nikhil.io

I have never given Jeff Bezos a moment’s thought before this week. I am always interested in extraordinary achievement and often admire it. I am fascinated by what extraordinary achievers understand, and how evolved they are as people. Looking at him in his astronaut costume, and his cowboy hat, and…

I feel very personally attacked by Mr. Lovenstein. And somehow glad I’m not the only person who, for instance, purchases a glorious WaterRower1 and proceeds to give it a thousand cumulative and approximate ‘pulls’ over three years. 🤦‍♀️ Because he saw it in House of Cards and thought it looked sic…

McMaster: called him a dope with the intelligence of a kindergartner Mattis: called him a 5th grader. Mnuchin: called him an idiot. Graham: called him a complete idiot. Priebus: called him an idiot. John Kelly: called him a f***ing idiot. Tillerson: called him a f***ing moron. Cohn: called him dumb…

Jira is middle-management-ware, a term I made up for software that serves the needs of middle management, or, at least, the needs middle management thinks it has, which comes to the same thing as long as you’re selling to them. (link) Jira is a tire fire. It should be condemned and officially des…

That would be a Swiss gun instructor. His country has 2.3 million guns per 8.6 million people and has had exactly one mass shooting since 2001. They are able to do this despite being one of the most armed European countries because they have commonsense gun laws, actually fucking act to prevent sens…

by Matt Davies…

Amil Niazi in a sobering article about ambition, COVID, women, mothers, and late-stage capitalism.…

Indecision has been a pretty huge problem in my life and this comment by /u/tomwaste hit home. I’m not sure if people have experienced the same but when I entered my 30s I became convinced I was rapidly running out of time. Rather than using that as motivation I let it paralyze me with indecision b…

Behold the story of a Master Strategist, a 5D-Chess playing Svengali absorbed in his craft 🙏🔥…

Should be a lovely 2022 and 2024. By Jen Sorenson whose work I love.…

Forgot to add this to my Collection of Shitkraken. Two lawyers who currently work for Trump or in the former president’s inner orbit say they want absolutely nothing to do with her and have cautioned others in MAGAland to do the same. One said they’d recently deleted her phone number. Two other peo…

He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms - one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the thought police, the stability of the Party depended. Orwell, 1984…

Battling cancer for 9 years without telling anyone is the most Norm Macdonald shit ever. Anthony Jeselnik I had no idea that he performed at the Hancher Auditorium at The University of Iowa in 1997 and mortified most of a crowd of 1,200 excited kids and their parents who’d come to see him, Darre…

In his book Dying of Whiteness, Metzl told of the case of a forty-one-year-old white taxi driver who was suffering from an inflamed liver that threatened the man’s life. Because the Tennessee legislature had neither taken up the Affordable Care Act nor expanded Medicaid coverage, the man was not a…

47,245 Civilians Killed 2,442 US Troops Killed 20,666 US Troops Wounded 66,000 - 69,000 Afghan Troops Killed $2.26 Trillion Taxpayer Dollars Via NPR. And then: Just days before, Pardis had confided to his friend that he was receiving death threats from the Taliban, who had discovered he had work…

Yes, weeks after his buddy Bernie Kerik asked people to spare whatever they could for Giuliani‘s legal bills, the “Rudy Giuliani Legal Defense Fund” has raised a mere $9,590, or less than 0.2% of the $5 million goal. (It’s not clear if the RGLDF is a separate entity the “Rudy Giuilani Freedom Fund…

“Just say we won,” Giuliani reportedly instructed Trump’s team, explaining that they should simply declare victory in each battleground state. Giuliani is then said to have told Trump directly: “Just go declare victory right now… You’ve got to go declare victory now.” Some solid strategery here. T…

I think because the normalization of Trump and his erosion of political norms over the last 5 years, many people don’t seem to see just how unfathomably dangerous and downright fascist this entire situation has become. Donald Trump lost. He lost. That is irrefutable and indisputable. He has refused…

Just some quick notes about a piece of shit from the hit machine that is Conservative Tech. The Freedom Phone is another grift for those inside the Sphere of Shit who are upset that their Orange Daddy got censored by Facebook (that mighty ethical paragon of Silicon Valley) and Twitter (they aight.)…

Pathetic and Evil: “The next time you see someone in a mask on the sidewalk or on the bike path, do not hesitate,” Carlson said. “Ask politely but firmly: ‘Would you please take off your mask? Science shows there is no reason for you to be wearing it. Your mask is making me uncomfortable.’” “As…

I’d really hoped that this embarrassment would’ve been forgotten a few weeks after January 6th. But here we are. “Should an attorney be sanctioned for his or her failure to withdraw allegations the attorney came to know were untrue?,” [U.S. Judge Linda Parker] said during a court hearing held by vi…

