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.

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.

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 6, 2023:

Apple Vision Pro Hands On: The Opposite of Disappearing — Roughly half the shitty hot takes on this are on the level of the “iPad? What a horrible name! And it’s a big iPhone!” crap we heard in 2010. The less stupid ones are fixated on very real limitations —that battery pack— and the risky choices —EyeSight— while ignoring that Apple has finally produced Good Enough VR. It’s nowhere near Cheap Enough, mind you, but there’s now a solid foundation upon which to build. It’s a giant leap over everything else out there.
Can We Please Stop Designing Sex Scenes Purely for Shock Value? — Can We Please Stop Promoting The Idea That Scary, Gross, Violent Sex Is A Guy Thing When It So Clearly Isn’t?
Barbie movie caused global pink paint shortage
New iPhone feature warns about unwanted nudes — Otherwise known as the Draw My Attention To This Photo Right Now feature.
Inside 4chan’s Top-Secret Moderation Machine

Danny Bonaduce Selling Home in Wake of Brain Surgery, Health Scare — Oof. Good luck, Danny.
Reddit’s plan to kill third-party apps sparks widespread protests — I never liked Apollo, but that’s the craziest API monetization scheme I’ve ever seen, Reddit.
Apple MacBook Air 15-inch preview: Portable power — I want.
Where Do Desires for BDSM Come From? — Well sometimes, when Mommies have been very bad, and Daddies need to punish them until they beg for relief, they can get a little too excited, the condom can break, and they end up having accursed children.

Meg White on The White Stripes, Fame, and Anxiety
WWDC 2023: Vision Pro, iOS 17 and everything else Apple announced today — Lots of little goodies coming, but no giant changes. Which is probably for the best. (Word on the beta is that Stage Manager on the iPad is already much improved.)
Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 as a Time Machine — I listed to American Top 40 religiously. Dr. Demento, too. This is some cool stuff.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Apologizes for Groping Women in Netflix Docuseries

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 5, 2023:

Billy Joel Announces End of Monthly Madison Square Garden Residency — I always kinda hoped I’d get to see him there someday. This is what happens when you drag your feet, kids.
‘I’m not used to seeing sex that kinky’: Is The Idol the most shocking TV of the year? — I don’t know who’s ultimately responsible for how brilliantly this show has been promoted, but they’re getting a corner office before too long. I’m sure it’ll end up being fairly tame, but I’ll be ready for the first ep to drop all the same.
Idle rich baffled by poor people’s distaste for dangerous, low-paying jobs
From pole to canvas: Exploring BDSM through dance and art
Google’s Android and Chrome extensions are a very sad place. Here’s why — This isn’t why I use neither Android nor Chrome… but it doesn’t help.

Vita Radium Suppositories (ca.1930) — Before Viagra, there were radioactive buttplugs.
I’m a ‘mommy’ dominatrix — CEOs pay me to humiliate them with my hijab on
The rise of rough sex in the time of sexual recession: ‘I want to be manhandled without being judged for it’ — Wait until she figures out that it’s even better when he manhandles you and judges you for it.
Intimacy Coordinator Shows What It’s Like To Choreograph Sex Scenes — Do I think the whole “intimacy coordinator” thing is important for every film? Not necessarily. But if you’ve got a production big enough to need a stunt coordinator and a second unit director, then you’re big enough to need a specialist in charge of bumpin’ uglies.
Gurman: Apple May Announce Drop of ‘Hey Siri’ Trigger Phrase at WWDC — I am very skeptical of this. I’d love to be wrong… I hope they’ve figured out how to dramatically reduce the number of erroneous invocations, to such a degree that dropping the “hey” is viable. But I’m not getting my hopes up.

Trippy TV returns with The Sid & Marty Krofft Channel — I was a Land of the Lost kid. “Marshall, Will, and Holly, on a routine expedition…”
Criminal Charges and Consensual Kink — Some well-intentioned thinking. Kind of out of step with how real people live real human lives, but still… interesting.
Book-ban advocates gnash teeth over Utah school Bible removal — I don’t want to generalize, but book-ban advocates of all stripes can go fuck themselves.
Digital finances were a boon for the legal adult industry. Now, they’re shutting out sex workers. — PayPal shut me down in 2002 for “providing adult services”. I have successfully held a grudge for twenty years now.
Russian spy beluga trying to come in from the cold — Spongy-headed, boop-nosed death machines.

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 4, 2023:

How The Expanse: A Telltale Series Aims to Tell Their Small Story in a Large Universe — I’m eager to get my hands on this… it’ll be a Day One purchase.
The Best Audio Porn Apps and Sites For Your Next Solo Session
Motorola makes its 4th-gen foldable, the Moto Razr+, official — I watched a full review of this thing, and it’s indeed a neat little device. Conceptually, I’m all in favor of foldable phones. But nothing that expensive should feel even slightly compromised.
The Explosive Legacy of the Pandemic Hand Sanitizer Boom

Meta beats Apple to the mixed-reality punch with $499 Quest 3 coming this fall — I’m going to need to see a lot more game footage before I get enthused about this. But if the leap from Quest 2 to 3 is big enough, this could be a big deal.
The 7th Guest VR remake uses ‘volumetric video’ for 3D FMV scenes — I played the first hour or so of the original 7th Guest on CD, and as a result I’m not even slightly excited at the thought of returning to it today… but I will admit, they’ve done some nice work here.
VR Assassin’s Creed, Stranger Things and Ghostbusters arrive on Meta Quest later this year
‘Asgard’s Wrath 2’ is Meta’s most ambitious VR game to date — I played an hour or two of the original Asgard’s Wrath, and my opinion was divided. There were moments where it created those feelings you only get from VR —a game’s sense of scale is completely different when you’re in it. But after I explored a while, it became clear it was less “a VR-first Skyrim” and more “a VR-first, SNES-era Zelda game”. I hope they’ve dramatically expanded it for the sequel.

Amazon and Walmart are taking a rare $20 off of a set of four AirTags
No Man’s Sky just launched on Mac with cross-play support — I’m curious to see how it performs on an M1… it was solid on a 2080 Super a few years ago.
Meta’s Popular Quest 2 VR Headset Pricing Is A Roller-Coaster — Back down to $299, where it comfortably sat a few years ago.
VW ID Buzz debuts three-row electric Microbus for the US with more power and space — My family briefly had an original bus back in the mid-‘70s, and it was one of my favorite vehicles. As a kid who wanted to disappear into the back of any car and spend the entire drive reading, all those rows of seats were awesome.

Hit cat game ‘Stray’ is coming to Macs — I may actually give this a try now, ‘cause I love the look and the idea of it.
VR Helped Me Visualize Gender Dysphoria

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 2, 2023:

Tina Turner Is the 10th Singer From ‘We Are the World’ All-Star Charity Single to Die — I’m worried about you, Billy Joel and John Oates.
The arguments against washing your clothes — I’ll help you out here: there aren’t any. Wash your shit, you hipster greaseball.
Fighting Fascism in America — It’s the project of generations.
Copenhagen’s Circle Bridge
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter diagnosed with dementia, Carter Center announces — Aw. I really liked the Carters… I was too young to comprehend Watergate, so the election of ‘76 was the first big political moment of my life.

David Lynch interview: ‘Even in the so-called dark things, there’s beauty’ — Amen, brother.
Slacker, the picture perfect image of an Austin which no longer exists. — There are tiny bits and pieces of old Austin left, but just bits and pieces… it’s mostly gourmet pizzas, alternative clothing boutiques, and Tesla dealerships now.
Visit Oatman, Arizona to see wild burros wandering about town
Sex Workers Are Still Hot for Twitter Spaces — By all means, folks, use Musk for all he’s worth. But don’t depend on him. Ever.
Hopeless Romantic, Seeking Treatment

The 15 Most Expensive Lego Sets You Can Buy Now
The Night Gwen Stacy Died, and Other Essential Marvel Moments — I remember Gwen Stacey’s death really freaking me out when I was little. I wasn’t particularly attached to her, but it was my introduction to the idea of inevitable death… that even with great power and great responsibility, some people just can’t be saved.
Hirotaka Hamasaki arranges leaves into favorite cartoon characters — Some lovely stuff there.
The forbidden 1970s cereal: Mr. Wonderfull’s Surprize — Being a kid in the ‘70s was awesome… companies were making cakes and candy bars and selling them to your mom as “part of a nutritious breakfast”.