UGH, YouTube just gave me an ad for an "#ai" companion puppy, but the ad was talking about how they were being forced to remove code that made the puppy seem "so lifelike", and the music under this was like "Republican political ad about how the lying liberal left are trying to teach your (white) kids about racism"

it was so fucking bizarre, and I skipped it halfway through, but now I can't help but wonder how the rest of it went ... was it actually just "therefore you have a limited time to buy the most lifelike fake puppies before we're forced to put them down via worse code" or was there also like a "so write to your senator so we don't have to stop making these toy puppies that are so lifelike you'll think they're breathing!"

also it bugs me that they only seem to make puppies and not grown dogs, but probably it's just easier to build a robot body that moves in an at all lifelike way when the legs are super short ... otherwise you get into the problem of building knees

#Hangul update: I find the concept of hi (informal) and hello (formal) to be totally comprehensible, although, as an American, my idea of a formal setting is probably very different from most Korean ideas of when to use formal language

but I just learned how to read "I love you (formal)", and I confess, I'm having a hard time figuring out when you would need formal language but also you're telling someone you love them ...

TIL the etymology of gerrymandering and it's FUCKING hilarious:

Elbridge Gerry (pronounced Gary) was the fifth Vice President, but before that, as governor of Massachusetts, he "signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander" (Wikipedia)

I fucking love portmanteaux! Gerry's salamander!

also, it was originally pronounced garymander, and I can't go back now ... it will always be garymander in my brain

anyway, please to appreciate the political cartoon I also lifted from Wikipedia of the salamander

broken ankle update: my knee scooter¹ broke last night. one of the back wheels cracked and then fell off (don't worry, I didn't fall)

so until a friend can go to the Utah Independent Living Center for me to borrow a (hopefully much sturdier) new scooter, I have crutches (only good once you can start putting weight on the foot, and I'm not there yet) or a walker

the walker is fine, though it takes WAY more time and effort to get around than the scooter did, and I feel much less stable on it, bc I essentially have to keep my broken ankle in the air the whole time

so basically I'm staying in bed until I have a scooter again ... I'd love to eat something, but I think the effort required to wash dishes and then somehow bring everything to the couch would burn more calories than I could intake

¹ which my gf bought at Walgreens bc it was the only one there