New Shoes, Same Treadmill #3
Stuff I’m doing 👨🏻💻
I’ve been taking care of administrative shit related to my new business. When you work in the field of mental health and wellbeing you typically have to register for all kinds of stuff. That means fees, lots and lots of fees.
On to the cool stuff I’ve read this week.
Stuff I’ve read 👨🏻💻📚
💉🎨✨Why Is Everyone Getting Their Tattoos Removed?
The worst part of getting a tattoo removed, apart from the searing pain and the two-year commitment, is the sound the laser makes as it hits your skin: a violent, unnatural popping and crackling that could soundtrack an animated video of someone being electrocuted.
An ex girlfriend from years ago was in the process of getting a tattoo removed when we first started dating. It was a design she thought was cute and fun when she was in university but held no meaning for her anymore. She did confirm the process was very painful.
That blood-curdling popping is the sound of the larger ink particles, initially designed to remain in the body forever, shattering into tinier particles. Once they are tiny enough, the ink becomes accessible to the body’s immune processes.
I found the science behind how the removal works super fascinating. Like most people I thought the laser was literally burning the tattoo off.
Gen X’s tattoos were so hard-won and transgressive that they tend to last forever. (To say nothing of the rare tattooed boomers.) Laser technicians theorized to me that people aged 35 to 50 tend to live with their tattoos for a decade before regretting them, whereas the younger generation—who never grappled with much stigma in the first place—regret their tattoos more quickly, within two to three years. Easy come, easy go.
I don’t have any tattoos. I have thought about getting one but reading articles like this give me pause. My ADHD brains means I often jump from one hobby to another. I pick something up, master it, then get bored and find the next shiny object. I worry that the same feeling would apply to a tattoo over time.
🤖Slop Farmer Boasts About How He Uses AI to Flood Social Media With Garbage to Trick Older Women
Cunningham explains that his preferred groups to target are devoted fandoms and the elderly. The former is easily excited, he posits, while the latter probably won’t understand that what they’re clicking on is synthetic at all.
I’m not trying to come across as “holier than thou” but Jesus fucking Christ I hate all of this! If this article doesn’t enrage you by the end of it then I don’t want to know you.
When a new technology like LLM’s emerges I don’t understand the switch that flips for some people where the first thing they think of is new ways to exploit people for money. To generate garbage at mind boggling speeds and push it out to the internet for everyone to enjoy. Do us all a favour and light yourself on fire. FFS.
We asked Cunningham how much of his revenue he derives from his AI content versus how much he brings in through his paid classes and forums, but he didn’t respond. Needless to say, if someone did hold a low-effort secret to making enormous sums of money online, especially through practices that some view as unethical and could potentially cause a platform to alter its policies, logic would dictate that they’d probably keep it to themself and pull in the cash instead of selling classes as a get-rich-quick scheme.
And there it is. He has a course. If they’re selling a course there’s a 100% chance everything they say they’re making money on is bullshit.
I’d really like the enshitification of the internet to stop please.
😤Leave the hurt behind! How to let go of a grudge
Grudges are deceptive little things. Once they take hold in the heart, they become the guest that doesn’t know how to leave
Expert grudge holder here.🖐️
Leaving a high-demand religion and then two years later going through a divorce after discovering your parter of 15 years is cheating will do that to a person.
If you are someone who holds grudges, you may recognise this feeling. I hold many. Every time I go past a shop in my town – a shop that wronged me egregiously in 2016 – I surreptitiously flick them the V-sign, a gesture now so ingrained that I often find myself doing it automatically.
Every time I drive past a Mormon church I throw up the middle finger. I don’t even notice it anymore.
“Those with a high sensitivity to injustice or who struggle with letting go of control may find it harder to move on.
This right here is the main reason I struggle with letting go. Why I have a difficult time watching or reading the news. Injustice is antithetical to how my brain functions.
“Everyone has their own way of looking at a situation, and you need to open your mind a bit and understand it’s not black and white.
Life is short. We’re all going to die. Everyone deals with pain and suffering. Let it go and move on.