Coked-up felon tells nation to quit whining

Cartoon by Pia Guerra

Felon47 went on TV last night to try and stop his popularity from further cratering as he continues to destroy everything good about the United States of America. In keeping with his traditional style, the address was delivered on the prolefeed in Newspeak, contained much duckspeak, and implored the audience to engage in doublethink to a staggering degree, so much so that what he says becomes just so much bellyfeel despite it's complete irrationality. That many of his claims are blackwhite makes no difference, we're all to simply believe that what he says is doubleplusgood and everything that preceded him was doubleplusungood.

Those terms are all from George Orwell's 1984, of course. It's a book I haven't read since high school and now think I should dig out again for a refresher, as it seems like it's become the manual for the Republican Party.

I didn't watch the address—I'm not that masochistic—but I did read the transcript. I did call up a couple of clips online to see what the delivery was like, and it was...manic? No matter the delivery, in substance the speech was almost entirely lies and fabrications; the only true statements were surrounded by framing intended to mislead. Essentially a rant, and a fairly obvious attempt to con the more capable members of his base to stop paying attention to the evidence of their experiences (the less capable ones never did pay attention to such things) and distract the masses as the economy heads into the toilet; as his regime commits acts of war in order to extort other countries; and as his history as a pedophile, rapist, and serial abuser becomes more exposed.

I always find myself in a state of anxiety after any televised primetime address this guy makes because I fear the people who will take him seriously, who will believe what he says and regurgitate it to their co-workers (or their Fox News audience). I think this one will find less purchase, but if we've learned anything in these past ten years it's that a whole lot of Americans are dumbshits that make themselves easy marks. So I feel the need to push back, even if only in this screaming-into-the-void way on the Interwebs.

Interestingly, Felon47 did not begin his address as presidents traditionally have, with "My fellow Americans." No no, that's not his way, he can't be "fellow" anything, as he has no peers. In his mind, he's above us all, and besides, acknowledging himself as "American" would go against his continual efforts to shred the constitution. He began with "Good evening, America" (good for whom he didn't specify).

Fact-checking the entire speech would take days, so instead I'll just pull a few notable quotes and provide some necessary context back to the tyrant-in-chief, who would likely not understand any of it:

• "When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country." When you took office, inflation was around 2.9%. Today it's 3%. So if it was the worst in history when you took office, you broke the record. But of course, 3% is nowhere near the worst it's ever been. How about that 48 year remark, then? That would place us in 1977, when the rate was 6.5%, but it's been worse since then; it actually crept over 13% in 1980, the high-water mark post-World War II. In fact, the annual inflation rate has been worse than it is today in 21 of the last 48 years, three of them as a direct result of your first term of office. Moreover, unlike the rates of inflation in years past, today's inflation is completely self-inflicted; the bulk of price increases in 2025 have been caused by your tariffs. "This happened during a Democrat administration and it's when we first began hearing the word 'affordability.'" Um, what? No, the inflation from 2021-2023 was due to the global pandemic, which was greatly exacerbated by your pro-COVID regime as Fraud45. Bringing it down to manageable levels was a spectacular accomplishment of the Biden administration. Also, the word "affordability" was coined well before then; the root word "afford" has been traced back to the 14th century. You fucking moron.
• “We had the worst trade deals ever made, and our country was laughed at from all over the world. But they’re not laughing anymore.” Firstly, let’s consider the speaker here—how would you, Mr. I-bankrupt-casinos, know what is and is not a good trade deal? I’m not well-read on the history of American trade policies, but I think it’s fair to say that among the worst ever made are your own. And as for being laughed at all over the world, buddy, you’re laughed at all the time, there’s just a fear factor when you hold the office you currently hold, so right now the laughing is behind your back. And that’s just you—I know in your tiny mind you think of yourself and the country as interchangeable terms, but they’re actually very much separate entities; if the country is laughed at around the world, it’s because of the policies and historical evolution that allowed you to become president. Tens of millions of American citizens were that dumb, encouraged to be that way by a governing culture that fed them bullshit and convinced them to hate others and vote against their own interests. Some might find that laughable.
• “They caused a horrible situation all over the globe.” ‘They’ here is again the Biden administration, but in reality “they” were cleaning up your mess from your time as Fraud45, not causing horrible situations of any kind. “But now you have a president who fights for the law-abiding, hardworking people of our country.” No, no, no, now we have a president who pardons felons in quid-pro-quo transactions and commits crimes on a daily basis, prioritizing anyone with money over anyone without, and cares not one whit about the law.
• “Do you remember when Joe Biden said that he needed Congress to pass legislation to help close the border? … As it turned out, we didn’t need legislation, we just needed a new president.” Well, a president that was unconcerned with the law, the constitution, and separation of powers. Plus a Congressional majority that was willing to roll over for him. And a corrupt Supreme Court majority that would grant this new president immunity from prosecution.
• “The last administration and their allies in Congress looted our treasury for trillions of dollars, driving up prices and everything at levels never seen before.” This one is interesting for a couple of reasons—it fails to recognize the separation of powers and use of the word “looting” is revealing. The Biden administration respected the fact that Congress controls government spending, so all they did was lobby and request from Congress funding for things they prioritized. And Congress didn’t “loot” the treasury, they passed a budget bill that included expenditures for things you didn’t like; it’s telling that you find Federal spending on the greater good to be a form of theft. It’s public money spent on the public, but I guess in your pea-sized brain public money should just be your money? Also, saying those expenditures drove inflation suggests you have no idea how inflation works. (Which tracks, actually.) You know, I could say that your regime and your Congressional toadies are “looting the treasury” too, but I’d be closer to accurate even though looting isn’t technically correct here either. You and your lapdogs in Congress passed a cruelty-laden budget that will make the rich richer and the poor poorer, spending public money to subsidize the wealthy. But it’s law now, so not “looting.”
• “For the first time in years, wages are rising much faster than inflation.” I can think of no context in which this is anything other than total bullshit. Real wages—that is, the buying power of a wage adjusted for inflation—have actually dropped. The global pandemic again was a prime factor here, and they began to improve along with the economic recovery during the Biden presidency, but remain less than they were pre-COVID. Since January, real wages have fallen more slowly than they did in the previous few (pandemic) years, but they still buy less than they did a year ago. Raw wages have also failed to keep up with inflation, only rising approximately 2%. Inflation, as noted earlier, is 3%. “Remember that rate, the wages. Just look at it.” OK, let’s do that:
  

  

