Humdrum Places - BlogFlock

🤖 Prove this photo is real - The Independent Variable

2025-10-28T18:06:34.000Z

AI has blurred the line. Now, how we take, share, and create images has changed. Social media has made sharing images easy. Generative AI now creates any image we can imagine…By combining attested sensor data, zero-knowledge proofs, and a tamper-proof environment, we've built Roc Camera to capture verifiably real photos.

This is a technical solution for what I think is more of a social and cultural problem. It suggests a dystopian future where any form of media is assumed to be fake unless it is verified. I hope that trust and accountability can remain at the center of our social contract, but tools like this may find a place in certain contexts.

🎉 Weekend edition vol.082 - foofaraw

2025-10-26T15:59:43.000Z

This week’s ad slot was purchased by friend of Foofaraw, Evan Passero, in support of the Denton Community Food Center—providing emergency food assistance from a central community storehouse to needy families and individuals in the City of Denton and Northern Denton County struggling with hunger insecurity.

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

Donate now

Hello hello hello!!!

Our publishing schedule was in flux this week as we published our first novella! It's available as an ebook, paperback, and a limited edition hardcover right now! Paid subscribers received the ebook for free, and our wonderful Patrons have the paperback on the way to their mailboxes as we speak. Find out more here:

The Bodies by D.H. Parish

a 46-page print novella

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We kicked things off this week with an epic edition of Cavendish from Joel, which is so good that I don't want to say too much to avoid spoiling anything:

⚒️ Nordstoem’s Smiling Teeth

by Joel Glover

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Matty is back, and OBSTRUCTION keeps getting better, and weirder, and more intricate every issue:

🚧 OBSTRUCTION #9

a webcomic from Matthew Burbridge

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This week’s short story comes to us from Bobby Rollins, and it’s all about the overused vacuous words and empty phrases that have lost all their meaning:

🧽 Innovative solutions

by Bobby Rollins

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Then Bobby talked to us about some of those buzzwords and the treacherous consultants and politicians spewing them like it’s the very air they breathe:

🎙️ Bobby Rollins

An interview with the author of Innovative solutions

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➡️

Next week:
Clowns, conspiracies, and poetry

🏀 Billups, Rozier arrested in gambling investigations - The Independent Variable

2025-10-24T16:54:39.000Z

ESPN

There are still a lot of unknowns about this, and I’ve seen passing mention that the FBI might be overstating how big of a bust this is and maybe conflating a few different things to make it look bigger to put a black eye on the NBA, but given how early this is, that’s all conjecture.

🌠 Disney Nixed a Ben Solo ‘Star Wars’ Movie Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Adam Driver Says - The Independent Variable

2025-10-24T04:20:06.000Z

TheWrap

I typically reserve this kind of link for Foofaraw, but the idea of Steven Soderbergh doing a Star Wars movie is just too fascinating. I feel like you could add up the budget of his last ten movies and they still wouldn’t equal a Star Wars movie.

🤖 OpenAI buys Sky, an AI interface for Mac - The Independent Variable

2025-10-24T04:17:50.000Z

TechCrunch

Sky is a product I actually thought could have some real utility. Security was always the issue though, and now that OpenAI controls them, I’m not sure I’d want OpenAI to be able to essentially see everything I do on my computer.

🤡 Trump Keeps Attacking Americans. Why Does He Get Away With It? - The Independent Variable

2025-10-24T04:13:59.000Z

The New Republic

And the media, with its long-standing bias toward treating Republican grievances as more legitimate than Democratic ones, follows the lead of whichever party is making the most noise. Republicans scream about “deplorables” for weeks, so it becomes a story. Democrats shrug at Trump’s latest attack on blue America, so it doesn’t.

Trump and his administration (and minions) are all guilty of basically everything they accuse democrats of doing. They’re the biggest snowflakes there are.

🐂 Takeaways from the Bulls season opener - The Independent Variable

2025-10-24T04:12:21.000Z

Noh

The most glaring thing is how often he is scoring off cuts this year. Synergy had 22 percent of his possessions coming off cuts in this game as compared to around 7 percent last season. He has gotten MUCH better at timing those plays out, and he’s pretty devastating when changing directions on a dime.

The NBA is back! And Buzelis seems to be catching up to the NBA game this year. I wasn’t able to watch it, but even from Noh’s clip you can see how active he is on both sides of the ball. Vooch, of course, killed it, as he always has the ability to when given the chance.

🎙️ Bobby Rollins - foofaraw

2025-10-23T22:00:33.000Z

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

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Read Bobby's story, Innovative solutions, on Foofaraw now!

Do you have experience as a consultant or working with consultants?

I’ve worked with more than a few, and to be fair, not all of them rely on using meaningless words to disguise the true value of their role; some are legitimately very good.

What "business word/platitude" are you most guilty of using?

