Maud’dib

Repent

[notadampaul @notadampaul]

cute young couple standing awkwardly to the side in the lobby of the hotel I'm staying at, nervously pacing around and making out with each other. They approach me

"H-hey, um, can you... well, I'm 20, and she's 19. But you have to be 21 to check in"

They're obviously sneaking around on their parents. The hotel has happily taken his money for the reservation under his ID and credit card. But now they won't let him check in without someone 21+ to guarantee the room

Of course, one sensitive young man to another, I agree without hesitation

Unfortunately, the harpies behind the checkout counter, clearly vile haters of all young men with a dream, have sniffed out his rather hare-brained scheme quite easily

Just as I'm about to put pen to paper with my signature and allow these young absconded lovers to consummate their lascivious weekend, a third managerial harpy-type appears from behind some invisible door and marches sternly toward me

"Sir, I know you think you're doing something nice, but I cannot allow you to do this. They've already told me they had no one to guarantee. Really, it's a matter where the police could get involved"

My god, woman. The police? These lost souls could walk into an army recruiting office this afternoon and be fighting in a war tomorrow, but they can't check in to a hotel for a surreptitious romantic weekend a city over?

Anyway, this is why American TFR is in the toilet. I guarantee you an accidental baby would have been made this weekend. Oh and they kept his money too. Poor kid

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

[Maud’dib @DougGerken]

@RayKump @Rach4Patriarchy 🎶 SJW Ray
He’s gonna SJW your day 🎶

[Banished Kent @kentbanishearl]

“So, wait, you’re saying the lembas bread was gone?”

“Thas correck Tucker.”

“And the crumbs weren’t on Sméagol, but on Samwise’s cloak?”

“Correck. There onry one possable expranation: fat hobbit eat bread. Ereryone know nice Sméagol onry eat fish.”

[Elisha Long @ElishaDLong]

Retardmaxxing is maximum cognitive security for the modern world.

You weren't outraged by the halftime show. You smiled and watched women dance and got a nice test boost.

Not surprised or dismayed about the Epstein files. You knew we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against evil in high places. Evil people run shit and they win when they destroy your spirit.

Bitcoin dropped and you watch and smile because Rule #1 - They Always Come Back. Crypto, women, opportunities, sunny days.

The Idiot and his intellectualism can never understand this. Those blinded by thought always miss what is so obvious to the short bus Conquistador.

Ride The Tiger

[Paul Anleitner @PaulAnleitner]

The year was 1938. Hitler’s power was expanding and the world seemed to be heading toward an inevitable second Great War.

C.S. Lewis looked at all of the international, economic, and political turmoil of the world and said,

“I’m going to write a book about a philologist who goes to Mars and talks with space otters.”

Hitler’s dead, but the Space Trilogy is still with us.

The temptation of living in a 24/7 news cycle is to think that our full attention must always be invested in world-saving efforts. But the end is always nigh, and sometimes the best thing you can do is write a story, poem, song, or create a work of useless beauty.

[🕊️ @lichthauch]

Christ showed me that the worst thing that can happen to you might be the point of you. that God does not rescue his favorites he ruins them in front of everyone. and the people who loved you will stand at a distance and they cannot help and they are not supposed to help and this is also part of it. and you will ask why and the sky will say nothing and the nothing is the answer. the nothing is where faith lives. and he hung there and the father looked away and the looking away was the gift because if God had watched he would have stopped it and if he had stopped it you and i would still be dying without a door

[Tomás (now in SF) Bjartur @BjarturTomas]

My bros and I are looksmaxers. Or we were. Now we are something far more. It started with BVL9G5, a Chinese peptide that reopens growth plates, transforming the "height-pill" from black to white.

I was 5'6 when I started injecting it.

In three months I was 6'2. I became a chad, for being short was my only fault.

And yet, there were others out there taller than me. I doubled my dose. By the end of the year I was 7'4. Freakishly tall. Women no longer flirted with me like they did when I was 6'2. But it wasn't about the women any more. I was doing it for me. I tripled my dose.

I was 8'11 when my mother begged me to stop.

“You don’t understand,” I said, “I know the risks. I am doing this for me! I could be a contender!"

"In basketball?" she asked.

I laughed at her idiocy. "I am far too tall for basketball. No. I could win the competitive reaching championships."

"Competitive reaching?"

"It's a new sport we made. We grab things from tall shelves."

"But didn't you start this because you wanted a girlfriend? Don't you still want one?" she said.

My old dreams flashed before my eyes. They were the dreams of another man, a shorter man. They seemed to me foreign and absurd.

"That depends," I said. "How tall would she be?"

[Secretary Kennedy @SecKennedy]

🥛

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

Last year I eliminated our PTO policy.

I called it "unlimited."

The board loved it.

HR loved it.

Finance really loved it.

Let me explain why Finance loved it.

Under the old policy, employees accrued 18 days per year. Unused days carried over. When employees quit, we owed them money. Cash. For days they earned but didn't take.

That's a liability. On the books. $4.7 million in accrued PTO across 2,300 employees.

I made it disappear.

With one policy change.

"Unlimited PTO."

You can't accrue what's infinite. You can't owe what was never counted. The liability vanished. $4.7 million. Gone.

The CFO sent me a bottle of wine.

I told employees it was about "trust and flexibility."

It was about the balance sheet.

But "balance sheet optimization" doesn't fit on a careers page.

"Unlimited PTO" does.

We updated the job postings.

Applications increased 23%.

People love unlimited.

Until they try to use it.

Under the old policy, employees took an average of 17 days per year.

Under unlimited, they take 11.

That's not a bug.

That's the design.

When PTO is a number, people take the number. It's theirs. They earned it. Managers can't argue with a number.

When PTO is "unlimited," people take nothing.

Because unlimited comes with questions.

"Is this a good time?"

"Who's covering?"

"What will people think?"

The guilt does the enforcement.

I don't have to say no.

The culture says no.

I just built the culture.

We track time-off requests in Workday. I see everything.

A senior engineer requested two weeks in July.

His manager approved it.

Officially.

Then sent a Slack message.

"Totally fine. Just wanted to flag that the Erikson deliverable overlaps. Probably fine. Just flagging."

The engineer took four days.

Unlimited means whatever your anxiety allows.

For most people, that's less than before.

Some employees don't take any PTO.

We call them "high performers."

They get promoted.

Then they manage others.

They don't approve much PTO either.

The system self-replicates.

A recruiter asked how we "stay competitive."

I said, "Unlimited PTO."

She asked how much people actually take.

I said, "That's not tracked."

It is tracked.

I have a dashboard.

I don't share the dashboard.

We did an employee survey.

84% said they "appreciated the flexibility of unlimited PTO."

12% said they "wished they felt more comfortable taking time off."

We published the 84%.

The 12% went in a folder.

The folder is called "Noted."

I don't open that folder.

Someone in engineering asked if we could go back to accrued PTO.

I said, "That would limit your flexibility."

He said he wanted limits.

I said, "That's not aligned with our culture of trust."

He stopped asking.

Trust is a funny word.

I trust employees to feel too guilty to use their benefits.

They trust me to frame that guilt as freedom.

That's the deal.

I'm presenting at an HR conference next month.

The session is called "Unlimited PTO: Building a Culture of Ownership."

Ownership means employees own their guilt.

I own the savings.

The policy costs us nothing.

Because employees take nothing.

And call it a benefit.

I'll be VP of People by Q2.

Unlimited upside.

[house of A🌷 @houseofala]

I love how milk is so alive it’s almost schizophrenic. Put some cultures in and it yogurtfies. Add some acid, you’ve got cheese. Hundred of types of cheese based on just waiting times. Insane. Cook it and it caramelizes into thick nectar. Steam it and a cappuccino is born.

Ice cream. Sweetened condensed. Goat milk. Sour cream. Heavy cream. Raw. Buttermilk. Powdered milk. Milk chocolate.

We love milk so much we speak about percentages of it, like gold carats.

Milk is foundational. Biblical. Something maternal and natural and feminine about it. Milk is alive

[JT @jiratickets]

girlfriend thought target was a bigger company than amazon. hilarious. adorable. clueless little woman. she’s up 20% YTD passively investing and I’m down $35K

[Madoc Cairns @MadocCairns]

Season’s greetings from Alasdair MacIntyre:

[Maud’dib @DougGerken]

@Dannic44 Patriot. Keep pushing

[Maud’dib @DougGerken]

Good to see you man you look good. Have you been mewing?

[PointlessHub @HubPointless]

This is the burger equivalent of a Roman divine warning

[Rap Game Edward Bernays @edward_bernayz]

Normies be falling for psyops like

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees.

$30 per seat per month.

$1.4 million annually.

I called it "digital transformation."

The board loved that phrase.

They approved it in eleven minutes.

No one asked what it would actually do.

Including me.

I told everyone it would "10x productivity."

That's not a real number.

But it sounds like one.

HR asked how we'd measure the 10x.

I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards."

They stopped asking.

Three months later I checked the usage reports.

47 people had opened it.

12 had used it more than once.

One of them was me.

I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds.

It took 45 seconds.

Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations.

But I called it a "pilot success."

Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail.

The CFO asked about ROI.

I showed him a graph.

The graph went up and to the right.

It measured "AI enablement."

I made that metric up.

He nodded approvingly.

We're "AI-enabled" now.

I don't know what that means.

But it's in our investor deck.

A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT.

I said we needed "enterprise-grade security."

He asked what that meant.

I said "compliance."

He asked which compliance.

I said "all of them."

He looked skeptical.

I scheduled him for a "career development conversation."

He stopped asking questions.

Microsoft sent a case study team.

They wanted to feature us as a success story.

I told them we "saved 40,000 hours."

I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up.

They didn't verify it.

They never do.

Now we're on Microsoft's website.

"Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot."

The CEO shared it on LinkedIn.

He got 3,000 likes.

He's never used Copilot.

None of the executives have.

We have an exemption.

"Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction."

I wrote that policy.

The licenses renew next month.

I'm requesting an expansion.

5,000 more seats.

We haven't used the first 4,000.

But this time we'll "drive adoption."

Adoption means mandatory training.

Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches.

But completion will be tracked.

Completion is a metric.

Metrics go in dashboards.

Dashboards go in board presentations.

Board presentations get me promoted.

I'll be SVP by Q3.

I still don't know what Copilot does.

But I know what it's for.

It's for showing we're "investing in AI."

Investment means spending.

Spending means commitment.

Commitment means we're serious about the future.

The future is whatever I say it is.

As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

[MoundLore @MoundLore]

I was watching this 1950s footage and caught myself thinking, “Life really moved different back then.”

Not cleaner. Not better. Just steadier.
People walked like the ground wasn’t going to shift under them tomorrow. Days had a rhythm you could lean on. You can see it in the small stuff… the way they talk to each other, the way an afternoon just exists without rushing.

And it made me pause a bit.
When did we lose that?
When did everyday life start feeling like a deadline you’re already behind on?

I’m not romanticizing the 50s. They had their problems.
But the pace in this video… it hits you.
It makes you notice how fast we slid into a world built on noise, speed, and constant uncertainty.

If you watch it, tell me what comes up for you.
I’m curious what thoughts, memories or revelations this stirs with people.