[RIFFS] Big Tech: Guys. Can We Just *STAHP* Adding Stuff To The Stuff? Signed, Brady.
Preamble: Shout-out to your boy The Internet and Smartphones for coming so full-circle with wholesale destruction of my neuropsychological functioning that I’m now back reading.
READING!
finger snaps.
Man. Never thought reading a book would be this god-DAMNED-refreshing, dude.
Even audiobooks!
Wow.
Okay, here’s a Riff.
Crypto-bro’s? I don’t know…. fuck off. Just fuck off. Kay? Kay.
We begin.
That anyone, anywhere, who’s plugged into our current digital ecosystem is not feeling it or aware of it? Come on man. Yeah? No? NO?! Huh. Oh-kay. Well, my hat to thee m’good-sir, but I know this’ll be damn-relatable to a lot of folks I know, so yeah. Read on anyway though!
Speaking of plugins, that leads into an interesting story about how our prior website die- Nah.
Continuing on, I’ll start with a nice easy directive for some suits over in LA.
Hey, Fam!
Silicon Valley. Chill. Just….. Stahp. Bro. Stahp.
If I needed Meta AI to give me answers to every single picture on Facebook, I shouldn’t be on Facebook. I should be booking in a neuropsychologist. Certainly the NDIS, because perhaps this #auDHD has even more intellectual disability attached than I gave it credit for! (No talking about the NDIS right now, please. Too spent. God, no.)
Brother, it is FACEBOOK.
But I don’t, and I won’t.
I have “perfectly Googleable” [insanely overzealous air-quote gesture] Google at home.
(The Google at home = Chromium ad-slop infested mess, refer to brilliant chat by funny and acerbic Big Tech journalist and critic Ed Zitron below):
humming ‘Sunshine, lollipops and… rainboooows’ VERY ironically to self whilst writing this article.
Side note? Ed, don’t ever stop what you’re doing. I appreciate the frustration required to make your content. You’re a homie, a scholar, and more of my audience need to catch up on your head-nod-relatable/also unfathomably existentially terrifying podcast and website.
Better Offline is the best Big Tech critique podcast out there right now.
I’ll die on that hill, and hopefully that’s some incentive to check out his stuff. I stand by it.
No, no, no. Don’t just say you will, we all do that. Far out man - go the original website. I know you won’t, ‘cause no one ‘goes to websites’ anymore. But do. Just do.
And Ed, love to have you on the show sometime man. Keep up the good work. Up the digital punks.
I’d say fight me, but I don’t mean some shitty comments flamewar. Nah. C’mon. I’m so tired of the internet. I am Slurms Mackenzie’d Out by the fucking internet, my dude.
So very, very tired man.
Come meet up with me and we’ll at least feel something physically in our bodies as we trade blows, and you very likely kick my ass, cause oh boy. The Fatigue.
But it’ll be something real, and no one will have to DOWNLOAD ONE MORE OF THESE APPS OR USE AN AI ASSISTANT. Hopefully. Thanks.
Go follow the man. Support independent journalism. Bro is basically CNNN/The Chaser’s War on Everything for Silicon Valley.
Keep those bastards honest, brother.
Also, fuck Sam Altma-
BTW - I’m more of a techno-optimist than this article may lead you to believe. More on that later.
Another internet-homeboy shoutout - Arthur Isaac. i.e. basically our generation’s sci-fi Sagan. Love this guy.
My man, thank you not just for being the best futurologist on Youtube and icon - thanks for the techno-optimism, dude. My audience needs it today. Cheers, my incredibly, INCREDIBLY smart friend.
Go watch him. His stuff rips.
SEA Space while you’re at it. What a venerable, absolute madlad. I love these goddamn people existing in my timeline. To quote Dylan Luck - Shall we? Cheers my friends:
More on the psychology of the Cosmic Scale and terror management theory, later! I am dropping lotsa little seeds future podcast watering today. Because hey - it ain’t all bad, and let’s all create more cool stuff, and valorise those making cool stuff.
Like Isaac - right, goddamn, now:
Want More? K. I Got More Of What I Don’t Need, Lol.
Seriously, dude. I don’t. Like fuck off, actually. I’m just tired. We all are. Leave us alone man.
Brave? Appreciate you as hell bro, but I don’t need Leo to pop up on pretty much every virtual environment every time I’m trying to bold something. I do appreciate being able to turn it off and change the hotkey, cause I promise you my brother in TechnoViking Christ, I will NEVER use it.
Opera? Yeah look, enough. Go away with all those sidebars. No.
Edge? Chortle - BING. Copilot? Fahgeddaboutit.
Still going to keep updating both those settings with every update, Microsoft. Gotta remember, I’m a millenial. Torrents and all that. I can handle a by-update coup-d-etat, man. But also. Microsoft.. why? I know why. But why? C’mon dude. Do better.
