The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jul 7, 2023:

This ‘80s Cult Classic Influenced ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ — Night of the Comet was one of those movies that touched on all the themes that geeky teens in the ‘80s liked —cheerleaders, malls, video games, and the death of everyone’s parents— and was thus mandatory viewing for those of us in that demographic.
Mid-1990s Sega document leak shows how it lost the second console war to Sony — TL;DR: they made the wrong decision at virtually every turn. Sega had a few good ideas in its corporate life —betting big on polygons at the arcade, the launch of the original Genesis/Mega Drive, and the “Genesis Does What Nintendon’t” marketing campaign— and one good idea that was horribly executed— the wonderful, doomed Dreamcast. Everything else? Sheesh.
Wonderful box set of handmade occult ‘zines about alchemy, magick, and high weirdness
TikTok is confusing by design — Virtually all roach-motel apps are built the same way.
Madonna Remains Bedridden After Hospitalization, Determined to Perform Tour — This is making me as nervous as the Jamie Foxx situation.

Joseph Pedott, entrepreneur who made Chia Pets and the Clapper household names, dead at 91 — As big as Chia Pets were at their peak, I feel like The Clapper had even more mindshare… “Clap on, clap off, The Clapper!” was a tune virtually everyone could sing.
Twitter tells users to touch grass, adds new rule limiting how many tweets you can read per day
Pornhub cuts off more US users in ongoing protest over age-verification laws
So where are we all supposed to go now?
Allison Mack, Former NXIVM ‘Sex Cult’ Leader, Released From Prison After Two Years — I barely watched Smallville, and when I did, it was purely to stare at Kristin Kruek. Who knew she was nowhere close to the most interesting person on the show?

Sorry, Nickelback. Here Are the 50 Greatest Canadian Artists of All Time — I would have put Rush at #1, and I still haven’t heard a single song from either Drake or The Weeknd, but this list mostly makes sense to me.
Let People Collect Sperm From the Dead
Roller coaster riders were trapped upside down for hours after mechanical failure
Watch Trump supporters declare support for teaching critical race theory and repatriating Indigenous land
And Just Like That, Sex Talk Comes to the Office — It’s clear the author never worked with me in the ‘80s and ‘90s, ‘cause trust me, there was sex talk in the office.

Love Island U.K.’s Davide Sanclimenti and Ekin-Su Culculoglu Split After Less Than 1 Year of Dating — I’m not surprised —I never bought them as a long-term couple— but I’m still a little bummed.
The Reddit moderators who coordinate many celebrity AMAs will no longer do so — With every passing day, it becomes clearer that Reddit is determined to alienate everyone that ever gave a shit about their poorly designed message board clusterfuck.
Our Solar System possibly survived a supernova because of how the Sun formed
Lucinda Williams Wanted to Write Rock Songs Like Tom Petty. She Learned How on Gritty New Album
Going deep with the Book 8088, the brand-new laptop that runs like it’s 1981

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 30, 2023:

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 27, 2023:

90 Day The Last Resort: TLC Threatens New “All Stars” Relationship Therapy — So I’m obviously going to watch this. That’s a given. But nothing short of a full personality transplant is gonna help Angela.
The indictment of misogynist influencer Andrew Tate, explained
“Stunning”—Midjourney update wows AI artists with camera-like feature — I’m not sure “stunning” is the best way to describe a generative AI getting moderately better at what it already does.
How to bring back the small-town family doctor — There are definite downsides to the small town doctor, but those downsides aren’t addressed by a complete absence of said doctors.
NASA is recycling 98 percent of astronaut pee and sweat on the ISS into drinkable water — I haven’t got my girls running that efficiently, but we’ll get there… we’ll get there.