Not sure why this actually got to me.…

This led him to miss a court hearing where his own lawyer sought to dismiss a billion-dollar defamation case against him. This is because the Strike-Force Honcho made “false and misleading” claims about the equipment used in the 2020 election on behalf of his Stable Genius client. I wonder how much…

No. It’s just a fucking operating system1. A giant program on a computer. What weird, disconnected, embarrassing bullshit ‘spiritual’ techbro nonsense. “We made a website full of memes you can search through, powered by Bitcoin and Machine-Learning (of course), and are changing the world.” No. Stop…

Happy Father’s Day to the fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, and father figures who enrich our character, love us unconditionally, and give so much of themselves every day so we can live lives worthy of their dreams and sacrifices. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. And, this is real (as much as you…

I wonder if our hero has any vacation plans he’d care to share with a judge who might acquit him and his lol-dad. (Cached)…

I still remember Giuliani’s stature and gravitas 20 years ago, when I arrived in this country. How the mighty have fallen. It’s almost as if The Orange Sphere of Shit corrupts all those who enter it. And comically so in the case of America’s Mayor. Rick Wilson, the GOP political consultant who cre…

I was rather dismayed to find out that there were no more episodes of “Grill Talk” with the leader of one of the worst companies on the planet1. I wonder if the PR team that thought it was a good idea to show the ‘casual and human’ side of their ethically bankrupt CEO are still with the company. Her…

One of the most disheartening charts I’ve seen about the current hyperpartisan political climate. We fear each other so much more. – Source I suppose all’s fine and dandy if you’re in news or social media and are spiritually obligated to deliver Value™ to stakeholders via those almighty engagement…

“Happiness” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk “MAN” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU…

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.” Soren Kierkegaard…

Standing on the Capitol steps on Jan. 6, Richard Michetti allegedly took a break from the rioting to argue with his ex-girlfriend over text message. After sending photos and videos of the mob and boasting how he had avoided tear gas, Michetti parroted Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.…

See also. He was 73 years old, she was 17, and this was in 2019, when nobody had given a shit about Time’s Person of the Year for a while.…

🇺🇸: We the Peope of the Unites States… 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿: 🤣…

It would appear that my collection of batshittery is far from complete. “Gondor has no king,” the lawsuit states, a footnote providing an explanation of the woeful fate of Tolkien’s entirely imaginary land populated by dragons, wizards, hobbits and elves, all threatened by a baleful Dark Lord back…

and By Jace Avery…

Until all votes are counted. Until all votes are recounted. Until all votes are recounted by hand. Until the lawsuits are filed. Until the lawsuits are appealed at the State Supreme Courts. Until the lawsuits are appealed at the Supreme Court. Until the states certify the results. Until the electo…

“These things aren’t panning out,” Barr told the president, standing beside his chief of staff Will Levi. “The stuff that these people are filling your ear with just isn’t true.” Barr explained that if Trump wanted to contest the election results, the president’s internal campaign lawyers would hav…

New Years resolutions for 2021 are gonna be like: travel to the other side of the room wear a different shirt cut screen time from 12 hours a day to 11 eat a vegetable bathe @alyssalimp…

By Amii James (Instagram). Context was the Tories but applies to our fine people stateside as well. Tory ministers saying “we owe it to children to keep schools open” might want to explain to me why they closed my youth centre, cut mental health services, underfunded my secondary school, stripped…

At the Iowa Statehouse. Via State Senator Joe Bolkcom. Installments One and Two (the latter features the verysame “Informed Choice” idiots.) More on this tantrum by The Register. /misc/i/iowa-idiots-facts-over-fear.mp4…

Taken completely out of context, for the letter itself is a lot of bro-y “locker room talk.” My mind is dried up, exhausted. I’m disgusted to be back in this damned country where you see the sun in the sky about as often as a diamond in a pig’s asshole. Gustave Flaubert, Letter to Ernest Chevalie…

A B No one could have predicted this would happen Many people have been saying something like this would happen I never thought I’d live to see this day I have been asleep for the past five years Anarchists Trump Supporters This is not who we are This is exactly who we are Our 250 yea…

Confirmation that I did, indeed, see a “No, Georgia the country, idiot” flag. And then there’s this surprising tidbit: The flags of Canada, Cuba, Georgia, India, Israel, South Korea, and South Vietnam were spotted in the mob. It’s unclear why many of these flags appeared, though a number of the whi…

“And I’m sure you’ve also had conversations with other senior White House officials, as I have,” Sasse continued. “As this was unfolding on television, Donald Trump was walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as you had rioters pushin…