Yeesh. Even talking about browsers is exhausting. Woof.
But yeah. Enough with the AI assistants. They don’t assist. Please. Bro. Stahp. STAHP.
And if I do, I’ll be gainfully employed somewhere where I’m just being flogged to death in some project-management capacity.
In which case, also nah. Really. I’d probably stick with UpNote. Upnote’s a goodboi; I’ll be reviewing that app for a future episode, and I’ll never be going back to Evernote. That’s for sure. See: this thread, and that future episode.
If I needed an app for every single separate restuarant, browser address, website and forum, I’d hire a virtual assistant or set up some kinda script to pull every website from my browser history from the Google Play store in my sleep. And I’d get the same VA to order me a 2TB microSD card or something, plus also sort everything into fuck-off, dont-wanna see it folders.
“Ugh.”
These little tiny chunks of bells and whistles and widgets we sort of have to nasally exhale a bit and swipe, thumb and click away. God, it’s not the end of the world, but are you feeling me? It all adds up. Such a privileged take when LA is being burnt to a cinder, I know.
But man. Shouldn’t even need a Riff. Doesn’t. It’s just a-nno-ying.
And people wonder why I, the most dyscalculic person on the face of the planet, got into tabletop roleplaying and board games and shit?
Easy. Obvious answer number one = #AUDHD.
More universally relatable answer number two = gestures vaguely at my surroundings.
Speaking of my surroundings? You’re not here with me, but here’s a real picture from a real place near my house. Not right nearby, but close. It’s cool. I like the outside, I like nature. It’s NOT ALL THIS STUFF. It is refreshing, my friend.
Big props to camera-wizard Glenn Guy - go check his stuff out and enjoy the real world.
You Do You, Guys. But In 2025, I’m All About Reclamation.
Time. Energy. Sanity. Creativity. Real-World Experiences and Interactions.
Carve out more time for my analog hobbies. Some are surfing, going to gigs, lifting weights and drinking, some are just plain autistic as hell, man.
But that’s cool, dude. ‘cause least an AI buddy isn’t going to try and undo my zipper while I’m out there, in the moment.
And NOT having to have gnats and sandflies buzzing in my fucking eyes an ears asking me to cram ‘just one… little… wa-fer onto my Home screen on my apparently immorally-outdated S21.
And holy scoobity-doobity y’all. I DONT NEED TO ASK A LANGUAGE LEARNING MODEL HOW TO GET TO MY MATE’S HOUSE. I’LL JUST ASK ‘EM, PUNCH IT INTO MAPS AND CALL IT A DAY, YO. IT’S THAT EASY!
I’ll Now Reveal ONE App, Which is Actually A Goodboi, In All This.
Especially for you nerds, tech-heads, students and burnt-out people.
Upnote, man. Three cheers for Upnote. I’ll be reviewing that sucker in-depth, as well as many other productivity apps and systems and thoughts on the whole discourse on both those things in 2025. For sure.
Not a paid shill. Heck, I’m not even going to link ‘em to establish that as a fact.
But they’re a shining example of a few goodboi apps relatively untouched by all this annoying-digital-Mage-Hand bullshit infesting my peripheral vision.
Good. Boi.
WHO’s-A GOOD BOI? GOOD BOI! Have a TREAT, Upnote. Y’all Deserve It.
Oh and to the neckbeards on Reddit (not that I barely use that shit anymore except as a less-melted Google, refer to above) - yes, cool it IS based in Vietnam! Oh, they have a communist government. Oh noes. Guys, they won in the 70’s. Sing Viet Nam Ho Chi Minh Muon Namh, Muon Namh and let it go.
I don’t know, I don’t care, and I won’t be around any thread on Reddit long enough to care because Reddit is Facebook but almost - (rant for another time).
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to chuck on the goddamn fucking Dune Series by Frank Herbert whilst I unfrazzle my head to IDK, Farming Simulator or something. Need something mindless, so I can try and figure out what the heck all these axolotl people and this guild and that person and these fish-people are apparently thousands of years into the future;
Because even that is somehow more sensible and logical than, waves vaguely to all THIS.
Thank god I live near the beach. The day the ocean asks me if I’d like to search a ChatGPT term on something is the day I start nosing around in the rockpools to see if I can raise me one of my own Shai Hulud. And ride that sucker straight to Silicon Valley, spice-melange’d up to the gills, brother!
/Fin. No pun intended.
final gift? Speaking of Dune - listen to Shai Hulud. Song titles sound pessimistic, but [[actually optimistic as hell and inspiring, like a boss]].
Keep on being inspired.
Peace, Love and Grindcore xoxo - Brady.