Dаn̈ıel Раršlow 🥧 @pieist@social.cleverlibre.org

@JohnShirley2023

It's fascinating to see the effects of the online review dynamic. One thing I noticed when traveling in Europe is how the behavior of small hotels has changed: they respond with incredible warmth and alacrity to small requests, in a way I never saw in the 90s or aughts. They know how powerful each little review on tripadvisor etc. is, and it's a good investment to them to take 5 minutes to be really nice when you bring up something that matters to you.

Basil Fawlty would be in a lot of trouble nowadays.

One way I feel increasingly disconnected with the rest of society is when people complain about a particular commercial.

I cannot remember the last time I saw a commercial, but it must be easily a decade. If a source a) has commercials and b) I can't block them, I don't watch that source, ever.

It's commonly held by well-meaning people that we must respect the beliefs of others.

This presupposes that any and all beliefs are respectable. No one thinks this; and if you think you do, I can establish with a very small number of questions that in fact you don't.

On the question of AI and the future of humanity, I think Porno for Pyros pretty much called it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSOHO3GwEPg

So I assume the world's industries are still feeling clever about having outsourced all their manufacturing to China...

Sitting at a traffic light an hour ago, I saw a transfer-style sticker in the rear window of the SUV in front of me, that read

WHY ARE YOU WEARING A MASK IN YOUR CAR??

Two things came to mind:
1) Why are you so concerned about what other people do to protect themselves and others that you not only obsess over it but actually went to the trouble to obtain and apply this message to the back window of your car?
2. I often don't bother to pull my mask off right away when I get into the car. Sometimes I don't get around to taking it off at all between stops. Because unlike you, I don't like to imagine that my mask is hurting me, and I genuinely forget about it sometimes.

When I'm in SF one of my favorite places to be is at one of those little tables in front of Orphan Andy's where the Market St streetcar turnaround happens. There's a live cam that points at it, it's very rainy there right now and it's creating a great ambience for my little PNW home office. Think I need to invest in a wall-sized TV for this sort of thing.

One of the most politic non-agreements I've ever heard came from a prominent doctor who served on a lot of boards and panels. He said:

"I do not share your confidence in that assertion, but it is a point of view."

I feel personally harmed by whatever you are or aren't doing right now, and I'm working on my medium.com post about just what it is that you and everybody else in the world owes me because of it.

Is there some reason why I can't immediately view a live video feed from any train anywhere in the world whenever I want to? Who do I complain to about this?

Does anyone know of a well-maintained, knowledge-focused Mastodon instance, large enough to have interesting local content? Say, 20,000-50,000 users?

The neighbor's cat is meowing plaintively at the door. Should I let him in?

Is it weird that when I see the word "outrage" I want to pronounce it "oo tra zhay"?