In a 124-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Dominion said its reputation and resale value have been deeply damaged by a “viral disinformation campaign” that Powell mounted “to financially enrich herself, to raise her public profile, and to ingratiate herse…

Lord of our lives and sovereign of our beloved nation, we deplore the desecration of the United States Capitol building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life, and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy. These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the po…

During the four years of the Civil War, the confederates never got closer to Washington than Fort Stevens. Until today, when insurrectionist supporters of @realDonaldTrump paraded through the U.S. Capitol Building carrying the Confederate battle flag. @JordanOnRecord The ultimate in White…

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one r…

Pictures taken 100 years apart. The image at the bottom is 18 years old. I’m sure we can solve this with privatization, deregulation, lowering taxes on the rich, and letting an unfettered Free Market “figure it out” ♥️…

I haven’t seen anything that captures the times quite like this work by Willikin Wolf (Patreon, Instagram) Update as of January 6th, 2021 Source: ABC News…

Starring Ted Cruz. It cannot be anyone else. /misc/w/why-am-i-persecuted.mp4 And there’s the 10-hour version (of course) for when a batshit-crazy, cultist conservative whinges about freedom and liberty and censorship and free markets and privatization and regulation and “corporations are people” and…

I hope Dominion’s lawyers don’t underestimate the Elite Strike-Force Team’s Star Witness’ What-Do-You-Mean-I-Have-To-Make-An-Appointment-Online Energy 😬 “You gained international infamy earlier this month as Rudy Giuliani’s so-called ‘star witness’ who could supposedly corroborate outlandish accu…

The SC swatted it away like the “Garbage, but dangerous garbage” it was, but even this “conservative evangelical American blogger and radio host” just had it with the sycophantic tantrum: I personally think my company should pay me workers compensation for brain damage for having to read that lawsu…

Via PLG.…

Operation #shitkraken appears to limping along quite well. /misc/r/rudy-carrone.mp4 A living caricature who could’ve been drunk, who was likened to an SNL character, who put out so much Can-I-See-Your-Manager Conspiracy Karen Energy she had to be shushed by the flatulent Leader of the Elite Strike-F…

To the surprise of no one (well, normal people), “The Kraken”, authored by an ex-member of the “Elite Strike-Force Team”, turned out to be a “truly awful” and unmistakably QAnon-laced lawsuit full of basic formatting, spelling, and grammatical errors that would “drive a proofreader to drink.” From a…

A lovely Techbro aside from the ongoing #shitkraken. Greg Stenstrom, another poll watcher, said that in Delaware County, 47 USB cards were missing. “As a computer scientist, an American and a patriot, it doesn’t matter who those votes were for. It was shocking to me that that could even happen,” h…

Will tag updates as I read them with amusement and disbelief. Armando Ianucci must be weeping right now. All emphases are mine. In a court filing signed by Rudy Giuliani and Marc Scaringi1 — the two remaining attorneys on the case after everyone else quit — the campaign asked for the judge to hand…

Informed Choice Iowa is a group that “unites Iowans seeking to preserve their medical freedoms.” They are “pro-science” folk that count “ex-vaxxers”, “selective vaxxers”, “non-vaxxers”, and “vaxxers” among their members. I’m guessing that this list doesn’t include a single practicing physician. And…

Tapped this YouTube suggestion on a lazy Sunday. This man pushed my capacities for sympathy and empathy to their breaking points in this 20-minute highlight reel. I don’t know what to type here other than quote the very first sentence of his Fandom wiki page: Raj is widely regarded as one of the wo…

I created YVFT site after my Conservative voting aunt complained on Facebook that there weren’t enough police to deal with disruptive teenagers in her town. I wanted to scream, “But you voted for this!” without looking like a lunatic.…

Reynolds said election victories for Republicans in the state this week show Iowans support her approach. “It was a validation of our balanced response to COVID-19, one that is mindful of both public health and economic health,” Reynolds said. Because political victories, not cases or deaths, shou…

I’ve lived in Iowa for a while and felt this in my soul.…

See also: The time-tested stratagem of going La La La La La. Here’s the entire conference.…

Yep. And the tweet was in the context of school openings, but college towns like Ames and Iowa City, are no exceptions (like she continues.) I say we continue to doubt the science, exercise absolutely no discipline in the interest of the economy (because the Communist Kiwis maintain zero interest in…

And don’t forget to vote to privatize and abolish the Fire Department by calling their experience and credentials into question! By @ShowerThoughtsComics…

Look we just wanted to make sure The Ocean would remember our species for having delivered value at any cost.…

Ah, lovely. Absolutely lovely. Really lovely folks, let me tell you.…

SM, reminiscing I was 15 when I first came to the United States. Detroit. There was nothing worth eating in Detroit. Except fudge. And White Castle. And Cheetos.…