text-based media

I’ll Keep Writing Like Me, Thanks

In the ’90s, I used — and … in HTML to produce em dashes and ellipses, respectively. In the early 2000s, I happened upon the Alt + keypad shortcuts for entering all sorts of characters in Windows.

I love how easy it is to type an em dash and ellipses on an iPhone keyboard. You could even just set a text replacement rule for two hyphens or three periods. I did that for the interrobang — when I type an exclamation point and a question mark it bangs out one of these bad boys ‽

Ed Sheeran’s Concerts at Gillette Stadium Cancelled Due to Severe Weather Forecast

“The decision was made with the safety of fans, staff and everyone involved in the shows as the top priority. Refunds are available now at the point of purchase. Ticketholders who purchased through Ticketmaster will be automatically refunded.”

You can’t make this stuff up lol imagine if he simply would’ve had a spine. The outcome would’ve been the same either way, but at least his reputation would still be intact.

The Turning: How Fall Color Moves Across North America

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. I’m not sweating 24/7, the bugs are going away and, most importantly, it’s spooky season. This site gives you a cool visual timeline of the changing colors across North America this time of year.

Bonnie Blue claims she sold her baby’s name for £1,200,000

However, the winning bid came from the online betting company BetBolt. The self-described ‘Crypto Casino‘ reportedly paid over a million pounds for the right to name the content creator’s baby, and thus, the child was named BetBolt, according to the video.

This has got to be rage bait. Right? RIGHT‽ That poor kid.

Bisexuals Are a Statistical Majority of the LGBTQ+ Community

As the largest contingent of the LGBTQ+ umbrella, bisexuals have led the charge in the reported growth of the queer and trans population in the United States. In fact, the latest Gallup polling from 2025 found that the U.S. LGBTQ+ population has doubled since it was first recorded in 2012, with bisexuals now accounting for 58.6% of the now 9% of U.S. adults that identify across the alphabet spectrum. This means that roughly a whopping 5.3% of all U.S. adults are openly bisexual, making bisexuals more common than redheads.

🩷💜💙

Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 Pays Tribute to Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory

But those hours and talks and bus rides really showed me who Chad was. A fighter. A champion of joy. “Joy” sounds weird but that’s what Chad was. Fucking. Joyous. He was the guy who sincerely smiled and laughed and loved to see and meet new people. And listen to music. Joy. Whatever negative thing was going on, Chad was going to say fuck it. And fight it. And face the world and celebrate.

RIP Chad. Will definitely be rocking out to some NFG tonight, starting with the Sticks and Stones record. Fuck cancer ☹️

Napster Is Back, and It Wants to Digitally Clone Teachers

“We’re not at the point yet where AI can fully replace humans, and therefore we want to leverage that technology overlaid on top of humans to get the most of it.

Obviously the entire premise of replacing human teachers with AI is ridiculous. But I’ve never understood why you don’t just start a new company instead of re-purposing the name of an old one. It’s like if Blockbuster came back as a fintech startup.

Endgame for the Open Web

I saw Mike Masnick’s recent piece where he argued that one of the things that might enable a resurgence of the open web might be… AI.

Times are changing, sure. I think Mike makes a great point though: it does lower the barrier of entry to build a website for someone without years of coding experience. A lot of the ecosystem around ATProto is vibe coded and it’s one of the most solid, open, decentralized Twitter alternatives. And aside from that, lots of people hate AI. The whole indie web thing has been thriving as more and more people are stepping away from corporate social media sites with AI-everything.

Ultimately I think, if given the choice, people will pick home-cooked, locally-grown, heart-felt digital meals over factory-farmed fast food technology every time.

People are going to overwhelmingly opt for fast food. It’s convenient, more affordable, and all the questionable ingredients make it addictive as hell. I’ve always thought using AI is like eating meat when you know it’s more humane and ethical to be a vegan. I hate to say it, but I’m not a vegan.

I would never use AI to generate a blog post or an essay, as you can probably tell by my mediocre writing skills, but I also don’t think it’s going to usher in the end times.

William Shatner Takes Riot Fest by Storm, Previews Metal Album

Shatner addressed the Riot Fest crowd by telling them he was approached by Cleopatra Records to do a metal album, and his response was “What the fuck is heavy metal?,” which led directly to the album title, What the F Is Heavy Metal? He also noted that the album will be released sometime in the winter.