Pavel
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spavel.bsky.social
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social
Raised gifted; non-practicing.

If your reply doesn't have alt text, I won't see it.

🌐 productpicnic.beehiiv.com 💼 UX Design 🟦 Sick of rectangles 🧑 he/him
I never delete my skeets. That would be disrespectful of the artistry put into them: the hand-authored text, the archival quality bits.
November 10, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Mister Gorbachev, cheez down this burg!
The difference in time between now and I can has cheezburger

Is the same between I can has Cheezburger and the Berlin Wall falling
November 10, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Reposted by Pavel
I got this useful bon mot from a middle school teacher recently.

In response to, “I DONT UNDERSTAND,” he calmly said, “okay what steps have you taken to understand?”

And that’s when I realized that a lot of folks have no steps.
November 10, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Pavel
I'm elbows deep into a thesis positing some version of magic (Alan Moore, et al) as resistive praxis, and I'm fairly confident I'll be able to argue that nothing about generative AI is worthwhile for use. In addition to being "the master's tools" etc., I suggest it's a null magic.
Generative AI is the apotheosis of this process. It's praised for doing better than a human on certain tasks, but those tasks were *made for computer logic* in the first place.

The new world will try to convince you that this computer logic is more valuable than your human thought. Defy it.
November 10, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Combining 2 ingredients that taste like feet to create Potion of Feet
This reads like eating ingredients in Skyrim to discover recipes. That one restored my health! Oh that one’s poisonous. That one tastes like feet, etc.
November 10, 2025 at 3:56 PM
To be fair to these kids, theorycrafting D&D 3e was a lot more fun than actually playing 3e
kids sitting around calculating who would win a game next instead of bothering to play, from adventures of pete and pete (s2e6 inspector 34, 1994)
November 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Trump take pasta
Trump trade war costs US Italian pasta: “Exporters say import and antidumping duties totaling 107% on their pasta brands will make doing business in America too costly and are preparing to pull out of U.S. stores as soon as January.” Via WSJ
Italian Pasta Is Poised to Disappear From American Grocery Shelves — The Wall Street Journal
Trump administration is set to impose duties of 107% on Italian pasta imports, among most punitive of tariffs it has levied
apple.news
November 10, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Pavel
Ever been in a meeting that fucking sucks? Rhetorical question.

Unfortunately, getting people to what you want requires that you tell them about it — and that's a meeting. Trying to get rid of meetings simply creates a dysfunctional work environment. The only fix is to design the meetings right.
This meeting could have been a picnic
Well-designed meetings are just as important to our work as well-designed artifacts.
productpicnic.beehiiv.com
November 9, 2025 at 9:43 PM
The cube root of a tablespoon is ~1 inch. The cube root of a pint is ~3 inches. The cube root of a gallon is ~6 inches.

They were so close to greatness but fucked it up in the decimals.
November 10, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Pavel
"Authoritarianism can’t abide the concept of public health[...] It proposes limits on both government and individual activity, and the rationale for those limitations is grounded in the scientific process—it quite literally can appeal to an authority greater than whoever leads the state."
November 10, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Pavel
In a way that was the horse that "AI" rode into town on: When even people who put their skills and souls and will into making something refer to it as abstract, alienated "content", why even bother?

"Content" is "proto-Slop".
1000 times this. It's the worst when writers or illustrators or filmmakers apply that to their own works. So fucking degrading.
No other word has done more damage to the craft of writing in recent years than “content”. Even if you’re using the word “content” ironically, or as a cute little joke, don’t. When someone calls writing “content” they’re pissing on someone’s hard work & passion. “Content” is Technosatan’s henchword.
November 10, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Reposted by Pavel
all they’ve done is proven yet again that you should *never* listen to some chin-stroking wise elder who lectures you about how *your* priorities are foolish and counterproductive while *their* priorities are strategic and wise. because in the end, *they* won’t even fight for *their own* priorities
November 10, 2025 at 3:34 AM
Workslop has entered the public sphere. Now instead of costing a company time to untangle that the "work" was never done, this now wastes YOUR money to filter bullshit complaints.

@dsquareddigest.bsky.social calls it what it is: vandalism.

I also like @stephenkb.bsky.social's framing: pollution
‘A new service called Objector is offering “policy-backed objections in minutes” to people who are upset about planning applications near their homes.’

Another reminder that AI can be used for things you don’t like as well as things you like…
November 10, 2025 at 10:47 AM
check out this donk
Going back to doing relatively tiny comics in a sketchbook to put some much needed oil in the creative gears again.
November 10, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Over these past decades, software has coached us into thinking like a computer. Not necessarily on purpose, but because the software wasn't designed to be usable by thinking like a human.

This side effect was a net positive for libertarians, who leapt from anti-human software to an anti-human world
Paulina Borsook "warned that tech libertarians wanted an anti-human world that worked more like a computer. From Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through The Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech, a book based on her 1990s writing" www.thenerdreich.com/she-warned-a...
November 10, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Using my specialized beak structures to detect subtle mechanical cues transmitted through the medium of you talking shit about me
Humans have remote touch 'seventh sense' like sandpipers, research shows
A study by researchers at Queen Mary University of London and University College London has found that humans have a form of remote touch, or the ability to sense objects without direct contact, a sen...
techxplore.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:09 AM
1st commandment: Mastered.
2nd commandment: MAstered.
3rd commandment: Mastered.
4th commandment: Heres when they start trying to trick you
5th commandment:This ones hard
November 10, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Manifesting a sickly, Lovecraftian green tint for New England
When the United States dissolves and all the new movies have to pick a different filter color for every state
November 10, 2025 at 12:02 AM
After 100 of the wisest people alive were locked in a deliberation chamber for 365 days, they came out with a bold new philosophy: comedy should no longer be legal.
November 9, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by Pavel
I've referred to this lecture before but there's another absolute gem: a student HAS to become vulnerable to learn because you are trying to do something before you know what you are doing, or even when you have done it.

But that vulnerability is uncomfortable. This is where AI sneaks in today.

1/
Donald Schon Lecture (via hiredthought.com)
Dean Galloway: Guest this evening has been apprised of the context of ISU and specifically the issues with which we in the college are working, as several of us on the 10th anniversary committee visit...
www.rev.com
September 10, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Ever been in a meeting that fucking sucks? Rhetorical question.

Unfortunately, getting people to what you want requires that you tell them about it — and that's a meeting. Trying to get rid of meetings simply creates a dysfunctional work environment. The only fix is to design the meetings right.
This meeting could have been a picnic
Well-designed meetings are just as important to our work as well-designed artifacts.
productpicnic.beehiiv.com
November 9, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Evolutionary theories that are also emo song names
Triangle of U - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 9, 2025 at 9:14 PM
November 9, 2025 at 7:47 PM
This is so real. I too have achieved my accomplishments largely due to contempt for the people around me.
Spite-Driven Career Development
Why did I do it? Honestly, spite.
elizabethzagroba.com
November 9, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Every time I go to the UK I give fish & chips another chance, and check out the places people rave about. And every time it's a huge letdown. The "chips" are always soggy!

Today I found out it's supposed to be that way! The British "chip" is distinguished from the American fry by being floppy.
November 9, 2025 at 4:59 PM