I truthfully don’t use any of them with any degree of sincerity, perhaps I’m not yet quite good enough for that level of make believe! I still flinch when I use word the “team” to refer to a group of colleagues though, it feels so utterly fake, I feel shame whenever I say it.

Which "business word/platitude" makes you cringe the most?

They all hurt! It does make me smile though, the first time I hear one that’s just arrived on the scene. I suppose I have a few neurons that appreciate the creativity behind their development.

Do you think there is any way we can reduce the trend of these meaningless words or are we on course for a world where every single word has completely lost any meaning?

The reasonably minded try to speak with meaning, but given the strength of marketing, business, and political communications, I do believe (albeit sadly) the value and meaning in words will continue to depreciate. It may have always been this way, but it seems using language to avoid having to tell the truth is broadly viewed as being smart, professional, and standard practice, regardless of the industry, activism or political point of view. Everyone does it, and, like any hall or auditorium possessing fair morals, it makes me want to barf every time I hear it.

Which cleaning product would do the best job removing meaningless words from carpeting?

This is, without doubt, the best question anyone has ever, and likely will ever, ask me, and would you believe it? All I can say is I don’t know.

That word definitely has a ring to it! I confess I had to look it up, and though I have experienced the described use as a consumer, I also think it rather aptly sums up how language is used in politics, business and marketing nowadays. Wish I had thought of it first really!

What book are you reading right now?

In view of his recent passing, I’ve been enjoying Ivan Klima’s “My First Loves” and “My Golden Trades” all over again. True beauties, trust me.

I want to thank Bobby for taking the time to attack my livelihood as a freelance business strategy consultant!

🧽 Innovative solutions - foofaraw

2025-10-23T16:00:59.000Z

“Damn it, Rollins! It smells like arse in here!” the conference centre manager barked at me, after storming through the swinging wooden doors into the hall where I was waiting for him.

“Yessir, it does.” I agreed, with a hint of sad resignation in my voice. “In fact, that’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.” I continued, as I noticed a large bead of sweat rolling down his wrinkled brow.

“I hired you for one reason, Rollins, and that’s to kill the smell in this place after an event!” he told me, “When clients are finished here, it shouldn’t smell like it does now!”

“Yessir, you’re correct,” I concurred, “and I’ve always counted myself among the lucky as an employee in your service. I don’t have a single complaint about your payment practices, nor do I have any about the payer.” I added with a warm smile.

“Then why, my dear Rollins,” he asked in a monotone that had begun kindling with impatience, “does this hall, the very one I’m paying you to remediate, smell so strongly like the devil’s backside?”

“It gives me no joy to tell you sir, but I fear the cause of it all may be room over-use,” I said, trying to prepare him for the sentence that was to follow, “and if that’s the case, even with all of my experience and previous service, I’m not sure there’ll be anything I can do.”

“But it’s high season now, Rollins,” he explained after a pause, “and the centre is in no position to turn business away. We’re expecting 300 people to fill the place tomorrow night. If it smells like it does now, we’re going to have a riot!”

“Yessir, you might.” I nodded, “A riot is a very reasonable forecast if you’re planning on having 300 souls sitting shoulder to shoulder in a room scented such as this one. But to be honest, sir, I don’t understand how it happened. As long as my guidance of hosting no more than one event per week was followed, the hall really shouldn’t be in this advanced stage of deterioration.”

“We’re running a business here, Rollins!” he replied, emphasizing each word as if I were a child, “and with the city elections coming up next month, business, for the first time in a long time, has been good. All we did was host a series of all-candidate debates for the mayor and council wannabes this week.”

“Good God, sir!” I snapped, overcome by both irritation and a sense of doom. “You did what with who?”

“What’s the big deal, Rollins?” He asked. “They pay on time, and that’s what keeps a conference centre running! We had mayoral candidate debates here on Tuesday and Sunday, and the councillors’ debate was on the Thursday in between.”

“Have you gone mad?” I asked him, in disbelief. “You had all of that happen in the same hall in the same week? That’s pure negligence! In fact, it’s abject cruelty! Not even the newest of halls can handle that sort of volume and capacity! Of course, it stinks like the devil’s rump! You can’t expose a room to all of that without consequence! What on earth were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about doing my job, Rollins,” he said matter-of-factly, “You know, the one the conference centre pays me to do, much of which involves me booking and filling these rooms with, you know, conferences! Now, if you could kindly turn your mind to sanitizing, we should be able to deodorize this stink-pit in time for tomorrow night.”

“I’m only trying to tell you the straight goods, sir.” I said softly, “There’s no way we can get rid of the stench. It’s impossible. The damage is beyond repair. Too much of the stink has been splattered around. It’s been absorbed in the carpet and soaked into the walls. There’s no getting it out. It smells like arse in here for a reason, sir. The place is overflowing with rot.”

“But surely, you can do something, Rollins,” he pleaded. “You’ve always managed to take care of this sort of thing in the past. I’ll pay you extra! I know you can get rid of the smell. I need you to, now more than ever! Please, don’t let me down.”

“It’s probably easier if I just show you the extent of the damage, sir,” I said without a trace of emotion, placing my hand on his elbow to guide him, “but trust me, as we move closer to the front of the room, you’ll need one of these.” I continued, handing him a gas mask. “The potency of the decay gets much stronger the closer you get to the stage.

“The fact is, conference halls like this have become real-life vomitoriums.” I continued as we began our steps down the aisle towards the podium. “The only difference is, today, it’s got nothing to do with food, and everything to do with words. These halls get force-fed so many indigestible slogans and speeches that they are eventually filled to the brim, ready to burst, and when that very fragile, but very real threshold is crossed, the rooms—simply put—spill the lot. What I’m trying to tell you, sir, is the rancid air we’re smelling is the scent of the conference room’s vomit. It simply couldn’t hold all of those impossible-to-stomach words in for a moment longer.”

“What on earth are you on about, Rollins?” the manager asked me, with a sense of clear disbelief. “It’s a room! It doesn’t have a mouth, and it doesn’t have a stomach!”

“Not one like yours or mine,” I agreed, “but believe me when I say every room has a stomach, sir. Every room has a soul, too.”

“You make no sense, Rollins!” he barked. “You’re telling me that rooms have body parts and a spirit, and furthermore, it’s the words that have been spoken in this room that caused this stench?”

“Yessir, I am,” I answered. “Not necessarily all of the words, mind you, just those too vacuous for the room to digest. When these words were used in the past, they had a much clearer meaning and understood value, so the rooms could digest them easily, but these days, there are so many deliberately empty phrases, promises, mantras, and mottos repeated to such excess that many of the words have lost all of their meaning. If you think about it, we’ve never had so many different synonyms for “nothing” as we do right now.”

“Strewth! The smell is getting stronger,” the manager said, with a pained expression growing on his face. “I don’t care to go much further, to be honest. What is it that you’re trying to show me anyway?”

“Just a few more steps if you don’t mind, sir.” I urged him on, with my hand returning to his elbow. “It will all begin to make sense once we reach the back row.” I continued with a flick of my chin as I gestured towards the chairs in front of us. “In fact, you can almost see the beginnings of it from here.”

“I need to put this mask on before I go any further, Rollins,” he said, placing it over his face. “Good heavens, the smell is absolutely rank!”

“Yessir, it is.” I agreed while directing his gaze towards the carpeted floor in front of us. “Have a look here, sir.” I continued, “Can you see that? It’s a mix between a puddle and a stain, but it doesn’t matter what I do, whatever it is, it’s only growing, and I can’t get the smell out.”

“It might be just me, or maybe it’s this bloody mask, but that puddle looks like it’s in the shape of letters!” he said, sounding eerily godly or devilish as it came through the mask’s filter. “What does it say?”

“You have a good eye, sir,” I replied. “This puddle was formed from some of the first words the room couldn’t digest, and if you look closer, you’ll see innovative solutions bubbling in the centre of it. You can make out each letter clearly, even the dots on the i’s are there.”

“By God, you’re right. But what is it doing in a pile of vomit on the floor?” he asked incredulously. “And why does it smell so bloody awful?”

“Please don’t blame the words, sir,” I said calmly, “It’s really no more their fault than it is the room’s. They have to go somewhere once they’re said,” I explained, “and to be honest, I feel for the poor buggars. It must be hard to be tossed around so carelessly—indigestible as they are—and besides, once they’ve been spoken here, there really is no place for them to go.”

Looking at him—even though there was a mask between us—I could tell he was stunned.

Artwork by Tony Tran

“Do you understand now, sir?” I tried to help him along the path to comprehension. “These words used to have meaning, and I suppose, individually and in the dictionary, they still do. And as long as they’re used in that context, when they’re spoken there’s no problem, the room can absorb and digest them smoothly, and the people using the space are none the wiser.”

He didn’t nod, say a word, or make a move, but I could tell he was listening.

“The trouble begins when the words are over-used to the point they begin to saturate the space they’re spoken,” I added, “and when the rooms can’t handle the sheer volume of the intentionally meaningless phrases, those letters begin to gather and fester until they eventually overpower the room’s digestive abilities, and much like a toxin in our stomach, they’re rejected, and barfed out.”

“I still don’t understand why we can’t get rid of the mess?” he asked, beginning to process the extent of the problem. “Why can’t we just use a wet-vac or some cleaning products to neutralize the smell?”

“There’s no removing it, sir. Scoop as much of it as you like; the puddle remains. I can usually do something to aid the room in its digestion,” I continued to explain, “For example, I can add meaning to some of the stuck words to help the room break them down, or sometimes I can mix in a few phrases to serve as an acid toward some of the more vacant words. In other cases, I can use some selected verbs that have an alkaline effect on those bubbling phrases of rot, but in this case, nothing I do is helping. It is too far gone, and it’s not just innovative solutions I have to worry about either. The vomitorium is full! Go in any direction you like and you’ll find more of the same. Take a few steps ahead and look under some of the chairs. Social wellbeing is a few rows in front of us, and vibrant neighbourhoods is but 20 paces to the left. You’ll spot resilient communities on the wall over there, and collaborative culture in the centre of the aisle, halfway to the stage. I can’t get rid of the stink coming from a single one of them. Each phrase has been misused within these walls so frequently that the room is spewing them out.”

“All right, just tell me the worst of it, Rollins,” he said in a tone that was slowly coming to terms with the situation. “How long before this hall can be rented out again?”

“The prognosis for bookings is not at all good, sir,” I said firmly. “If you can manage to reach the stage, you’ll find the heartbeat of the stench—a massive puddle of sustainable and liveable city that is stronger than us all. In truth, all the puddles in this room are growing—and quickly at that. Most have doubled in size and stink since I arrived an hour ago. Best I can tell, the room hasn’t even fully emptied itself of words yet. The real trouble, though, is these puddles are becoming toxically acidic, and have—in a fit of perhaps poetic vengeance—begun to digest the room and all its contents. You can see the carpet’s gone around the puddles on the floor; in some places, the decay has already rotted everything down to the foundation. I don’t know how to tell you this, sir, but everything in this hall is going to disappear. The room’s vomit will consume it all. I don’t think it can be saved, and to be clear, I don’t think it can be stopped either.”

“What the hell do you mean?” he growled.

“Well, sir,” I continued unemotionally, pointing to the largest puddle as it dripped down the stage, which in places had already begun to disappear, “I’d estimate you have seven to ten hours before the room, and the conference hall itself, will simply be no more. The puddles of word-vomit will have had their full revenge and digested everything by then; and I mean everything we see in front of us. The carpet, the tables and chairs, the entire physical structure of the room, and the conference centre itself will all disappear, as will any objects, and for that matter, people, left inside.”

“But I’ll call the fire department and the hazmat team,” he suggested with disappearing hope.

“They can’t help what they can’t understand, sir,” I assured him. “It’s too late. The room is dying now. It can’t be saved.”

“And what will be left of it afterwards?” he asked with a genuine sense of wonder.

“My guess is it will eventually get back to being nothing, sir,” I told him, “But it will be the kind of nothing that has meaning, and offers grace, quiet, and comfort to those who experience it. In other words, it will be the right kind of nothing. As long as the space is left in peace, and we don’t try to fill it with more indigestible words, everything will be fine. We have to let things take their natural course of recovery, and we can’t interfere with this space any further. We have to let the nothing heal, sir. We’ve caused it far too much harm, for far too long, as it is.”

Bobby Rollins is (gratefully) prone to daydreams, some of which he puts into words. He hopes his stories make people laugh and think, both of which he’d like more of in the world.

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

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The Bodies by D.H. Parish - foofaraw

2025-10-23T15:30:39.000Z

The first novella from Foofaraw Press has arrived. You can pick up a copy of The Bodies by D.H. Parish now! Including a special limited edition hardcover available exclusively through our Metalabel shop.

The Bodies by D.H. Parish

A 46-page murder mystery novella with some sci-fi adjacent elements. This is the first novella from Foofaraw Press and is available in print, digital, and a limited edition hardcover.

Foofaraw Press

Foofaraw[+] subscribers will receive a free ebook copy, and upgraded Patrons of Foofaraw will receive a free paperback edition. Upgrade in the next month to be eligible.

You can also pick up the ebook over at the wonderful Weightless store. Subscribing to the Foofaraw zine will also get you this novella ebook for free for the next month.

Or order the paperback directly from the printer:

The Bodies

Parish, D.H. and Kortum, Kevin and Thompson, Kylee

Buy Now

Of course, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

🚧 OBSTRUCTION #9 - foofaraw

2025-10-22T16:00:33.000Z

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

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Matthew Burbridge

Issue #10 - coming soon

The story so far:

⚒️ Nordstoem’s Smiling Teeth - foofaraw

2025-10-22T04:03:42.000Z

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

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In EVA suits, Keke and Rosalia stripped the wreckage of the ship they had been assured would be The Berganza. But the words ‘Nordstroem’s Smiling Teeth’ were printed on various bulkheads, plates, and torn uniforms. This seemed to suggest they had been misinformed. On The Heartless She the images from onboard optics flowed across screens; databanks were mined and sent back in encrypted laser pulses, confirming the physical evidence.

“Cock-up or conspiracy?” Didi and Lev sat sipping char in the canteen.

“Whenever there’s a choice between the two...” Lev chided.

“Choose cock-up.” Didi sipped again and repeated the truism her father had told her over and over again.

“Good girl.” Ovsei ruffled her helmet-cropped hair as he came through from the galley. “What next?”

“Two choices. We go back to base and get more info, or we pursue from here.” Lev counted the options, one, two, on a thick finger and thumb, accepting his own pat.

“If it is a conspiracy and we go back, we are done.”

“So we go on.”

“After we strip the ship for parts, yes.” Lev had been a quartermaster on a peregrine boat his entire life.

“Sow now, reap later.” Didi intoned in her father’s heavy accent.

“Oh, it is mocking me we are doing now is it?” He playfully swiped at her brushed her nose, but only gently. “You are a good girl, Nadezhda. What did I do to deserve you, my Didi?”

“Not enough, papa, but you got me anyway. I suppose you also got Rosie, which balances things somewhat.” Didi cocked her head to see if her sister had heard. The lack of outrage over the comms suggested she would escape future violent reprisal.

“Keke, sweetie, is there anything over there that’s genuinely worth anything?” Ovsei was fidgeting. He was not a man made for sitting still and waiting.

“Almost done,” Keke was grunting as if she was pulling something heavy off a wall.

“I have a bad feeling,” Rosalia put in.

“Feelings have no place in this business,” her sisters chorused over the comms channels. This was a rule their fathers had ignored when adopting them, and several times since.

“You have something for us, I think.”

The new voice spoke in a calm drawl. It was a killer’s voice, calm and rich. It was the sort of voice Rosalia aspired to have when she was a grown woman. It was not the sort of voice any of the crew of The Heartless She wanted to hear break into their encrypted communication lines.

Lev toggled encryption links, following their agreed plan for ambushes.

“Girls get off—”

“Naughty naughty, very naughty,” a synthesised voice responded—sinister through a popping crackle. Music blurted into the line, blocking any attempts at further conversation.

“You have something we want.”

The pirate’s spokesperson’s voice was a blend of boredom and fatigue. On The Heartless She, and in the munitions-blasted corridors of Nordstroem’s Smiling Teeth, people hoped her tone did not reach annoyance before they had the opportunity to explore non-lethal deescalation.

“We are a humble mining ship, engaged in rescue—”

Lev had thickened his accent to its broadest burr, the one he had when he was drunk and doing impressions of his uncles back home. It was what he did when playing the part of an honest man; a poor man.

“Cut the shit,” a new voice interjected. “You’re The Heartless She, you’re a peregrine mercenary. And you’ve received a recent payment which we are here to relieve you of. Only that payment though, we’re not savages.”

The voice had a buttery quality to it, rich and dripping with contempt. Lev never liked the French, and had inculcated his daughters with the same suspicion of the breed.

“They sold us out.”

It was so obvious.

They were supposed to have killed The Berganza.

Then the new ship would come and take their money, and if they resisted, they’d be blasted into pieces so small they wouldn’t even count as micro asteroids.

Lev sent the Emergency Protocol signal, three static clicks, across all comms bands.

Then he pressed the button which fired all The Heartless She’s weapons at once.

It was a lot of torpedos.

Joel’s grimdark novels "The Path of Pain and Ruin" and “Paths to Empires’ Ends” are available on Amazon, as is his fantasy novel “The Thirteenth Prince” and a collaborative project “Literary Footnotes”. Follow him on @booksafterbed on the website formerly known as Twitter for links to his other short work.

A system to organize your life - The Independent Variable

2025-10-21T03:55:34.000Z

Johnny.Decimal

Johnny.Decimal is designed to help you find things quickly, with more confidence, and less stress. You assign a unique ID to everything in your life. These IDs help you stay organised. They impose constraints that make it harder to get lost. And you create your own index to link everything in your life together. The system is free to use and the concepts are the same at home, work, or that club you manage.

I've followed this project for many years. I was immediately drawn to the sheer ambition to organize everything, helping you “find things quickly, with more confidence, and less stress.” The system is robust, walks you through every step, and addresses every scenario. There seems to be a rich community to support your journey. The site itself is beautifully rendered, bolstered by the irresistibly exacting typeface Berkeley Mono.

A few days ago, the proprietor made the workbook free. Check it out if you've ever felt stressed about losing track of something in your life.

The bible loves slaves - A Humdrum Life

2025-10-20T21:47:51.000Z

I guess I’m on one today.

Add this to the “saying the quiet part out loud” checklist, along with the recent “we should’ve sided with Germany in WWII.”

Slow Burn did a great season on David Duke a few years back, and it was clear how many dog whistles Trump was repeating. Nowadays, they feel brazen enough to toss the dog whistle aside and just come out, bark it all at us—letting us know exactly how they feel.

And still! People will defend them: “They don’t really mean those words they clearly said verbatim in a serious tone.”

That’s my favorite excuse.

Back when Trump was first running, it was all “I just love a candidate who speaks their mind and says what they really feel and mean.” And now it’s all, “He doesn’t really mean those things he says. You can’t listen to the words that come out of his mouth.”

