And it will probably be very bad
A super El Niño is coming this year.
Let’s get it in the OED
I’ve been throwing away leftunders, a word I just made up and then found in the Urban Dictionary.
Speaking of worse
Axios says we’re scaling sin. They are correct, at least in the sense that anything in excess can be bad for you, and doing costly and unnecessary things, en masse, is very bad.
They talk about weed, gambling, and porn: weed because it has been widely legalized, gambling because anyone with a phone can do it, and porn because AI is exceptionally good at it, and there are boundless sources for it.
I think gambling is the worst of those. For two reasons, beyond being costly and addictive.
One is that college and pro team sports have become addicted to it. I’ll bet (without money) that half the money spent on flagship sports podcasts is spent by FanDuel, DraftKings, and other sportsbooks. The percentage on live games is less, but I’ll bet close to 25%.
The other is that the sportsbooks fuck you in ways Las Vegas does not. As I wrote in Online Sports Betting is for Losers, Soon as you do well, they cut you off. Really. If you lose money, you’re golden—for them. If you win money (meaning you bet better than the house), you’re gone.
That this is called “gaming,” and “fun” is just nuts. With real games, you can win. With online gambling, you have to lose.
He likes it
Most of this post by @kixelated (Luke Curley) is over my head, but I was sent to it by one of the Internet’s parents, to whose head I bow.
Gives me ideas
NiemanLab: “Affiliation, not just access”: Newsrooms try to move beyond membership to a focus on “belonging.” That’s how our local community radio station, WFHB, operates. Entirely.
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