Christ, you post 1400 words of your masc special forces protagonist taking the strap and suddenly everyone’s a fucking coward.

Anyway, I’ve just finished the first draft of the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story. It takes place in Herefordshire, and if you pay close attention to the Sherlock Holmes story “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” you might figure out why.

This Week’s Links

Pornhub Sees Surge of Interest in Tradwife Content, ‘Modesty,’ and Mindfulness

“If anything, the fact that ‘tradwife’ is a trending porn search term reminds me that the entire concept of the tradwife is just influencer marketing in the first place,” Dahl said. “Most tradwife influencers are actually business owners and the primary breadwinners in their homes, so the term itself is kind of an oxymoron if you think about it. Maybe seeing a bunch of porn labeled “tradwife” will help other people to realize that whether it’s an Instagram influencer or a Pornhub creator, tradwifery is just a fantasy after all.”

The Last Resort: So close to Fortress Europe’s African outposts, yet so far

Looking at a map, you would be forgiven for thinking that Ceuta is part of Morocco. It is geographically, just not legally. Drive seven hours east on the Moroccan coast along the Mediterranean sea and you will go from Ceuta to another Spanish city: Melilla. Spain refused to give the two up when it recognised Moroccan independence in 1956. It argued, in part, that its rule over these lands pre-dated its hold on the rest of Morocco, and even some parts of mainland Spain.

Today, when European nations are fervent about keeping African migrants out, having territory that touches African borders is proving complicated for Spain.

The phony comforts of useful idiots

OpenAI, in pursuit of its first profits, uses fear of AI as a marketing strategy to secure partnerships and enterprise deals, or as Brian Merchant puts it: “if they want to survive the coming AI-led mass upheaval, they’d better climb aboard.” Microsoft claims it is fighting climate change by accelerating fossil fuel extraction with generative AI products that generate tens of billions of dollars for oil companies and the tech giant. Israeli apartheid is powered by AI tech provided by Google, while Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is bolstered by automated systems that function as a “mass assassination factory.” The rise of the insurance tech industry has seen the advent of AI tools that promise healthcare revolutions but are part of a longer line of profit-driven, hyper-personalized reforms that have been degrading conditions. It’s hard to imagine a world where one could, with a serious face, say all of this boils down to: “fake and sucks” vs “real and dangerous.”

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I considered doing a “best books of 2024” list for this newsletter, but then I remembered I’ve only read one book that came out in 2024. It was Cory Doctorow’s The Bezzle. It was okay.

-K