This… Is BGNN

Things you might want to know, for Feb 28, 2023:

• Fury beats Paul on split decision in Saudi Arabia — Jesus H. Christ, Tommy… I was afraid you were going to let that giant blond turd beat your ass, and I was going to be deeply disappointed in you. Now go back to helping Molly braid her hair and stay out of trouble.
• Penn Jillette: Did His Libertarianism Survive Trump and COVID? — You have no idea how relieved I was to read this. Penn has always been a personal hero of mine; I respected his general intelligence, abundant curiosity, and principled crankery, along with his ability to spin a clever yarn. So I am truly thrilled to know a man I admired in the ‘80s is still admirable today.
• Elon Musk defends racist tirade by Dilbert creator Scott Adams — Of course he did. And he didn’t even defend it with an “outdated but sincere libertarian appeal to unfettered expression” argument… he went all in with some “the media knows I’m a corporate fantasist-opportunist and emotionally stunted fuckboy with a car factory wah wah wah thus I am a victim wah wah wah stop reverse-racisming me bro!” bullshit.
• “Crying Indian” anti-pollution ad to be retired for good | Boing Boing — They should have come up with a better idea back in the ‘70s, but the shitty idea they came up with still made a positive difference in the world. I’m surprised to learn it wasn’t retired a long, long time ago, though… it shouldn’t have survived the ‘90s, at the latest.
• Arnold finally comes to TV in Netflix’s FUBAR — I’m in.
• A chatbot with roots in a dead artist’s memorial became an erotic roleplay phenomenon, now the sex is gone and users are rioting — The impact of large language models on mentally precarious, profoundly isolated, and/or quietly resentful people can not be overestimated. They will find conspiracies in the boundless data. They will find lovers in the unfathomable synthesis. They will find God in the machine. Look the fuck out.
• Coconut Kitty — OnlyFans Model, NSFW Influencer — Remembered by Family — Um, holy shit! I wasn’t a fan, but still… I’m shocked. Ironically, she died too young.
• Popular zero-calorie sweetener linked to heart attack and stroke | Boing Boing — So, y’know… watch that shit.
• Netflix’s live Chris Rock special will have celebrity-packed pre- and post-shows — I’m in, part deux.
• Warner Bros. Discovery sues Paramount over ‘South Park’ streaming rights — There’s so much corporate lawyer fuckery going on in this story that I don’t even have a clue who’s in the wrong. Plus, it’s hard to care when billion dollar content empires are slap-fighting.
• Study: Bronze Age remains in Israel show signs of trepanation — Highly Suspect Observation: many living and theoretically conscious girls in my vicinity show signs of having holes in their empty heads. I now await my Leakey Grant…
• Snapchat launches ChatGPT integration, warns to not share your secrets — Thank Zeus, no one uses Snap to share incredibly private information!
• Apple Working on AR/VR Headset Technology to Help People With Eye Diseases — The best accessibility tools can empower people far outside their target demographic.
• Hitting the Books: Why America once leaded its gasoline
• Twitter Blue head Esther Crawford is out at Twitter — I’ve had bosses who considered it their job to see me improve, and bosses who wanted to get everything they could out of me. They aren’t the same, even though the latter brand of dickbag thinks they are.
• How Reuters used AirTags to reveal Dow’s false recycling promises — I love cheap-tech solutions to previously intractable puzzles. It took a tag-sensing network the size of Apple’s and its economies of scale to make AirTags capable of this sort of investigation.