rachelmanija | Network

Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/speaking-of-robot-bartenders/

Since robot bartenders came up in that slopfondler post... From a recent email exchange:

They:	I just re-read your 2021 Cocktail Robotics cancellation post: "Weren't able to round up enough robots... maybe Plague World just isn't ready for barbots yet." Curious what your read is. On one hand, TechShop closed, hackerspaces shrinking, weekend builders aging into other responsibilities. On the other, robotics as a professional field is bigger than it's ever been, so it's not that the people are gone, it's that the unpaid-saturday-night version of them is. Covid artifact or structural?
jwz:	Yeah, I dunno. Maybe the spirit of whimsy has left the land. Or at least been evicted from San Francisco. You're the first person to even mention Cocktail Robotics to me in I-can't-remember-how-long. So it's not as if people are banging on the door asking me "Hey, when's that coming back, I've got a cool idea..." And, oh wow, can you imagine what an AI-slop shitshow it would be now? Half the entries would be "I made a vending machine that can talk like a sexy secretary, I think we might try to get VC funding for this".
They:	Yeah, the sexy secretary vending machine fear is real. Half the discord servers full of robotics hobbyists in 2026 are also half-full of people workshopping their seed pitch.
jwz:	That is horrifying and unsurprising. Also that this is all happening on Discord instead of out in the open on the fediverse means that I'd never even see it...
They:	Yup - I'm in a handful of robotics and adjacent slack/discord communities and that's the shape of it. Maybe I'm in the wrong ones. Would you say the fediverse has any meaningful SF robotics/maker presence these days?
jwz:	None that I've seen!

Previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/speaking-of-robot-bartenders/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7G

When I woke up this morning my air purifier was making an appalling racket. Except it wasn't the air purifier but the bar fridge, whose motor was in its dying throes one more time. But last time it did this there was no death rattle, so I think now it must truly be foutu. The rattle stopped when I turned it off and then back on, but the fridge definitely wasn't cooling anything. So now I must get my breakfast from downstairs again. I try to tell myself that I did this on an unoperated knee five years ago, but I was also a good twenty pounds lighter five years ago. Oh well. Shall be doing All The Exercises before breakfast again and hope that works.

Bar fridges don't cost that much but hiring people to carry the old one down and the new one up does. Next door's owner did it last time but I haven't seen him in several years and don't quite feel like relying on the kindness of strangers. I went off and booked me a massage to help with the owies instead.

Then took my shoes over to the repair place. He says he can mend the fraying back heel as well so I said OK, then it turns out it costs $80 just for that and 120 for the resoling. With tax that comes to the cost of a new pair. I hesitated for a second but ultimately decided that no, I didn't want to give more money to the Trump-supporting founder of New Balance-- mend the damned things and hope they last another ten years. In the meantime I'm wearing my older pair of boat shoes, which are slightly too narrow even if they're boats, but feel like they actually give me more stability when standing on uneven ground. If true, I might even get some of those vines out of the hedge, which I can't reach from SND's side.

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rl_26

Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/speaking-of-robot-bartenders/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7G

Since robot bartenders came up in that slopfondler post... From a recent email exchange:

They:	I just re-read your 2021 Cocktail Robotics cancellation post: "Weren't able to round up enough robots... maybe Plague World just isn't ready for barbots yet." Curious what your read is. On one hand, TechShop closed, hackerspaces shrinking, weekend builders aging into other responsibilities. On the other, robotics as a professional field is bigger than it's ever been, so it's not that the people are gone, it's that the unpaid-saturday-night version of them is. Covid artifact or structural?
jwz:	Yeah, I dunno. Maybe the spirit of whimsy has left the land. Or at least been evicted from San Francisco. You're the first person to even mention Cocktail Robotics to me in I-can't-remember-how-long. So it's not as if people are banging on the door asking me "Hey, when's that coming back, I've got a cool idea..." And, oh wow, can you imagine what an AI-slop shitshow it would be now? Half the entries would be "I made a vending machine that can talk like a sexy secretary, I think we might try to get VC funding for this".
They:	Yeah, the sexy secretary vending machine fear is real. Half the discord servers full of robotics hobbyists in 2026 are also half-full of people workshopping their seed pitch.
jwz:	That is horrifying and unsurprising. Also that this is all happening on Discord instead of out in the open on the fediverse means that I'd never even see it...
They:	Yup - I'm in a handful of robotics and adjacent slack/discord communities and that's the shape of it. Maybe I'm in the wrong ones. Would you say the fediverse has any meaningful SF robotics/maker presence these days?
jwz:	None that I've seen!

Previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/speaking-of-robot-bartenders/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7G

Dear Eric: When my family's children were young, they mostly traveled the 200 miles to visit for holidays. Now the children are older, and have jobs, friends et cetera. The parents now seem to expect us to do the traveling. We are in our late 70s, and this is getting harder to do.

The change in beds, food, schedules and houses put a toll on our physical body that takes days to recover. This seems hard for them to understand as they haven’t reached this stage.

We now are faced with missing holidays with them to comply with their demands. I have faced the possibility of loneliness that older people seemingly endure nowadays. Is there an answer to this problem or must I endure pain and trauma to see family in older age?

– Sad, Lonely and In Pain

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Tags:

Character: Phoebe Buffay
Fandom: Friends
Theme set: Beta
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some troubling concepts; very brief mention of canon seminudity.
Notes: Crossposted to

lyricaltitles

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Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/a-slopfondler-walks-into-a-bar-redux/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7E

Once or twice a month some tech industry guy recognizes me at DNA Lounge. It always used to be blah blah Mozilla blah blah Code Rush, whatever... but lately all they want to do is proselytize "AI" at me. This has been 100% of fanboy interactions this year. And then they're shocked when I don't want to hear about their awesome project and in fact I tell them that what they are doing is unethical and harmful.

It's so weird, like: you sought me out at my place of business and the first thing you do is demonstrate that you haven't read my blog, ever.

This is getting so frequent that I feel like I would save time if I actually memorized a prepared speech. "I have been asked to read the following statement."

A couple of weeks ago one of these kids kept throwing out all of these ridiculous sci-fi what-ifs leading me to say, "I really need you to understand this, Lieutenant Commander Data is a work of fiction."

"But what if you had a robot bartender who..."
"So in your scenario I would have fired my friend here, who has worked at DNA for 26 years."
"Well, but, but..."

Then later he says:

"You blocked me on Mastodon!"
"Oh, how did you piss me off?"
"Talking about AI."
"This is my shocked face."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/a-slopfondler-walks-into-a-bar-redux/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7E

( Today we were not the first responders to an incident. )

I didn't paint or draw an "art a day" picture today. Instead I spent my time painting backgrounds on both sides of these pieces of paper that I'm going to use as pages in my next everything book.

Close up of the intricacies in an orchid. Flowers are amazing.

Jan and I hiked at Wolf Creek Narrows near Slippery Rock today. It turned out to be a fabulous day with sun and only a little chilly. The frosts we had recently must have affected some of the woodland wildflowers. The trillium flowers were all wilted and dried up and there were no bluebells at all. Mid May is usually the best time for those kinds of flowers. The may apples were stunted too. Still a pretty walk in the bottomland woods.

That bright green on the water is duckweed.

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Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/a-slopfondler-walks-into-a-bar-redux/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7E

It's so weird, like: you sought me out at my place of business and the first thing you do is demonstrate that you haven't read my blog, ever.

This is getting so frequent that I feel like I would save time if I actually memorized a prepared speech. "I have been asked to read the following statement."

"But what if you had a robot bartender who..."
"So in your scenario I would have fired my friend here, who has worked at DNA for 26 years."
"Well, but, but..."

Then later he says:

"You blocked me on Mastodon!"
"Oh, how did you piss me off?"
"Talking about AI."
"This is my shocked face."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/a-slopfondler-walks-into-a-bar-redux/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7E

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/12/i-didnt-even-know-american-wisteria-was-a-thing/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60673

Spring is in full swing here in Ohio and it has been both very beautiful and very allergy-inducing. One of the more beautiful aspects is that there is apparently a ton of American Wisteria wrapped around my pergola by the garage, and I find it to be extremely pretty. See for yourself:

A beautiful blossom of the American Wisteria, purple and clustered together into almost hydrangea like shapes.

This particular bloom is more open and blossomed than the others, hence why I took its photo. Before they bloomed, they all looked like tiny purple pinecones. I had no idea that they would open up into these beautiful flower clusters. I’m absolutely thrilled these are wrapped completely around my pergola. I notice their beauty every time I leave my house.

Very grateful to have some pretty purple flowers around.

Have you seen American Wisteria before? Perhaps you’ve seen the wisteria in Japan before? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/12/i-didnt-even-know-american-wisteria-was-a-thing/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60673

Posted by Jason Kottke

https://kottke.org/26/05/0048928-basketball-musician

“So, at about 14, I became the team’s unofficial basketball musician,” writes Theocharis Papatrechas. “A big shot earned a triumphant snare drum roll with a resolving crash. And if someone missed badly — an airball — I’d drop in a ‘du-ba-dum’”.

https://kottke.org/26/05/0048928-basketball-musician

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Public

Everybody knows that Keir Starmer will not lead the Labour Party into the next general election. Everyone. Yet here we are, with four ministers having resigned and Starmer among the most unpopular politicians in Britain – perhaps unfairly, but politics has never been a fair sport – and the drama just goes on and on and on. We now have a wounded Prime Minister who clearly will not stand down voluntarily, but none of whose serious challengers will openly and publicly call for him to go.

Admittedly part of the problem, and this applies across the political spectrum, is the poor quality of the alternatives. Wes Streeting, Angela Rayner, Shabana Mahmood, Yvette Cooper? They all have their major drawbacks. A certain group's obsession with Andy Burnham means nothing unless he can somehow become an MP in about the next three seconds, and I suspect at the moment he would lose pretty much any engineered by-election simply by having "Labour" on his rosette.

The King's Speech is tomorrow, and we're (still) heading into a potentially very serious economic crisis – thanks largely to that prat in the White House – without anyone much yet taking it seriously. Which I suppose makes it time for me to go and watch the Eurovision semi-final instead. No idea who I want to win, beyond "not bloody Boy George" who is for some reason competing for San Marino. As for the UK entry, despite our auto-qualification for the finals we aren't going to win, because we never do. :D

Current Mood: aggravated

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It's my birthday today -- the first time in quite a while when I'm not going to Kalamazoo for my birthday. (The Medieval Congress) As a result, I don't really have standard practices for what to do to commemorate the day. There will be a family dinner on the weekend, but today it's just me.

So I started with a fancy-breakfast-in-the-garden, which I don't do as often as I could. (I prefer to start the day with my bike ride, which practice is incompatible with a leisurely breakfast.) Other plans involved a movie and going out for sushi. I half-heartedly dropped my movie plans (Sheep Detective) on facebook with a solicitation for company, but facebook is facebook, the day is a weekday, and unsurprisingly no one took me up on it.

In the past week I've moved into the next stage of learning skills for self-publishing by working on formatting The Theory of Related-ivity in Vellum. So far Vellum is user-friendly, in that every time I've had a question about how to do something, it's either easy to figure out, easy to find in the help files, or easy to determine that you just can't do the thing I'm trying to do. As one review of the program noted, it isn't really designed for complicated non-fiction books, but there are only a few places that's been frustrating.

I solved one issue not related to Vellum when I figured out how to get better resolution jpegs of my Excel graphs. (Something that was a bit of a "Doh!" moment once I'd solved it.) But it wasn't until I did a test-export of the project into ebook and pdf versions that I was reminded that the lovely multi-colored graphs that are so easy to publish online and in ebooks also need to work in black-and-white for the hard copy. (It isn't that I expect to sell all that many hardcopy versions, but I want to have the option.) So now I need to go back through a couple dozen graphs and select color sets that will provide good B&W contrast. (Tricky for the percentage bar graphs with 13 variables! But there are only two of those.)

I've also decided to put out my translation and commentary of the 18th century French appeal record of Anne Grandjean (gender and sexuality issues) as a published book. That one has me thinking about the complexities of designing layout for both ebook and print. For print, it might be nice to do facing-page text with the commentary at the bottom of the pages, but that's impossible for the ebook. (Also, I'm not sure it would be possible in Vellum, though I know exactly how I'd do it in InDesign.) I'm also thinking ahead to the LHMP book and some fun layout ideas that wouldn't work for both. I should probably take a look at some examples of print/ebook pairs that have complex layouts in print.

By "complex" I mean things like separate text boxes for sidebars. (One idea I'm toying with would be rather than having all my mini-biographies in a single section, inserting them as sidebars in the topical chapters that they're most closely relevant to.)

One of the secondary functions for publishing low-impact smaller projects is to explore these sorts of questions. But compared to the non-fiction projects, novels will be easy!

When I think about my writing catalog, it always brings me back to that ill-fitting advice that a writer should stick to focused "branding" even if it means having multiple pen names. But my writing projects don't separate out neatly that way. the Grandjean translation is directly related to the LHMP book. But the LHMP book is directly related to my lesbian historical fiction. And the historical fiction is closely connected to my lesbian historical fantasy. And there would be no point to distinguishing that from any of the other types of fantasy I write. I still have a twinge of regret for using a pen name for Baby Names for Dummies, because it, too, connects up with my historical research. And what would be the point in using anything other than my real name for the Related-ivity book, since my identity is solidly connected to the reason I was interested in the topic.

I am me. I contain multitudes. I refuse to be fragmented.

Tags:

randomness

Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/life-imitates-carpenter-once-more/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7B

On Thursday, I hosted a screening of They Live. And then today this happened. Racist, election-denying, insider-trading, fascist, methane-breathing space ghoul "Coach" Tommy Tuberville busts out the Hoffman lenses.

People keep describing things as "mask off" but this is just getting ridiculous.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/life-imitates-carpenter-once-more/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7B

Cordelia walks along the edge of the pool, following the monster as it swims under water. She gets very upset.
CORDELIA: It's me, Cordelia? I know you can't answer me, but... God, this is all my fault. You joined the swim team to impress me. You were so courageous. And you looked really hot in those Speedo's.(chuckles)
CORDELIA: And I want you to know that I still care about you, no matter what you look like. And... and we can still date. Or, or not. I mean... I understand if you wanna see other fish. (crouches by the edge)
CORDELIA: I'll do everything I can to make your quality of life better. Whether that means little bath toys or whatever.
Xander walks up behind her.
XANDER: Uh, Cordy?

~~Go Fish~~

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me myself and i

a less physically but more emotionally exhausting day

We started the day with a non-overwhelming breakfast! Just a bunch of veggies sauteed up together, no eggs no bacon no beans no toast (but yes coffee, and her coffee could punch Superman through a wall). We were delighted! Also, when we asked where we could find a laundromat to wash some clothes, she let us use her machine. So Geoff put a load through and hung it to dry before we left for the day; I had surreptitiously been doing some sink laundry and also I don't sweat the way he does, but I too am glad to have been able to properly wash some things. (Still gotta sink-wash a bra this evening, though; I've had too many destroyed by machines to trust one I don't know.)

Then we headed out to the bus station to catch a bus to the Hamptonne Country Life Museum https://www.jerseyheritage.org/visit/places-to-visit/hamptonne-country-life-museum/ . This was one of the things I specifically wanted to see while we're here, but sadly I was a bit disappointed. There was no living-history reenactor guide working today (the guy at the entry selling tickets said she would have been there but she had to go to a funeral, so I'm not going to complain), and the guide who took us around spent more time talking about what it was like to work there, and less about what it would have been like to live there in the various eras it represented (13th, 17th, and 19th centuries), than I was hoping for. (Honestly, a good episode of Historical Farm would have given me more -- thanks for putting me on to that show,

dorinda!) Still, it was interesting to poke around and look at things, and Geoff enjoyed it more than I did, which was good because I was the one who really wanted to go and if he'd been really disappointed I'd probably have felt guilty.

We did see a nineteenth-century apple crusher (which I immediately recognized thanks to Historical Farms!) and got to taste some of the cider they produce there. It was just fermented juice, no added sugar or rum or any of the other things that might be added to improve the taste, and it was like drinking paint thinner, I couldn't even finish my small cup. The guide said it was probably about 5% alcohol, but it felt stronger. So maybe it's a good thing I couldn't finish it!

Interestingly, the average age of the people visiting the museum seemed to hover around 70 that day. "School must be in session," I said to myself.

We finished up in the cafe, where we split an unexciting packaged sausage roll and a jacket potato with tuna mayo and sweetcorn. I don't know if the potato was a local Jersey potato, but it at least was very good! This whole concept of baked potatoes with stuff on them was something entirely unknown to me until a visit to Edinburgh years ago, when we got a number of out-and-about meals from a jacket potato shop that would put any of dozens of salads or sauces or meats or whatnots on them; I remember having to work hard to keep them from also plopping a giant knob of butter inside the potato as a matter of course. I mean, a buttered baked potato is delicious, but if you're topping your potato with a tomato-cucumber salad tossed in a vinaigrette, two tablespoons of butter really does not improve the experience. Anyway, I always think of that place when I have a jacket potato topped with something unusual to me, such as, for instance, tuna mayo with sweetcorn.

The bus we took to the museum was the same line we took home yesterday afternoon and it had the electronic announcement screen, but it wasn't on so I had to track us with my phone again to know when to get off. Ah, well. We had a nice five-minute walk through houses and farms from the bus stop to the museum site, and when we left to go back to the bus stop, the guy in the ticket office told us that if, once we got to the street the bus ran down, we went the other way from the bus stop we would come to an interesting old dovecote. We did walk that way for a bit, but didn't see anything promising, so we turned around and went up to the bus stop.

Rather than taking it all the way back into the capital city, though, we went only three stops (again tracking progress on my phone, for lack of any non-tech way to know where we were or which stop was ours), got off, and walked about fifteen minutes through more houses and potato fields and mildly wooded areas to get to the Jersey War Tunnels https://www.jerseywartunnels.com/.

The occupying German armed forces had this big tunnel complex built, largely but not entirely by forced labor and slave labor, originally as an ammunition store and barracks, later as a potential hospital in case of an Allied assault on the island(s). Now it's been turned into a really excellent museum of the occupation. When we bought our admission tickets we were also given replica ID cards, establishing each of us as an actual Jerseyite whose story we could discover as we went through the exhibits. (I was given the identity of a middle-aged Jewish woman who, when she was arrested a few years into the occupation, managed to escape her guards and flee to someone who hid her until the war ended.)

We made our way through the tunnels, each of which has been set up as a gallery documenting a different aspect of the occupation or part of the war, in chronological order: from the first decision that the islands wouldn't be defended, to the arrival of the Nazi forces, the gradual tightening of restrictions and rations, various people's attempts at resistance, escape, and sometimes collaboration, the arrival of a Red Cross aid ship just as the food situation got desperate, the experience of watching D-Day (remember, you can see France from here!) while still not being freed and while the local German commander was maintaining he would hold fast, until the final surrender and the arrival of the UK troops who raised the Union Jack again, as we saw reenacted a few days ago.

One particularly effective device was life-size human figures with video screens for their heads showing recordings of actors, so that you could imagine actually meeting and talking to the person who was depicted speaking to you. Here's a German soldier, fluent in English, who has bought your child an ice cream; do you let your child take it? Here's another who wants to hire you to do his washing, and you need money desperately; do you take the job? Here's a farm woman talking about food rationing, and how lucky her family is to have some livestock and chickens -- but of course the German authorities closely watch everything, including recording every piglet born, and god help you if you're caught hiding one. Here's a starving Russian slave worker who has escaped his barracks and stolen some carrots from your field; what do you do?

One informational signboard talked about collaborators, including women who went with German soldiers. It did acknowledge that, aside from the fact that the soldiers might be young, handsome, and -- at least in the early years -- friendly and congenial, being friendly with them might also mean extra food and security for the woman (and her family), but no explicit link was drawn between that signboard (which also explained the derogatory term "jerrybags" for such women) and a later one that told the story of a young woman who was "assaulted" (details unspecified but clearly sexual) by a German soldier while she was serving him in a restaurant, slapped him, and was promptly shipped to a German prison camp, where she died. Nor was a comparison made between "jerrybags" and the local workers who took jobs with the occupying forces to help build the tunnel complex. It all reminded me of the way that women's sexual purity so often stands in for and symbolizes all kinds of morality. Why is a woman who accedes to a soldier's demands and blandishments more of a collaborator than a man who takes a job furthering the enemy's projects?

On another note: as we approached the end of the war, plaques on the wall announced various milestones. I was surprised at the strength of my desire to spit upon seeing the one marking Hitler's suicide.

Anyway, the whole thing was A Lot, and very well done.

Eventually we emerged from underground and caught the bus home again. Once again we stopped on our way home from the bus station for an early dinner, rather than go home and then have to leave again; we found a nice sort of Spanish-Asian fusion place on one of the squares we walked through that had pleasant outdoor seating. (For COVID-cautious reasons we prefer to eat outside when we can; we're also masking on the buses and in other indoor public spaces. We haven't seen a single other person masking, but no one seems to give us the stink-eye about it, except possibly for one person on the bus the other day who seemed not to want to sit next to me.) Geoff had delicious lasagna that came with yet more delicious chips, and I, having not yet had any seafood other than some salmon at the arts centre cafe, had a sizzling plate of scallops and veggies in a vaguely oyster-sauce kind of sauce? Also a nice big glass of merlot, and Geoff had a pint of a Spanish beer called Madri, which he liked but I did not care for. And then back to the guesthouse and blogging!

One thing that has both startled and amused me is that several people (including the ticket guy at the Hamptonne museum), on hearing that we're planning to go from Jersey to spend ten days in Guernsey, have reacted with "Ten days on Guernsey?" in a very what-the-hell-would-you-do-that-for? tone of voice. I'm assuming that this is an expression of inter-island rivalry and not a real indication that we'll be bored out of our minds 😂 I mean, we did accumulate a list of things we might want to see there, and hikes we might want to do, and also we'll probably take a day trip to Herm.

But before then we still have three days here on Jersey to fill! It's likely to rain tomorrow and Thursday, so maybe we won't do another big hike, but we would like to see the Jersey Zoo...but for now, it's oh-so-exciting hand laundry for me, and curling up with some internet.

Tags:

channel islands

Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/life-imitates-carpenter-once-more/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7B

People keep describing things as "mask off" but this is just getting ridiculous.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/05/life-imitates-carpenter-once-more/

https://jwz.org/b/yk7B

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(no subject)

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The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Monday, May 11th

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

[Chaptered Fiction]

[Images, Audio & Video]

[Recs & In Search Of]

[Community Announcements]

[Fandom Discussions]

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

!!!

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Life imitates Carpenter once more

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