Did I miss some memo or something? Are we mad at this style of comic right now for some reason?

I’ve got my pitchfork downvote ready, just give me a good reason 👍

I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with this particular comic. It’s just a silly comic about a common problem with “free” games.

Finally, robots are automating the boaring jobs!

Grand Theft Data

For crying out loud!

PFASF

Yeah but it works and it’s still free 🤷

Other place: “UNSCHEDULED OFF-WORLD ACTIVATION!”

(Horn sounds)

“Wait: Is there a sunspot‽”

It ain’t much, but it’s dishonest work.

Remember, kids: If we taught you how to protect your privacy and recover from things like this, you’d also learn how to get around the censorship we impose upon you so stay in the dark and suffer.

Yep. They have several attachments for many size rings 👍

I hate having to deal with these things so much I spent real money on a special tool to deal with them. Even though I only have to mess with circlips once in a blue moon. Maybe even longer.

The real question: Why didn’t she just make a new Discord account? It’s free and stupidly easy.

It’s not that hard to contact your old friends and tell them your account was hacked. In fact, that happens all the time.

The AI features are actually pretty cool!

Using a local AI model (running on your own GPU), you can:

• Drag files on to the “AI bar” to bring them into the context of a prompt.
• Tell it to perform actions like, “merge these two PDF files.”
• Use it to search your filesystem, “find pictures of spiders.”
• Ask it to find system settings or tell it to change them, “turn on dark mode.”

It supports voice and probably visual (e.g. with a webcam) I think.

Best of all: It doesn’t send any of that to some data center in the cloud! I mean, you can configure it to do that but you can just as easily use say, qwen3.5.

Note: It’s not realistic to expect to be able to use local models if you have less than 16GB of VRAM (in your GPU). I mean, some 8-billion parameter model will work with say, 8GB but you’re not going to be satisfied with the results most of the time 🤷

For a second there, I thought I was looking at a cutaway of some epic new kind of pasta.

Ah, the good old days when your “dumb” refrigerator would kill children playing hide and seek because the latch wouldn’t open from the inside. When it was lined with asbestos because that’s literally the best insulation that exists excepting aerogel. When the mercury thermostat would fail—leaking mercury on to your food (and aerosolizing some which would be breathed in as soon as you opened it)—and it would freeze everything inside, complete with an interior wall of snow that could take days to defrost. It used old school freon, destroying the ozone layer. Or before then, fun highly toxic gasses like methyl chloride!

Those were the days! When a breeze through the house on a day with wonderful weather could blow out the pilot light in your oven, slowly leaking gas into your house, exploding and destroying the entire home late at night while everyone is asleep.

Then the wonders of electricity came along to produce ovens that were hooked up to 220V lines without a grounding wire, and wiring that would slowly fail over time, eventually making contact with the metal frame, electrocuting anyone who touched the device—or anyone that touched the person touching it.

Ovens were built different “back in the day”! They didn’t have anti-tip brackets, resulting in loads of children sitting on the oven door, spilling boiling liquids down upon them.

The best were those old washing machines, though! You could lift up the lid and look inside to see your laundry spinning at high speeds! Just don’t reach your hand in, or you could find out what the term “degloving” means.

Ah yes, the good old days of appliances.

Oh please. There’s nothing wrong with a bunch of girls horsing around.

American, here. I’m with them! Sort of…

Far too many American parents insist their kids use “please and thank you” for too many things. A classic example:

Kid: “Can you pass the butter?” (this is the natural state of American children… Probably all children, actually)

Parent, semi-scolding: “Can you please pass the butter!”

…or the worse, passive-aggressive form: “Please and thank you, (child)!”

I had this happen to me when I was a kid and my friends had it happen to them. I’ve witnessed it so many times—even as an adult—yet… It always felt wrong.

Normal people—equals in butter rights—don’t communicate like that.

Adult: “Can you pass the butter?”

Adult nearest the butter: “Here…”

There’s another, more efficient form that seems to be most common in the Northeastern US, especially with men: (just passes the butter without saying anything at all)

Truly efficient men—who may have never met before that moment—can communicate a butter request and reply to another man without even speaking. A look, with an upward nod and a follow-up downward nod from the guy closest to the butter is all these truly efficient communicators need.

The most efficient families—when it’s only adults present, performing their secret, adults-only rituals—tend to shorten it to the tiniest of requests, “Butter?” (points at butter)

Excessive politeness always feels fake and rotten to me. “Please”—from children—should be reserved for actual begging, damnit! With wide eyes and maybe some tears! Anything less feels like bad acting or an unnecessary, inauthentic ritual.

Politeness shouldn’t be ritual! It should be something you do because you’re paying attention and you’re genuinely invested in the concept of feeling sorry about inconveniencing another person with your request. If there’s no inconvenience—such as passing the butter—what’s the point?

Please and thank you for reading my rant.

Isn’t that just… Vinegar?

There’s a Waffle House across the street. Gregg Phillips might teleport there (if we’re lucky) and certain other Republican politicians are banned.

Plott Hound? I look to my left to my own barky barkster: