My recommendation for how to be happier online:

Stop replying to things just because you disagree with them.

There may be times where it's good to reply & pushback. Sometimes bigotry needs to be rebuked or false information needs to be corrected.

Circumstances should be taken into account.

But don't reply to someone *just* to argue with them, no matter how wrong they are. It doesn't make anything better. It doesn't make you happier. It doesn't change their mind.

Someone in the Compliance new employee orientation session today brought up that our AI policy only contains a list of permissible tools but no real guidelines for responsible use.

They mentioned they had a document on their website outlining principles of responsible AI use in business. Normally I would perceive that as personal promotion, but in this case while our compliance officer hemmed & hawed about why we didn't define that, I sent a message to the guy & asked for the link.

James Gunn & Peter Safran just got the boot from DC Studios/Warner Bros, so that has officially killed what remaining optimism I had for the DCU.

This year's DC releases all disappointed me in a very "studio notes" kind of way. Couldn't help but feel that steadily-increasing, unnecessary tinkering turned promising projects into weird messes.

Really weird when I see fellow Americans get worked up about "treason" as though disloyalty to the United States is the worst thing imaginable.

I guess I wouldn't focus on the *treason* angle, but maybe that's just because I suspect someday someone may decide they believe I've been "treasonous".

I'm not defending harmful or foolish actions. I'm just saying, the thing that's wrong is harm caused, not disloyalty to a nation state.

Not me envying my dissociative/plural spouse because only certain parts of him show up at his job, whereas when I have to deal with shit, it doesn't get tucked away in a separate box.

Not to be flippant or romanticize that experience, of course, but it is sometimes interesting seeing how he is able to—in a certain sense—choose which parts of himself will handle a situation, while I'm dealing with the fact that ALL OF ME has to be present in an uncomfortable work situation.

Ok, no lie, I'm getting some misogynistic & Orientalist vibes from some of the conversation around the supposed Chinese spy involved with the NVIDIA CEO.

I don't even know exactly what to point to. Some of it is just a little "off", you know? It raises some questions of "now why is that how you want to talk about it?"

I don't think I want to confront Bro2 with "hey, I just came to the conclusion you're abusive & manipulative," because I don't see any point to it.

He cares more what my dad & Bro1 think, so if anyone wants to try to get through to him in any way, it's going to need to be them.

But that leaves me with him still texting me memes & me not wanting to respond. I think I'm just going to stop cold turkey here.

I keep telling myself I don't owe it to him to make him feel comfortable, but it's hard.

*sigh*

Conversation with my mom about Bro2, the one who chooses to be a shithead (a fact I have only very recently accepted).

I felt how heavy the conversation got for her. There were a couple times emotion got the better of me too & I struggled to speak.

We didn't have time to go too deep, but it was a start. He's not been honest with any of us about a lot of things. That takes some working through.

Do you ever go to a website & think "I bet the person who built/maintains this is on Fedi"?

You know, when it's just a normal fucking site that provides a very simple service, doesn't take forever to load because it's not crowded with ads, & doesn't collect any unnecessary data.

Gift-giving holidays are approaching. Here's a suggestion: if you are using an online wishlist, don't use Amazon.

I use Things To Get Me (dot com). Yes, I have to enter information myself, but it's worth it not to be directly telling people to buy from Amazon.

(& yes, Things to Get Me has an Amazon affiliate deal, but that only applies if the item is linked to Amazon)

I can't stop people if that's where they want to purchase stuff, but I'm not going to encourage it.

Speaking of being a Guillermo del Toro fan account:

I'm so excited that a local theater is showing Pacific Rim this December.

I never saw it in theaters because I did not yet know the wonders of GDT. Seeing the posters & promotions gave me the impression it was basically a Transformers movie. Silly me. I did not know what I was missing.

But now I get to see it on the big screen!

Godzilla Minus Zero in IMAX was almost too much for me. Immersion into something that intense is almost painful.

I should have known after Minus One that Takashi Yamazaki was going to put me through an extremely strong emotional experience.

The movie looked fucking amazing, the monsters especially.

I loved it, even though during several scenes where I was really emotionally bound up in the action I was thinking to myself "I hate this movie. I hate this movie. I hate this movie."