‘The Elder Scrolls VI’ is ‘likely five-plus years away,’ says Xbox chief — I was in my mid-thirties for Oblivion, and in my early 40s for Skyrim. Now it looks like I’ll be pushing 60 before I get my hands on Elder Scrolls VI.
YouTube fan accounts will soon need a disclosure in the channel name or handle — I feel like this is an unusually reasonable policy decision, given we’re talking about YouTube.
The limits of therapy-speak — It’s not just therapy-speak. It’s academic jargon and terms-of-art, too. The internet has triggered an intellectual mutation that leaves us all dressing our communication up in pseudo-professional drag.
Microsoft acquired Bethesda after hearing Starfield would be exclusive to PlayStation — I love that Microsoft is essentially dumping out its purse in the fight to acquire Activision… every embarrassing failure and dangerous near-miss they’ve endured over the last ten years is being floated as a justification for the purchase.

Liz Phair Predicted the F-ckboy — and Ripped Them to Shreds
An SF brothel had a secret: CIA agents watching from behind a mirror — Most conspiratorial bullshit is bullshit because large-scale conspiracies require large-scale deception, and there’s always a disgruntled non-believer ready to rat out the system. But the little stuff? Small projects, run quietly with modest teams? Yeah, that’s the kind of thing you can get away with for years.
Inside the psychotherapeutic sex cult of the Upper West Side — This one is new to me.
When you can’t separate art from artist — People who can’t see others as three-dimensional individuals who can do great things and awful things in a single lifetime have clearly never had a loved-one who is a drunk or a criminal.
Deepfake Porn Reveals a ‘Pervert’s Dilemma’

Samuel L. Jackson Is ‘Still Trying to Figure Out’ Why He’s Never Been in a ‘Black Panther’ Movie — It’s a rather excellent question, really. I’m guessing it’s a budget thing, since Sam Jackson always delivers the goods if you give him a half-decent script.
Satisfyer Pro 2 Gen 3 Review: Starter Pleasure
Marvel Studios Defends ‘Secret Invasion’s Cringey AI Opening Titles — I don’t get it. It’s a title sequence. They created it with the help of an AI app instead of After Effects. The hand-wringing is ridiculous, and I think the sequence does what it sets out to do.
Vision Pro will turn any surface into a display with touch control

I love baring all for sex scenes & here’s why, says The Idol star Lily-Rose Depp — “And I love you, Lily,” says Mr. B.

Would you consider getting all of your girls together some day? Like living or…

Would you consider getting all of your girls together some day? Like living or just being together or is everything separate ?

bedtimestoriesforbrokengirls:

bedtimestoriesforbrokengirls:

“Consider”? I’m well past considering it… that’s the goal.

Every cult needs a compound, and every family, a home.

And finally, this year, the “being together” begins.

Has begun.

And continues.

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 24, 2023:

Love Island’s Jessie hospitalized after spiked drink — It was a shitty end to their trip, but I’m happy to see that Jessie and Farmer Will are still together and visiting the US. She had a rough run of things on Love Island Australia, and everyone seemed to dislike her on Love Island UK, but I’m fond of her… hope she’s okay.
Millions of perfectly fine HDDs are shredded each year because of ‘zero risk’ security policies. Spoiler alert: There’s still a risk of stolen data from just a 3mm scrap — Yes, it is unfortunate that working hard drives full of recyclable parts are being destroyed and tossed in landfills. Yes, it would be great if we could find a better way. But the thrust of this article —don’t bother shredding drives because a super-sophisticated, targeted restoration of minute bits of data from shredded drives is possible— is just clickbait wankery.
Restaurant’s mistreatment of workers included bringing in “priest” to hear their “workplace sins” — Wow.
Camera review site DPReview finds a buyer, avoids shutdown by Amazon — I’m not a Camera Guy, so I wasn’t particularly sad about the once-imminent demise of DPReview, but I’m glad the shutdown has been averted. The web has a nasty habit of erasing it’s own history, and there is a lot of info on that site that should be preserved.
200+ things that Fox News has labeled “woke”

Kickstarter >> THE MARVEL ART OF DAVID MACK AND ALEX MALEEV—2 DELUXE BOOKS by Clover Press Art — The list of 21st century comics artists I truly love is short: Frank Quitely, Pia Guerra, Sean Phillips, John Cassaday, Michael Gaydos, David Mack, and Alex Maleev. That’s about it.
Alleged Stalker Sets Twitch Streamer Justfoxxi’s Car on Fire — Yikes.
Masnick’s Impossibility Theorem: Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible To Do Well — A bit of truth that should be borne in mind… the sheer size of the online population has now reached a point where it’s virtually impossible to ever do the right thing at scale.
Amazon named its “labyrinthine” Prime cancellation process after Homer’s Iliad — This is exactly the sort of thing that requires government-powered consumer protections… “dark pattern” UIs aren’t accidents, and should be punished aggressively.

