Instagram Story Save

My Threads account is borked and I’m fine with it.

If you come at the king @whoiskenjennings, you best not miss. “The Death of Mr. McMahon” is available now on the Omnibus podcast, wherever you get your podcasts!

#kenjennings #omnibus #steamedhams

“The Death of Mr. McMahon” is now available on the Omnibus, wherever you get your podcasts!

#vincemcmahon #wwe #wrasslin

“The Death of Mr. McMahon” is now available on the Omnibus, wherever you get your podcasts!

#vincemcmahon #wwe #wrasslin

“The Death of Mr. McMahon” is now available on the Omnibus, wherever you get your podcasts!

#vincemcmahon #wwe #wrasslin

Charles De Gaulle Airport is actually five airports and maybe one of them is the “best European airport” but of the other four, one of them is like if the Spokane Airport had a million passengers a year, one of them is the original Charles De Gaulle airport with no improvements or repairs since the day it opened, one is what you’d get if Melania Trump designed an airport and one of them is like the airport on Tatooine if it got a million passengers a year. If you have to travel BETWEEN one of these airports to another airport you are required to use the Detroit public transit system as it existed in 1974 with connections through the Soviet Exhibition Hall at the World’s Fair in New Orleans in 1984.

For these reasons I feel that the “Europe’s Best Airport” award might be something invented by the marketing team at Charles De Gaulle Airport and not competitively judged.

This is an example of digital enshitification, small but pernicious. As of April the EU no longer stamps passports on entry or exit. They’ve replaced the age-old custom with encrypted notepad and photo biometric scan or whatever. I’m sure it’s very techy-cool, expensive to implement, totally bulletproof, never crashes and makes the world safer.

It’s also shitty. Crossing international borders, presenting your documents, getting scrutinized by guards and interrogated by customs is an ancient ritual, exciting, dangerous and exotic, and the reward—and it IS a reward—is a little ink stamp in your cardstock book. Your passport is more than just something you present THEM, it’s something they endorse for YOU. Even the most seasoned traveler isn’t immune to flipping through their passport like a photo album, deciphering the inscrutable glyphs and uneven numbers and connecting them to what are always life-altering events. No one crosses a border without it meaning something.

Losing that ritual is an immeasurable theft, great and small. I’m not even decrying the surveillance-state info-harvesting, which is inevitable (and proof all tech is inherently neo-fascist). It’s just that everyone in the chain of custody of this crap transition ALSO has a passport and knows in their hearts the importance of this small ritual. They know, at some level, that taking away passport stamps is dehumanizing. It’s a police-state joke to suggest it streamlines the process, and it would add exactly three seconds to also stamp the book after the photoscan’s complete.

What the Eurostate gains in data is clear: now they can track your face on CCTV as you move through the world and, who knows, maybe sell that info to Nestle or Esso or maybe shock your balls remotely when you swear. But what they’ve done is violate their half of the bargain and taken away the little prize and the memory, they’ve reduced your passport from a living thing to an inert one.

I’m owed four stamps from this trip: in and out of Poland and France, and I’ll never get them back.

This is an example of digital enshitification, small but pernicious. As of April the EU no longer stamps passports on entry or exit. They’ve replaced the age-old custom with encrypted notepad and photo biometric scan or whatever. I’m sure it’s very techy-cool, expensive to implement, totally bulletproof, never crashes and makes the world safer.

It’s also shitty. Crossing international borders, presenting your documents, getting scrutinized by guards and interrogated by customs is an ancient ritual, exciting, dangerous and exotic, and the reward—and it IS a reward—is a little ink stamp in your cardstock book. Your passport is more than just something you present THEM, it’s something they endorse for YOU. Even the most seasoned traveler isn’t immune to flipping through their passport like a photo album, deciphering the inscrutable glyphs and uneven numbers and connecting them to what are always life-altering events. No one crosses a border without it meaning something.

Losing that ritual is an immeasurable theft, great and small. I’m not even decrying the surveillance-state info-harvesting, which is inevitable (and proof all tech is inherently neo-fascist). It’s just that everyone in the chain of custody of this crap transition ALSO has a passport and knows in their hearts the importance of this small ritual. They know, at some level, that taking away passport stamps is dehumanizing. It’s a police-state joke to suggest it streamlines the process, and it would add exactly three seconds to also stamp the book after the photoscan’s complete.

What the Eurostate gains in data is clear: now they can track your face on CCTV as you move through the world and, who knows, maybe sell that info to Nestle or Esso or maybe shock your balls remotely when you swear. But what they’ve done is violate their half of the bargain and taken away the little prize and the memory, they’ve reduced your passport from a living thing to an inert one.

I’m owed four stamps from this trip: in and out of Poland and France, and I’ll never get them back.

You know who is GREAT at moving things along? The Poles. This airport security line is cooking like… like someone knows what they’re doing.

View from my hotel, last morning in Warsaw.

I got the middle bunk this time!

Headed to Poland.

I got the middle bunk this time!

Headed to Poland.

The air raid sirens are sounding again but I’ve learned that sometimes it means Russian drones and missiles will rain from the sky for eight hours but most of the time it means play ping pong in the sunshine.

This is the first time I’ve had real-time translators for bilingual lectures and panel discussions. About 1/4 of attendees are listening in English and everyone else is Ukrainian, so the translators are working overtime translating in both directions.

This is the first time I’ve had real-time translators for bilingual lectures and panel discussions. About 1/4 of attendees are listening in English and everyone else is Ukrainian, so the translators are working overtime translating in both directions.

Some of the very illustrious panelists at yesterday’s inaugural symposium of the new National University of Ukraine Kiev-Mohyla Research Center for Heritage Preservation and Recovery. These are real heavyweights. I’ll be chewing on these discussions for years.

Some of the very illustrious panelists at yesterday’s inaugural symposium of the new National University of Ukraine Kiev-Mohyla Research Center for Heritage Preservation and Recovery. These are real heavyweights. I’ll be chewing on these discussions for years.

Some of the very illustrious panelists at yesterday’s inaugural symposium of the new National University of Ukraine Kiev-Mohyla Research Center for Heritage Preservation and Recovery. These are real heavyweights. I’ll be chewing on these discussions for years.

Some of the very illustrious panelists at yesterday’s inaugural symposium of the new National University of Ukraine Kiev-Mohyla Research Center for Heritage Preservation and Recovery. These are real heavyweights. I’ll be chewing on these discussions for years.

Some of the very illustrious panelists at yesterday’s inaugural symposium of the new National University of Ukraine Kiev-Mohyla Research Center for Heritage Preservation and Recovery. These are real heavyweights. I’ll be chewing on these discussions for years.

Some of the very illustrious panelists at yesterday’s inaugural symposium of the new National University of Ukraine Kiev-Mohyla Research Center for Heritage Preservation and Recovery. These are real heavyweights. I’ll be chewing on these discussions for years.

I asked to take his picture because he is keeping it 100%. He obliged and we both had a good laugh because he knew exactly what I meant. #kyiv #ukraine #menswear