorow famously coins as Enshittification. Quoting him directly from that link:

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Today bums me out. Why? Because the Peoria, IL Round 1 location is closing tonight at 10pm for good. For those who aren’t familiar, Round 1 is an arcade chain in Japan and the United States which offers a mix of food, bowling, karaoke, classic arcade games but most importantly to me, Japanese rhythm games. Back in its pre-COVID heyday, it was opened until 2am and allowed adults only after 10pm which made it an excellent spot to have a beer and play some games with friends or sing our hearts out.

Starting straight from the Gizmodo headline: Imgur bans NSFW Content, Begins Purge. Doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Back in the early heyday of reddit, imgur was created by a sole developer attempting to offer an image hosting solution to a budding reddit in the wake of Digg’s utter collapse. This site has grown massively in the intervening 15 years due to the ease of posting images anonymously, without an account. It was also a major hosting haven for reddit’s burgeoning NSFW subreddits and relevant communities.

The blog has been quiet lately because I’ve been mired in a well over a month long major work effort at my job. As a software developer responsible for a platform used by thousands, I’ve had a lot of work to deliver lately. On top of the late work nights, on call times, desperate panicked calls and more; my son is fourth months old and hitting a famous growth spurt. With that growth spurt comes a major sleep regression. We haven’t slept through the night in weeks and weeks as we were doing in July.

Unless you live outside of the United States, it would be impossible to ignore the news of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. Republicans, Christian nationalists and reactionary conservatives have been pining for it since decades before I was born. Rather than lament the disastrous path that women’s rights in this country is headed down, because rant I can, I am going to focus in on a specific harrowing problem.

Summer Solstice, also known as Litha, is less than twenty four hours upon us as of my writing. You wouldn’t know it based on the record heatwave many of us have been facing in the center of the country! Climate change continues its ravages across the world, heavily distorting the seasons in many parts of the globe but that discussion could take up many blog posts, I will set it aside for now.

Last week, the day before I flew out to Denver for a long time good friend’s wedding, I made a brief detour in my hometown and adjacent town. I visited the adjacent town because other long time friends have made a major decision to relocate to northern Wisconsin for a fresh start and new work opportunities. I visited the town for a suit fitting for my mother’s remarriage to someone who has basically been in my family for the majority of my life and is already my stepdad effectively.

I’ve got a couple more writings coming down the pipeline but I want to take this opportunity to announce that I stand with the people and the nation of Ukraine. We in the west should band together to support a country being bullied by the imperialist actions of a violent, expansionist power that is Russia.

From my blog to the people of Ukraine we stand with you. слава україні!

This season has had me busy at work but grinding a lot of anime over my lunch hour. Specifically, I decided to rewatch My Hero Academia in order to get current. As of writing, I am a few episodes shy of the end of Season 5 and have watched the first two movies.

think that as far as Shounen anime goes, My Hero Academia is probably my favorite one. It’s not my preferred genre but I’ve really come to like the story and general feel of the show. The superhero subject matter, bright colors and interesting character designs are compelling and entertaining. They also offer a nice break from bleak media of all other kinds. In that way it really takes me back to being a highschooler.

Mondays are hard, they’re especially hard if your a Facebook engineer frantically, desperately trying to get your network connectivity back. Little did they know, or maybe they did know: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus are down globally.

Now I spent the day memeing this to death on Discord. Because frankly, there is no love lost for me. Where do we even begin on Facebook’s very numerous, protracted conflicts that are so long I can’t even summarize them entirely but here goes: