Tamara > Recent Status Updates

I was already having trouble with the image of mosquito larvae in the coffee grounds. And then she had to go and reassure herself with the line "Nothing wriggled against my tongue."
It just occured to me that no matter how much I love Kingfisher's writing, and no matter how much I can even love her brand of horror, this book especially is a) not for reading before bed and b) not for people with slight entomophobia

Mr. Norrell definitely needs a PR manager, but I hope Drawlight isn't it.

Mr. Norrell both is and isn't the introverted grump I expected. I guess he isn't introvertedly grumping in the way I thought an introverted grump should 🤭

We have not properly met Mr. Norrell yet, but I have a feeling he won't try to make the other magicians stop exploring the history of magic, he'll try to make them stop bothering him by pretending to be a fraud. 😂

For example, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has a shameful record of rubber-stamping ridiculous, overbroad, incredibly obvious patent applications [...] The USPTO's attitude to junk patents has historically been "Grant 'em all and let the courts sort 'em out."

Case in point: does anyone remember cockygate? 😂

"Varoufakis's technofeudalism thesis holds that, in the years after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, tech was transformed from a primarily profit-seeking enterprise to a primarily rent-seeking enterprise. The thing that makes tech giants powerful is that they control "factors of production" that they rent to actual, productive businesses."

So, welcome to feudalism v2, I guess?

So basically, Google had the potential to be really great, and it was great for a while, but the lack of regulation allwed it to become the most evil version of itself.

I've been reading this book since February and I'm not even at the half-way mark. I feel exausted by the amount of drama. Hopefully I will finish this by the end of the year 😓

This is Black Mirror material right here. Quote in comments.

Before I started it, nothing about this book indicated lovecraftian horror 😓

A very fun intro!

"In 2022, Photoshop users were informed that they would henceforth need to pay a subscription fee for certain colors in their images, and if they didn't pay the fee, those colors would be replaced with plain black in every existing file they appeared in."

I haven't heard of this one before, but does it surprise me? Not anymore.

"... Diapers.com was excited for its future and saw no reason to sell out to Amazon.
That wouldn't do. Amazon [...] proceeded to set $200 million on fire over every single month, selling diapers bellow cost. In the end, Diapers.com went bust; Amazon picked it up for pennies on the dollar and then shut it down."


They did this to BookDepository too 😭😭😭

"... HP still has to worry that once you discover the existence of cheap, reliable third-party ink, you'll stop buying HP cartriges forever."

Which is why HP now charges a monthly subscription for pinting, making it so you can't use their printers unless you pay your subscription 🫣