Taylor Sheridan Does Whatever He Wants: “I Will Tell My Stories My Way” — As much as I love Hell or High Water —just watched it again a few weeks ago, still amazing— Sheridan’s Yellowstone is a sloppy mess of a show that doesn’t give two fanciful fucks about character development or even common sense. But I firmly back his desire to make his show the way he wants it made.
Star Trek has never known exactly what Klingons look like, until now (maybe) — Klingons look like Worf. The end.
Evolution Keeps Making Crabs, And Nobody Knows Why
Jack Kirby’s family sets the record straight after “informercial” Stan Lee documentary — I’m sympathetic to complaints from the Kirby family… yes, Jack defined the look and storytelling conventions of modern comics, and anyone talking about Stan’s Marvel work should always talk about Kirby and Ditko as well. But say what you will about his hucksterism and fame-whoring, Stan Lee wrote some things in all those captions and thought balloons that mattered, that people still remember sixty years later.
After porn-y protest, Reddit ousted mods; replacing them isn’t simple — That site is a cesspit and always has been. If Kevin Rose hadn’t fucked up Digg, we wouldn’t even be talking about Reddit today.

Tony Stark and Emma Frost are getting married in September — This… makes a weird sort of sense.
50 Years Ago, the Woman Who Would Usher in the True-Crime Boom Befriended Her Co-Worker. His Name Was Ted Bundy. — I’ve never read any of Anne Rule’s books, but her impact on the genre is unquestionable.
Psychologist warns of the major red flags if you enjoy true crime documentaries — Meanwhile… 🙄.
On Scanning QR Codes With Your iPhone — There’s a dedicated QR code scanner built in to iOS, and I had no idea.

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 20, 2023:

Don Draper Who? Jon Hamm’s Greatest Role Is Now James Kennedy From ‘Vanderpump Rules’ — I’m now halfway through season 4 of Vanderpump, so I know who James is, but most of these 2023 jokes won’t fully land with me until I catch up. Which is depressing, because with each passing season, I feel myself getting closer to Sandoval’s fucking porn-stache.
“Dieting is poison” – the anti-diet movement gains ground – That’s not all it’s gaining.
Here’s the note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen — Say what you will about Tumblr’s many mistakes over the years… at least they never expressed this much open contempt for their users.
Pixar Used AI to Stoke the Flames in ‘Elemental’
Look at this genius list of prohibited lazy “jokes” — Don’t be ree-dick-u-lus.

Teresa Taylor, Butthole Surfers Drummer and ‘Slacker’ Star, Dead at 60 – Argh. Once upon a time, we were the twentysomething losers who would never make anything of ourselves, and now we’re old and dying and bitching about our own loser kids.
Meta will lower the Quest headset’s recommended age from 13 to 10 — I’m sure this won’t produce any unintended consequences.
Titanic missing submarine live updates as vessel missing for more than a day — I almost said “the floor of the ocean isn’t a tourist trap”… but I guess it kind of is.
Trailer for “Our Planet II,” the second season of David Attenborough’s remarkable nature show
90 Day Fiance The Other Way Returns VERY Soon for Season 5 — That’s a neck-snapping turnaround from season 4, which just ended a month or two ago. I suppose it might be due to Max trying to fill its new pipeline with fresh, cheap content… or maybe Yohan and Daniele’s blow-up at the S4 Tell All forced them to move early.

The Art of Compression — Anyone who reads this blog knows how much I love ultra-compressed storytelling.
Microsoft promises Starfield has “fewest bugs” of any Bethesda game — That’s a bold statement.
Documents show how conservative doctors influenced abortion, trans rights
Streamlabs gets an AI-powered podcast editor — I’d rather just cough up the one-time money for Resolve Studio and let it do the AI transcriptions, rather than being nickeled and dimed by Logitech— or whatever the fuck they’re called these days.
Xbox and PlayStation disagree on the future of the forever game

’70s Sci-Fi Movies Were Kind of Preachy — Kind of? Even the ones I love —The Andromeda Strain— can be a bit ponderous and depressing.
The Black Hole That Kills Galaxies
The 5 Best Luggage Sets Worth Buying Online, According to Frequent Fliers — I need to buy new luggage at some point. The Wirecutter says hard-side, clamshell luggage actually sucks on every practical level, but who wants to cart around a big, lumpy bundle of fabric on wheels?
A 1920s time capsule, full of historical goodies, was found after slave owner’s statue removed
Fentanyl-tainted pills now found in Mexican pharmacies from coast to coast

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 16, 2023:

Kesha Calls Viral Seinfeld Snub the ‘Saddest Moment’ of Her Life — Girl, if you were actually watching the show on the plane, you’d know Jerry has issues with casual physical intimacy.
Confidence in science fell in 2022 while political divides persisted, poll shows — The biggest failure of social media was giving stupid people the opportunity to connect with other stupid people who could reinforce their stupidity. The libertarian/meritocratic ideal that prevailed Way Back When assumed that idiots would be inevitably swatted down by superior facts and arguments… we never considered that the dumbest among us would congregate together and “promote from within”. Turns out that as with a pandemic-spawning virus, it’s easy to underestimate the survival strategies of primitive life forms.
How a dose of MDMA transformed a white supremacist — Wow, that’s wonderful.
Jesse Malin, 56, reveals that he’s paralyzed from the waist down — Wow, that’s alarming.
Ancient Egyptian followers of a deity called Bes may have used hallucinogens

Legendary Marvel Artist John Romita Sr. Dies Aged 93 — As a kid, I didn’t appreciate JRSR as much as I did JRJR. (In fairness, I didn’t like Kirby or Ditko, either. I was a Neal Adams/Mike Grell kid.) But as I grew older, I developed an admiration for the old man’s talents, and now look back fondly on all the work I once took for granted.
Apple’s Secret Weapon to Getting PC Games on Mac — There have been lots of headlines like that over the years. We’ll see if this one pans out.
Rob Schneider to Take on Wokeness in New Fox Nation Stand-up Special — Elle King’s dad is the kind of cutting-edge comedy that the Fox audience can appreciate.
Southern Baptists vote to expel two churches led by female pastors — Don’t ever let them tell you their trans-panic isn’t inherently misogynist, ‘cause everything they do is inherently misogynist, based as it is on a world-view that demands strict adherence to gendered codes of conduct.
Brand new Atari 2600 game cartridge coming: ‘Mr. Run and Jump’ — The linked article is busy talking about the VCS cartridge version, but the attached preview is for modern consoles.

Cormac McCarthy dead at 89
AirCard Combines Find My Support With a Digital Business Card and More — This is cool, but it isn’t a “business card”. That’s like printing a QR code on a t-shirt and calling it a business card.
Instant Pot’s maker declares bankruptcy amid declining sales — My Instant Pot has sat unplugged and idle for years. Its only purpose now is to hold the supply of weed gummies and vape cartridges, because, well, Instant Pot.
The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens — Peter Theil and his ilk need to be shut down en masse.
You No Longer Have to Be a Pro to Get a Big-Screen MacBook — I’m still happy with my M1 Air, but when the day comes that I need to upgrade, the 15” Air will be the way I go.