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Predatory Pricing - A Humdrum Life

2025-10-20T21:14:05.000Z

One thing that takes up more time in my head than it should is how the entire Silicon Valley VC tech industry is propped up by illegal predatory pricing practices.

So when I read Ed Zitron’s latest post about how Anthropic spent more on just their AWS bill than they brought in in revenue for all of 2024 and through Sept 2025, I wasn’t surprised. That doesn’t even factor in every other business expense like salaries, etc.

Uber famously lost money on every ride to gain market share, decimate the taxi industry, and then, of course, raise prices.

It’s basically the VC motto: get customers, worry about revenue and profit later. That’s essentially the textbook definition of what is illegal according to the Sherman Antitrust Act. They claim to be disruptors and that all these legacy industries are behind the times—and technologically speaking, they probably are—but the only way these “disrupters” know how to disrupt is by making an app and losing money on every transaction.

The excuse seems to be that it doesn’t affect competitors (this doesn’t make sense to me) and that consumers benefit. Sure, consumers gain in the short-term with low prices, but those prices will go up once the company sells or IPO’s, while new and legacy competitors end up floundering—you can only bleed money for so long. This clearly has and will continue to result in a near-monopolies (Uber & Lyft).

Not only does it hurt consumers and competitors, but it also hurts your 401 (k). As VCs make their getaway, dumping their overpriced investments via sale or IPO, the stock market has to take on those inflated assets, which will inevitably have to start charging more to hit financial targets, while a new VC-backed competitor starts up and goes through the exact same cycle again.

Next time, I’ll come back and talk about how this relates to my five major concerns with AI: environmentally, culturally, ethically, but also financially and economically—and how it spells disaster for us.

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💼 Personal Business - The Independent Variable

2025-10-19T04:11:35.000Z

Are.na

My motivation throughout the ups and downs was not that Are.na would one day make me rich, it was that we had to keep Are.na alive because it, the service itself, was part of how I understood (and still understand) myself.

One of the best things I’ve read in awhile. Loved the Kinopio shout-out too. While not software, the sites I’ve been spinning up like this, Foofaraw, the upcoming Quotidian Bagatelle, and maybe one other come from a similar place of wanting to bootstrap the things I want to see in the world.

🇺🇸 No Kings Day Pt. 2 - The Independent Variable

2025-10-19T04:09:05.000Z

Letters from an American

In fact, protesters turned out waving American flags and wearing frog and unicorn and banana costumes and carrying homemade signs that demanded the release of the Epstein files and defended Lady Liberty. They laughed and danced and took selfies and sang. City police departments, including those of New York City, San Diego, and Washington, D.C., said they had made no protest-related arrests.

You absolutely love to see it.

🎉 Weekend edition vol.081 - foofaraw

2025-10-18T21:41:17.000Z

Take control with Horse Browser, the browser built for professionals who demand focus and efficiency. Save up to 2 hours every day by organising your work seamlessly and reducing daily stress.

Get 50% off your first payment with code FOOFARAW when you subscribe!

Check it out!

Happy No Kings Day! Stay safe out there.

Here's a bunch of wonderful stuff for you to read when you get back home and sit by the fire.

We kicked things off this week with the conclusion to Mark Keane's Splodge, which was pitch-perfect in every way—don't forget to read part one first:

⚪ Splodge — part two

by Mark Keane

foofarawfoofaraw

This week’s short story was quite the suessian doozy as the consequences of an ugly sweater unravel before our eyes by H.A. Eugene:

🧥 Ugly Sweater Day

by H.A. Eugene

foofarawfoofaraw

Then H.A. went deep with us on all things ugly sweater:

🎙️ H.A. Eugene

An interview with the author of Ugly Sweater Day

foofarawfoofaraw

And we wrapped up the week with the first Consumption Gumption interview in over four months with David Friedman of the wonderful Ironic Sans newsletter:

🎙️ David Friedman

An interview with filmmaker and writer David Friedman

foofarawfoofaraw

Bonus: a gap in our comic publishing schedule means a new edition of the Grub comic:

🐛 Grub in a world of nonsense #7

the truth kills... or at least results in demerits…

foofarawfoofaraw

Of course, the media guide was once again late and also looked a bit different this week...

📺 The media guide S6E14

show me the money!

foofarawfoofaraw

➡️

Next week:
Innovation, cavendish, and obstruction

exclusive to paid subscribers

🎙️ David Friedman - foofaraw

2025-10-18T15:02:16.000Z

🎙️ David Friedman, filmmaker and writer

Watches TV, movies, Nebula, and YouTube; listens to podcasts, plays games

To start out, can you tell us a little about yourself and where people can follow your work?

Sure! I’m David Friedman, a filmmaker and writer based in the Washington, D.C. area. The best way for people to follow my work currently is through my newsletter at ironicsans.ghost.io. It comes out every other week and is free. I use it to explore many of my nerdy interests outside of filmmaking and try to shed light on some of the surprising and hidden corners of culture.