• “I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations…to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500, and even 600%.” WOW! Amazing! Big Pharma is going to pay me $150 every month when I pick up my sertraline prescription? Unbelievable! No, literally, it’s unbelievable, no one should believe you. You didn’t do anything remotely like that. Also, how do you think math works, anyway?
• “Drugs have only gone up, but now they’ll be going down by numbers never conceived possible. It’s called most favored nation, and no president has ever had the courage or ability to get this done before now.” Um, a couple things: first, by omitting the specific drugs in question from your statement, you imply that it’s across the board, but the only drugs we’re talking about are semaglutide (Ozempic and  Wegovy), terzepatide (Zepbound), and potentially orfoglipron—or as you’ve called them in the past, “the fat drugs.” That’s it, nothing else. Second, the price reduction would be around 65-70%, not 400-600% (again, how do you think math works?). Third, other presidents have most assuredly attempted to provide for lower prescription drug costs for Americans, they just weren’t stupid about it. Your MFN drug plan is stupid. By making the profit margin on those few drugs so much smaller, other products and services will by necessity be cut back. Low-volume pharmaceuticals will get dropped. Assistance programs will be cut or eliminated. Investment, needed for R&D, will slow. This is a sleight-of-hand way to try fooling people into thinking you’re helping the public at large when you are actually hurting the public at large. Again.
• “The ‘Unaffordable’ Care Act was created to make insurance companies rich. It was bad health care at might higher cost. You see that now in the steep increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats … it’s not the Republicans’ fault, it’s the Democrats’ fault.” Oh, hey, clever little dig there, calling the Affordable Care Act the “Unaffordable Care Act.” Too bad it’s baseless. The insurance industry hated the ACA. Lobbied hard against it, made sure it was at best watered down. Because it forced them to be less predatory. Health insurance in this country sucks, but it sucks a whole lot less thanks to the ACA and is, whether you like it or not, much more affordable than it used to be. The ACA was actually designed to be a foundation for further reform, a stepping stone to a more inclusive, less-reliant on private enterprise insurance system. It was by no means created to make insurance companies richer. At all. And the sharp increases for 2026 are directly the fault of your “big bill” of cruelty passed by Republicans. The massive premium increases were a choice made exclusively by Republicans with great opposition from Democrats. You fucking liar. “I want the money to go directly to the people so you can buy your own health care. You’ll get much better health care at a much lower price.” Wait, does this refer to your cockamamie idea to make everyone open a “health savings account” and funnel a paltry grand or two into them, then say “have at it, citizens, go buy insurance!” That’s what this is? Well, sir, you have just described a much (MUCH!) worse version of (part of) the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, with a ridiculous and expensive extra layer of bureaucracy and far less financial help. You fucking idiot.
• "Tonight, I am also proud to announce that more than 1,450,000, think of this 1,450,000 military service members will receive a special we call warrior dividend before Christmas, a warrior dividend in honor of our nation's founding in 1776. We are sending every soldier $1,776.  Think of that, and the checks are already on the way." Oooh, the good ol' bribery tactic. Note to servicemembers: this alleged check, if you actually receive it, is funds taken directly from your Basic Housing Allowance. It is not a "warrior dividend," it's a withdrawal from your rent money. So it isn't even a real bribe, it's a bait-and-switch bribe.
• “We’re doing what nobody thought was possible, not even remotely possible. There has never, frankly, been anything like it.” OK, this one is true. Though I and many others warned before the election that giving you another term would be catastrophic, the sheer scale of destruction and wreckage that you’ve wrought on this country in a mere 11 months is, indeed, staggering. “Government either serves the productive, patriotic, hard-working American citizen or it serves those who break the laws, cheat the system, and seek power and profit at the expense of our nation.” YES! OH MY GOD, A 100% TRUE STATEMENT! Your regime, though, is clearly one that serves the criminals and cheaters, everything you have done proves that to be the case. This quote should be used in campaign commercials nationwide for the midterms, juxtaposed with all of your pro-criminal, profiteering, destructive actions.

There’s more, so much more dishonest blame-throwing and gaslighting doublethink in this one speech, but I have to stop here before I tear any more of my hair out.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one who found this repugnant:

 

This man must be stopped. He must be removed from office. Since his cabinet is so thoroughly corrupt and incompetent, we can’t expect the 25^th Amendment to come into play, so we need Congress to impeach and convict him. ASAP. Write your representatives and vote accordingly.

Posted on December 18, 2025 at 10:43AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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If you use technology, read this book

Because I am not made of money, when I buy a book to give someone as a Christmas present (presuming it's one I haven't read yet), if there's enough time I'll read it myself before wrapping it up and sending it off. Thus was the case with one I picked up the other night, the latest nonfic from the great Cory Doctorow.

Doctorow is a longtime tech consumer advocate, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and just on his own, and his new volume explains how the evolution of the Internet has unfortunately coincided with some truly terrible governance to create what he calls the Enshittocene Era, which we are now living trough.

Digital services in particular and the Internet in general are in dire need of regulation, as evidenced by the continually worsening transitions from software being sold to you on a disc or as a download to what we see more and more of today, software that you "subscribe to"—which is to say, rent from a remote server. Further, some of the tech companies like to tweak their user agreements now and then to try and take ownership of not just the physical software, but your work that you create with it in order to "train AI." As more commodities become digital, you as a consumer own less of what you pay for. When once you owned music you bought on a disc, these days if you purchase an album on iTunes, you didn't really buy it—you're renting it for the duration your iTunes account and device is active and paid up. Even physical goods now use Internet connectivity, the so-called "Internet of Things," to try and prevent consumers from actually owning the products they buy.

You've undoubtedly encountered this sort of thing in your everyday lives, but Doctorow details how its done and why in all its greedy glory, and in quite accessible language, in this book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.

All the tech outfits are abusing us; bad enough they all spy on us to an extreme degree to facilitate their algorithms and their advertising sales. But over time they've also graduated to just blatantly ripping us off whenever they can and abusing anyone that gets between them and a dollar. Amazon, unsurprisingly, is and always has been the worst offender, but Apple grates my cheese almost as much with the way they insist on control of everything related to any of their products. (Recall my note in the post on the Android app that there was no iOS app; this is because Apple wants total control and wants you to pay for the privilege of giving it to them.) Everyone is in on it. Google, Meta, Microsoft, Adobe, everyone. And a lot fewer companies make up "everyone" after so many mergers and acquisitions and blind-eye-turning on antitrust laws.

Dearth of competition. Dearth of regulation. Diminishing power of tech-industry labor. Binding arbitration of conflicts when the offending company employs the arbitrators. Choices made by companies and governments to gouge consumers without much pushback (but what little there has been is worth paying attention to and replicating). Thus does enshittification metastasize.

Suffice to say, this is a very important book for everyone to read. Especially Americans, since our regulatory system is the most influential (so far) on these businesses.

Some choice quotes:

"Apple didn't treat its customers well because it loved them. It treated them well to lure them into its walled garden, which was then revealed to be a prison."

"Google could spend billions of dollars every year making sure that even someone who's tried every other search engine would still prefer Google. Or it could spend a lot fewer billions of dollars making sure that no one ever tried a search engine other than Google. It chose the latter. ... Apple's single largest source of revenue is a check for more than $20 billion that Google writes it every year to buy the default search box in Safari and on the iPhone."

"The instant Adobe moved its software to the cloud and eliminated the non-subscription versions of its apps, it put a gun on the mantelpiece. It was only a matter of time until someone opened fire on Adobe's customers with that gun."

"If you operate a cloud-based app, you can monitor your customers' every click and keystroke to discover which features are most valuable to your deepest-pocketed users, and then you can remove that feature from the product's basic tier and reclassify it as an upcharged add-on. The CEOs who do this got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is, 'I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.'"

"Here's how perverse [the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, section 1201] is: ... If I, as the author, narrator, and investor in an audiobook, allow Amazon to sell you that book and later want to provide you with a tool so you can take your book to a rival platform, I will be committing a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine.... If you were to visit a truckstop and shoplift my audiobook on CD from a spinner rack, you would face a significantly lighter penalty for stealing a physical item that I would for providing you with the means to take a copyrighted work that I created and financed our of the Amazon ecosystem. If you were to hijack the truck that delivers that CD and steal an entire fifty-three-foot trailer full of audiobooks, you would likely face a shorter prison sentence that I would for helping you break the DRM on a title I own."

Doctorow notes some positive changes in recent years and lays out a plan to fix things, but it depends on public and governmental actions that seem unlikely to happen in the near future in this country, at least so long as Republicans are in power. It may be up to the Europeans for now.

Tagged The Internet, Culture, Republicans, Technology, Cory Doctorow, Books, Posted on December 15, 2025 at 2:36PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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There's an app for that

I spent some time this week doing some maintenance on this here website and found myself going down a bit of a rabbit hole regarding optimizing for mobile screens, so much so that I made an Android app for the site. So if you have an Android phone, congratulations, you may run the new StarshipTim app on it.

It's not special, really. Basically it's the site as it is if you open it on your phone in Chrome. But it's got its own little icon to tap and open up without having to navigate around your browser.

Basically, I made it for my dad since he can never get to the site without google-searching for it first. But he might not even use it because you have to install it manually; it's not like I'm going to pay to put it in the GooglePlay store. Screw that.

But if anyone wants to give it a go, download this file to your Android phone: Starship.apk

Once it's in your downloads, open the Files app, go to Downloads if you're not already there, tap the three-dot icon for a menu and select "install." You may then have to give permission to install apps from places not controlled by Google, but just do it, it's your phone, you don't need Google's permission. It may then try to scan the app for nefarious code, that's fine, it's just an annoying delay of a few seconds. That's it, you've got your app. It'll show up in your Apps list and you can add the icon to your homescreen shortcuts if you want to.

You'd think my doing this means I now know how to do Android-specific code, but no, not really, I had a hell of a time getting this to work at all and this is, like, rudimentary. Android Studio is not exactly intuitive if you're just flying by the seat of your pants. In the end I used a third-party conversion tool instead.

Apple being Apple, iOS apps are more difficult/expensive to make, so you iPhone folks are hosed. Sorry. Blame Tim Cook.

Tagged Site issues, Posted on December 14, 2025 at 1:27AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Affordabilty

Felon47 wants us all to think there's no such thing as "affordability," and increasingly he's right. Not in the way that he wants us to think, of course; his schtick is to claim that talk of things being unaffordable is another "hoax." Given how real all of his other alleged hoaxes are, it's pretty easy to tell he's full of shit (again), but the way he goes about delivering his schtick is kind of funny. He says, “The word ‘affordability’ is a con job by the Democrats,” as if his opponents made up a word to denigrate him with. "The word affordability is a Democrat scam." (Yet  in the same breath he'll tell you you can get by without buying pencils. This man is the president, for fuck's sake.)

You'd think if there was one guy in the world who knew what a scam was, it'd be him, since he's lived his whole life scamming one group after another. But in addition to being a scammer and a fraud, Felon47 is also an idiot who maintains that the word is the scam. Turns out, of course, that the word is just a word. It applies to things in context and not to other things in other contexts. I guess Felon47 just doesn't like that word, it's not one of "the best words."

One context the word does apply to is the Christmas budgets of countless Americans, including me. Thanks in large part to Felon47’s policies and general fuck-you-ness, money is tight. I paid my January health insurance premium yesterday and it's twice what the December premium was. I went grocery shopping last night and spent $100 on what I'd have expected not that long ago to cost $70-$75. I also went Christmas shopping.

Christmas shopping is rarely an efficient way to spend my time, as usually I have no idea what I'm looking for and wait for something to grab me off the shelves or the racks. I did get a couple of things, but after this little mini-spree it's become clear that it's going to be a minimalist Christmas for those on the StarshipTim gift list. Sorry, gang. Better luck next year.

The one bit of sticker shock that for whatever reason sticks with me—even though it's not really "shock," it's less a surprise issue than a scale issue—is that a new paperback book, what used to be classified as a "mass-market" paperback, costs $20+ now. Seems like not that long ago it hit $10 and that seemed steep. But it's not just books, it's everything, and even though I'm a lot more comfortable now than I was in the many years I was straddling the poverty line I am still conditioned in my mind as someone straddling the poverty line. So a paperback with a cover price of $20 hits more than the $45 tag on a pair of jeans.

Anyway, Christmas is a drag for me regardless of the health of my bank account, so whatever. Just a matter of  getting through the month.

Tagged Republicans, Christmas, Money, Posted on December 14, 2025 at 1:01AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Better late than never

For three months it has irked me greatly that the mainstream press in this country has treated the continual policy of Felon47 and his cabinet of criminal cruelty to extrajudicially murder Venezuelans (and others?) on the open seas as just another curiosity in the vast mozaic of chaos this alleged president has wrought. Now, after almost 90 people have been murdered by the United States for the offense of being on a boat out of (we think) Venezuela, it's finally getting some traction, but it took ancillary stories to get the media to care.

It took six congressional Democrats distributing a video reminding military personnel that it is their duty, as codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to refuse illegal orders; it took Felon47’s outraged reaction to that video in which he essentially admitted that he wants to issue illegal orders and have them followed; that apparently led to someone telling the Washington Post that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a war crime in the first of these murderous strikes on Venezuelan boats. That what it took to generate any real outrage.

That in itself is maddening, but hey, at least the outrage is starting to spread. Sadly, the outrage is still focused on one egregious element of one incident, the "double-tap" second missile fired to kill two survivors of an initial strike on a boat in September. Because that action is explicitly described by military codes of conduct as a blatantly illegal order that should not be followed—killing the shipwrecked—it's the focus right now. OK, at least it's an entry point to the greater issue. But talking about the killing of the two survivors of a first missile as if it is fundamentally different from the rest of the policy is yet another failure of the American press.

There is no legality—none—to any of the boat strikes. They are all crimes. They are all murders. Getting wrapped up in the nuances of the double-tap strike and Hegseth's alleged order to "kill everybody" as the reason for doing that threatens to justify by implication the rest of the killings. Hegseth and Felon47 insist that they are perfectly  within their rights to conduct these strikes because they are abiding by "the rules of war" in an "armed conflict" with "narco-terrorists" in league with the Venezuelan government. Except those reasons are all bullshit. 

a) The United States is not at war with Venezuela or any other nation. b) There is no armed conflict with these boats—none of the boats took offensive action against US personnel or property. c) The phrase "narco-terrorists" is just a made-up term to stoke propaganda, it makes no sense—the goal of a drug trafficker is to sell drugs, to make money, and instilling terror on their prospective markets is counter to that interest. d) There has been no evidence proffered—zero—as to who or what was even aboard those boats; were they really carrying narcotics? Were they really Venzuelan gang members? Were they affiliated in any way with the Venezuelan government? One thing that is relatively certain is that they were not heading for the United States; none of the boats had that kind of range, particularly if they were laden with a heavy cargo of narcotics. e) Felon47 doesn't give a tinker's damn about drug trafficking—if he did, he wouldn't be pardoning drug kingpins, as he has done repeatedly including just this week—so the entire motivation for the murders is suspect.

Further, drug trafficking, while a serious matter, is not a capital offense. Further still, even if it was a capital offense, it has to be proven in the judicial system before sentence can be carried out. Because, again, it's not a war.

The latest incident that we know about came just yesterday. Hegseth announced on social media that the US "just sunk another narco boat," this time in the eastern Pacific. An official announcement confirmed the strike and noted four deaths, bringing the tally of known  extrajudicial killings—murders—in these operations to 87.

Felon47 and his utterly lawless regime has killed and will kill untold numbers of people, both in the US and around the world; these Venezuelan boats account for only a tiny fraction. Reversals of international aid policies, destruction of public health infrastructure, rollbacks of environmental regulations and incentivizing fossil fuel pollutants, economic oppressions, and poverty-by-intent legislation will be far more deadly in the end. But the in-your-face audacity of just targeting a boat and blowing it up on the open sea because you want to feel like a tough guy is so emblematic of this tyrant and this regime that it should get covered more intently. And with that context: This is outrageous and easy to understand in the moment, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. MAGA is a death cult, even if the members don't know it.

More folks are calling for Pete Hegseth to resign, which is great, but it's insufficient. Pete Hegseth, along with everyone who carried out his illegal orders, should be prosecuted. So, frankly, should the tyrant-in-chief, but John Roberts and his corrupt majority of the Supreme Court decided presidents are above the law. Still, I'd like to see it anyway, bring charges against him and make the Court defend its ruling.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Pete Hegseth, Republicans, Posted on December 5, 2025 at 11:58PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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The Cylons were created by man

Elon Musk

The war against the bots rages on.

For this website, as well as others I host, I have attempted to install security measures to cut down on various types of bot traffic. Some have worked pretty well; spam comments are way down, for instance. But the newest wave of Internet bots is more tenacious, ruthless, and borg-like. They adapt.

These are scraper bots. Automated scripts that bypass traditional filters meant to regulate non-human user traffic in order to scan everything written on a web page and plug it into a huge repository called a Large Language Model to train so-called "artificial intelligence" (a misnomer as it is neither) programs. These scraper bots spoof their identifying markers so they appear to be a regular user using a regular web browser on a regular computer, but they're not. In Battlestar Galactica metaphor, they're skinjobs—they may look like human beings but they're still Cylons.

Thus far there seems to be no way to adequately combat these plagiarism factories without either adding whole layers of expensive third-party software firewalls or forcing every human user to log in with password credentials. I've tried blocking the bot IP addresses, they just cycle through new ones. I managed to eliminate a lot of them by blocking all browsers using Chinese, but then within a day or two they were back using English. I've tried blocking their spoofed configurations—generally they prefer to show as a MacOS using an outdated version of Chrome with an obsolete screen resolution—but that only nails a small fraction of them since most don't really use such configs; those are the fake IDs shown inside the bar, not the different fake IDs used to get past the bouncer.

My latest attempt at blocking them, which I will not explain here, appears to be effective for the moment. No bot traffic for several hours now. But like any good Borg drones, I rather expect to check the logs tomorrow and find that they've adapted.

Fortunately, these bots don't use up a ton of resources; since they don't actually render the site on a browser, the bandwidth usage on each hit is relatively small. But it adds up. And they're everywhere—estimates are that over 50% of web traffic today is bots and that as much as 80% of that is "AI" scrapers. Other estimates are less specific, but measure over a third of all web traffic as "bad bots," i.e. malicious actors of one sort or another, but whether or not "AI" scrapers qualify as "bad" depends on who's doing the study.

I blame Elon and Zuck, but let's face it, if it wasn't them it'd be some other entitled asshats thinking they can just do what they want and steal everyone's work with impunity.

I'll now wait and see if my latest mitigation is worth anything, and if so start applying it to client sites.

Tagged Site issues, Posted on December 2, 2025 at 10:28PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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How is it December already?

Should be read in the tone of Jerry Seinfeld greeting Newman the mailman

Good day, and welcome to Month 12.

As I type this, it is December 1st, 2025, which kind of weirds me out. I mean, we all know that as we get older the passage of time seems to speed up merely because of the law of scale—a year/month/day/pick your unit of time continually shrinks in proportion to the total time you've lived, hence a year when you're 13 feels a lot longer than a year when you're 53—but this year seems to have flown by with particular alacrity.

In some ways, I guess that's not so bad—big-picture-wise, 2025 has been a shit year, why not get it over with—but that's nonsensical. Arbitrary numbers on our cultural timekeeping platforms are great for organization, but really they don't mean anything on a day-to-day human level. (And yes, I know days and years aren't arbitrary, they're facts of astronomical physics, but how we think of them culturally is; with a little different push from history we might still be using a variation of the Sumerian calendar.)

Or, maybe the year hasn't really flown by in my perception. Maybe my wow-is-it-already-December nonplussedness stems from something a little more localized, or more to do with my fucked-up brain chemistry and how for a while it seemed November was the month of doom. There was a stretch of years around the turn of the century wherein bad stuff tended to fall in November; that hasn't really been the case in more recent years, but anniversaries still turn up every time around and perhaps have contributed to my most recent Black Hole episode, still ongoing.

In which case, yay, November over, bring on December.

Eh, whatever. The why of it doesn't matter, I guess, it just is: I'm in a mood, and time passing by, whether "quickly" or "normally," isn't helping said mood.

Analyzing the whys is what I do, though. I overthink things, I overprocess things, I drill down to the studs on things. I might be better off if I just moved the fuck on. Instead I'm posting this rambly word salad stream of consciousness. Which, I suppose, is a potential way to move on? Better putting it out there than just letting it stew unarticulated in my head.

Regardless, it is now December. We've gotten past the first portion of the holiday season, bracing for the next, and looking forward to putting them all in the rear-view. Which kind of sucks. I mean, as a younger person I looked forward to holidays; now I look forward to them being over. Because they aren't fun anymore. Holidays are not made for single folk, they're not made for poorly-coupled folk, they're not made for third wheels or groups of orphans (literal or metaphorical). In fact, I can't remember the last holiday season I actually enjoyed as an adult. There must have been one or two somewhere along the way, but really I just remember suffering through them or just making the best of them in a sort of relaxed coasting detachment.

Anyway, herein lies my immediate challenge: Climb out of the Black Hole during the holiday season without immediately falling back down again. Don't disappear completely into my head for another month. That's my mission, if my brain chooses to accept it.

 

Ghosts appear and fade away.

Tagged The Black Hole, Holidays, Posted on December 1, 2025 at 11:35PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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