Riley Keough to Pay Priscilla Presley, Ending Legal Battle Over Family Trust — I’m a little surprised this settled so quickly and quietly. But Reilly has a career of her own now, and who wants to spend grandma’s twilight years fighting over a million here and there?
Deepfake porn of TikTok stars thrives on Twitter even though it breaks the platform’s rules — The real societal change of the 21st century is in the way that reputation and personal narrative are now assets the average person values. If pornfakery becomes truly verboten, it won’t be for the sake of privacy or decency or liberation… it’ll be because no one can afford to have their lives devalued.
Tactical Free Radio — Pump up the volume, man.
Apple redesigns its Shortcuts app in iOS 17 to be easier to use — Not enough of you are using Shortcuts, or even know it exists. But you should. It’s an app that ties other apps together… it’s programmatic duct-tape, for lack of a better metaphor. I use Shortcuts every day, to generate posts like the one you’re reading: I “favorite” articles in my RSS newsreader, and when it’s time to post The Daily Dad, I hit a button. With one tap, my “RSS to Tumblr” shortcut grabs the favorited articles, organizes them into a bulleted list of links, and posts the whole thing as a draft to my Tumblr, where I can add images and commentary before adding it to the queue. Same thing with my livestream announcements… I edit a tiny text file that contains a description of the night’s show, then hit a button. Poof, Shortcuts automatically turns up the lights in my studio, sends out an “I’m streaming now” message to all relevant parties, puts all my devices into a specific Focus mode, and then posts the show description to Tumblr without me doing anything else.
Every Season of Love Island, Ranked — I can quibble with most of this, but I’m comfortable with their #1.

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 10, 2023:

The First In-Depth Study on ‘Blue Balls’ Reveals a Lot about Sex — “Men are full of shit and women are gullible” isn’t particularly revealing.
Artifact — So I’m playing around with Artifact —the new AI-infused news reader from the people who made Instagram— and much of it mundane stuff… largely indistinguishable from Google News. It does deliver at least one very interesting, unusual feature, though: it looks at the title of every article it recommends, and if it seems clickbaity, Artifact uses generative AI to rewrite the title. This is a delightful behavior, returning me to a lost time when headlines actually tried to convey information.
One man’s nearly 40-year, 8-bit quest to finish his teenage Commodore 64 RPG — I’d love to do something like this. I won’t, but I’d love to.
Toxic ‘manosphere’ podcaster claims ‘all women are whores’ — I have no idea why young men are falling for this shit. I get that they’re targeting the average teenaged boy’s innate sense of persecution and lack of empathy, but aren’t we supposed to be teaching them the rudiments of critical thinking at some point? And what kind of self-respecting dude wants to be part of something called the “manosphere” anyway? Can’t we do better? “Oh yeah, man, I listen to all the podcasts in the Schlongscape!” “I used to be a feminist until my girlfriend dumped me and I discovered the Pro-state!”
It’s One of History’s Most Famous Experiments. The Drawings Are Hilarious.

A Nintendo Switch Like This Should Frankly Be Illegal — They’re not wrong. That is excessively cute.
’Cracker Barrel Has Fallen’: Far-Right Melts Down Over Pride Month Ads — I’ll be ordering breakfast this weekend. (The smoked breakfast sausage is unreal.)
What Did the Ancient Romans Smell Like? — Considering how fond they were of dumping bodies in the Tiber, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say “I really don’t want to know.”
How to Host a Large Language Model Locally — I propose that we establish The Galactica Protocols for LLMs and all future intelligence enhancers and simulators. “AI”s —I’m half-convinced to stop using that term— should live on home microservers, firewalled from the world.
I just bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing — I’ve got to admit, it’s a fucking beautiful set of books. And I’m sentimental about World Book… I remember nervously rifling through the “S” volume in the back of my 4th grade class, devouring the entry for “sexual intercourse” over and over. If I recall, it said something like, “The penis enters the vagina. This is usually pleasurable for both parties.” Way to set those expectations, World Book!

Motorbunny Buck Review: Worth Every Penny — I always wanted a Sybian, and this looks like the logical evolution of a 40 year old design.
Data Shows Most Switch Owners Are Women, Gamers React Poorly — Duh. On both counts.
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Year I Started Masturbating’ on Netflix, A Raucous Romp About Discovering Pleasure
Male Primate Masturbation May Have Evolved to Prevent STIs
Pat Cooper, ‘Analyze This’ and ‘Seinfeld’ Star, Dead at 93 — Aw. We’re going to be losing more and more of the secondary Seinfeld cast in the decade to come, and I’m not happy about it.

Reddit CEO Says Keeping Explicit Content on the Site Is a ‘Constant Fight’ — TL;DR: Reddit is cracking down on porn, and this is the first move in a longer process. I don’t expect them to repeat Tumblr’s mistake, but they’re going to start tightening the reins to minimize any bad press as they go public.
Exclusive: Donald Trump admits on tape he didn’t declassify ‘secret information’
New Accessory Turns Your Nintendo Switch Into A Steam Deck — If you liked the fixed form-factor of the Switch Lite but went with the full-sized Switch for its screen and the HDMI-out, this gizmo looks like a solid best-of-both-worlds scenario.

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 9, 2023:

“I can be quite explicit”: AI girlfriends based on real people are now ‘a thing’ — Porn will always lead the way.
Charlatans, False Prophets and Flimflammers — Actual quote from someone who obviously doesn’t understand divinity in the slightest: “God did not intend for the human anus to be a sex object!”
KinkBNB Relaunches as a Decentralized App with Social Token, Invites New Playspace Hosts to Apply — This link is not a recommendation… it is an eye-roll. There is clearly nothing these flailing fuckers won’t throw “blockchain” at.
Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. settles civil sex abuse case, averting trial — Based on the quantity of accusations, I hope he keeps that checkbook handy.
Heads of ‘orgasmic meditation’ group, OneTaste, charged with forced labor and sex abuse of followers — I’ll never understand these sad little cults that hide their natures and objectives until they’re sprung like traps on unsuspecting dumbfucks.

Jay Johnston, from “Mr. Show” and “Bob’s Burgers” arrested for participation in January 6 insurrection — I am so, so, so disappointed by this. It’s fucking gutting. Mr. Show is very important to people my age, and Jay’s face is a familiar one… it sucks knowing that the man behind The Story of the Story of Everest is a real-life whack-o.
SoCal’s great white sharks are much closer to you than you think, groundbreaking report finds — TL;DR: in certain areas of California, ocean swimmers are within yards of great white sharks 98% of their time in the water. PERSONAL TAKEAWAYS: 1. Great whites are pretty chill. 2. Fuck California.
TodePond/DreamBerd: perfect programming language — Okay, 95% of you won’t get what’s funny about this. (That’s okay. You’re normal.) But it kept me smirking as I read through the “docs”.
Right-Wing Media Says the Wildfire Smoke Is Good, Actually

Security cam catches two nearly-naked “witches” enjoying a “carcass-eating ritual” in homeowner’s yard — I think I know who this was. ⤴️ Tell me I’m wrong.
Hideo Kojima’s Hideo Kojima documentary releases first trailer — I want to watch this more than play his games.
Pickle pizza being tested at a sole Pizza Hut in NYC — No. Bad Pizza Hut! Bad! You go sit in the corner and ask yourself why you want to rape my tastebuds like that.
Lisa Vanderpump Rides ‘VPR’ High With New Spinoff ‘Vanderpump Villa’ — Well the bitch got me. It took her over a decade, but she and Andy Fucking Cohen got me.
Pat Robertson Is Dead. His Dystopian Legacy Lives On — Stop giving the jackass so much credit.

Ahsoka premieres on Disney Plus on August 23rd — I’m in no way attached to the underlying character, so I don’t really care where this goes, as long as it goes somewhere cool and Ray Stevenson gets one last chance to shine.
Reddit insists on being “fairly paid” amid API price protest plans, layoffs — I’m guessing they’ll turn off RSS feeds next.
ChatGPT on iOS gets improved iPad support and Shortcuts integration — Generated by ChatGPT: ‘In the context of software development, “doing the bare minimum” refers to completing the essential or minimum required tasks to meet a specific goal or requirement. It suggests that the developer is not putting in additional effort or going above and beyond what is necessary. While it may ensure basic functionality, “doing the bare minimum” often implies that the code or solution may lack quality, robustness, or optimization. It’s generally considered a suboptimal approach as it doesn’t prioritize excellence or long-term sustainability.’
Apple’s Journal app needs to read the room — Oh, unclutch your pearls, Geraldine.
California hospital staff call for halt of surgeries over bizarre particles — This strikes me as a truly excellent reason to call for a halt to surgeries.

I’ve always felt you could do with a little less… you.