I know you said you only dabble in video games, but I want to start there…

What has your relationship with gaming looked like (including puzzle games) and how did that inform or inspire you to create Gisnep?

I grew up in the 80s, playing the first wave of video games at the arcade at the mall. We soon got a home computer—an Apple clone that had the best computer manual I’ve ever seen still to this day—and spent probably too much time playing games on it, fighting with my siblings over who gets to use it. And I played video games across the first several generations of home systems, but as I’ve gotten older, I have less time for video games overall. I do still go through waves where I catch up on the latest games, though.

I also played a lot of board games and word games growing up. Among other things, we played Boggle and Scrabble, and I also loved Games magazine, which had a lot of word and logic puzzles. When Wordle came out, and so many daily word puzzles followed, trying to capture its success, I thought it would be fun to make one of my own. But I had no ideas for a fun daily word game.

One night, just before falling asleep, I registered the domain gisnep.com on a whim with no idea what I’d do with it. I just thought it was funny that it was available, since it’s a common mis-reading of the Disney logo. So I grabbed it.

A few days later, I had an idea for something I could use the domain for: I remembered that one of the puzzle types I used to love doing in Games magazine was called quotefall or dropquote puzzles, and thought that would make for a great daily game.

I am not a coder, but AI allowed me to make something that felt polished enough to share: a dropquote-style game with some added twists and a bit more personality than the existing dropquote games out there.

More than 400 puzzles later, Gisnep is still running and a lot of people still enjoy it!

I also recently released a totally different type of game. I was inspired by the word “Doomscroll” which always makes me wonder if you could make a Doom-inspired game where the only thing you do to play is scroll. A few AI vibe-coding sessions later, and voila: Doomscroll: The Game! More than 50,000 people played it the first week!

I think you are the first person who’s mentioned Nebula so I’m curious how YouTube and Nebula influence your writing (and videos) for Ironic Sans?

I was a blogger in the early 2000s back when that was a thing people did, and I posted a bunch of short experimental videos to YouTube when it was still pretty new. One of my oldest videos that’s still up is a low-quality clip of landing gear, with almost 480,000 views. So, like many people, I’ve been watching and sharing on YouTube for almost 20 years. I subscribe to a lot of channels, and I usually only look at my subscription feed, unlike most people who let the algorithm suggest what they watch via the Home page.

Most of my work that’s on YouTube is stuff that I have created professionally for others. A couple of favorites include a documentary about a street puppeteer and the little old lady he befriends in the park, and another about a telephone repairman who quits his job to follow his dream of designing women’s shoes.

Over the years, the landscape on YouTube has changed. The type of content people consume has changed, and the way they consume content has changed. People watch it now more on TV than they do on other devices, and they watch long videos, often personality-driven.

Unfortunately, a ton of content on YouTube now is AI generated slop. I know some great YouTubers who do narrated educational videos, and people have begun assuming the narration is AI-generated because everyone is so skeptical now.

Nebula is a remedy for that. It’s a creator-owned and creator-driven platform with many of the best people you can find on YouTube, but on Nebula it’s all guaranteed to be human-made, and it’s free of ads and sponsor reads. And they have exclusive content, too, including a few things I’m very excited about.

I was invited to join Nebula a few years ago, and you can find my personal videos there, but I’m so busy with work for other people that I rarely have time to post my own stuff these days—although I do have a few pieces in edit for Nebula if I can just find the time to finish them!

People interested in checking out Nebula can use this link for 50% off. It’s so good.

What’s the last movie you saw in a theater?

The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It was fine. It was the best Fantastic Four movie so far, anyway.

As your movie watching has transitioned more to your TV set, what does your relationship with your phone look like while watching (or reading) things?

I generally don’t do dual screens except during unskippable commercials when I’ll always pick up my phone to pass the time. But when I’m watching something for enjoyment, it’s typically with intention and focus.

Once my kids go to bed, my wife and I usually have less than an hour to watch something together before we need to get to sleep, so we watch things we’re both interested in on the living room TV. For things I’m interested in that she isn’t, I often watch on my phone, and often piecemeal when I can fit it in (say, on the subway or in bed). It’s very far from ideal. But it’s also often surprising to me how much my brain stitches a show or movie together when watched in pieces, like it just picks up where it left off.

I’d rather watch everything on a big screen, though. I think VR headsets are pretty cool for watching things on a virtual big screen, actually. It’s a shame they’re not comfortable enough to wear for a whole movie.

When it comes to TV and Movies, are you still a cable subscriber in our world of streaming services?

We cut the cable cord 15 years ago, and bought an antenna and a TiVo to record over-the-air programming. To this day, that’s still how we watch things on network TV. (Sometimes I can’t believe that TiVo hard drive still works after all this time)

But we actually watch network TV less and less as we mostly watch streaming services these days. We subscribe to an embarrassing number of streaming services and don’t usually juggle them. The one thing we juggle is Sling, which we subscribe to just for a couple months during NBA playoffs season.

Can you give us a sampling of your tastes?

I could give pretty long lists, but I’ll try to make them short and representative.

Recent-ish TV faves would include Task, Bad Sisters, Pantheon, Reservation Dogs, Shogun

Recent-ish movies: the two-part documentary Pee-Wee As Himself, Flow, Dune, Poor Things, May December

All-time TV faves would include The Wire, Better Call Saul, Moonlighting, the Honeymooners, and the first season of Lost

All-time movies: Beetlejuice, Ghostbusters, Dog Day Afternoon, T2, Groundhog Day, Edward Scissorhands, Koyaanisqatsi

How do podcasts fit into your life? Are you listening for entertainment, education, current events, or something else?

I am subscribed to so many podcasts that I don’t even remember what half of them are. I like to think I listen for entertainment as an escape from the news, but the truth is the news-related ones update much more often, so they populate my feed more, so that’s what I end up listening to more. I often start my day listening to the previous night’s late-night comedy monologues while I make my kids’ lunches.

Where do you discover new things to listen/read/watch?

I’m not sure. Maybe casual recommendations on social media from people I know or trust? Oh, and when I see a “best new podcasts/shows/movies” list anywhere, I’ll often look to see if there’s something interesting I didn’t know about.

Any last words about your media consumption or the state of entertainment?

As a person who makes video for a living, AI in media worries me. As a person who loves technology, AI in media excites me. It’s the biggest thing to keep an eye on. It’s the worst it ever will be right now, and I can only imagine what it will look like and how it will be used in just a couple years.

And you didn’t ask anything about books. Don’t forget that books are media, too! Next time…

🐛 Grub in a world of nonsense #7 - foofaraw

2025-10-17T22:34:07.000Z

Get 50% off your first payment with code FOOFARAW when you subscribe!

Check it out!

Heavily inspired by Dinosaur Comics and David Lynch's The Angriest Dog in the World.

Humdrum Places - BlogFlock

🤖 Prove this photo is real - The Independent Variable

🎉 Weekend edition vol.082 - foofaraw

🏀 Billups, Rozier arrested in gambling investigations - The Independent Variable

🌠 Disney Nixed a Ben Solo ‘Star Wars’ Movie Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Adam Driver Says - The Independent Variable

🤖 OpenAI buys Sky, an AI interface for Mac - The Independent Variable

🤡 Trump Keeps Attacking Americans. Why Does He Get Away With It? - The Independent Variable

🐂 Takeaways from the Bulls season opener - The Independent Variable

🎙️ Bobby Rollins - foofaraw

Do you have experience as a consultant or working with consultants?

What "business word/platitude" are you most guilty of using?

Which "business word/platitude" makes you cringe the most?

Do you think there is any way we can reduce the trend of these meaningless words or are we on course for a world where every single word has completely lost any meaning?

Which cleaning product would do the best job removing meaningless words from carpeting?

Are you familiar with the word enshittification? It’s one of those words that seems to have broken through the mainstream and become used so much already that people are using it in ways that it’s not actually applicable to anything tech-related, they don’t like.

What book are you reading right now?

I want to thank Bobby for taking the time to attack my livelihood as a freelance business strategy consultant!

🧽 Innovative solutions - foofaraw

The Bodies by D.H. Parish - foofaraw

🚧 OBSTRUCTION #9 - foofaraw

Next:

The story so far:

⚒️ Nordstoem’s Smiling Teeth - foofaraw

A system to organize your life - The Independent Variable

The bible loves slaves - A Humdrum Life

Predatory Pricing - A Humdrum Life

💼 Personal Business - The Independent Variable

🇺🇸 No Kings Day Pt. 2 - The Independent Variable

🎉 Weekend edition vol.081 - foofaraw

🎙️ David Friedman - foofaraw

🎙️ David Friedman, filmmaker and writer

To start out, can you tell us a little about yourself and where people can follow your work?

I know you said you only dabble in video games, but I want to start there…

What has your relationship with gaming looked like (including puzzle games) and how did that inform or inspire you to create Gisnep?

I think you are the first person who’s mentioned Nebula so I’m curious how YouTube and Nebula influence your writing (and videos) for Ironic Sans?

What’s the last movie you saw in a theater?

As your movie watching has transitioned more to your TV set, what does your relationship with your phone look like while watching (or reading) things?

When it comes to TV and Movies, are you still a cable subscriber in our world of streaming services?

Can you give us a sampling of your tastes?

How do podcasts fit into your life? Are you listening for entertainment, education, current events, or something else?

Where do you discover new things to listen/read/watch?

Any last words about your media consumption or the state of entertainment?

🐛 Grub in a world of nonsense #7 - foofaraw