There are bound to be a few stumbles on the Road to AI Utopia

From the humans at magica.ai.
 

The sound you hear

The sound you hear is the future arriving from every direction. Think of it as "Everything Everywhere All At Once" in real life. Humans at magica.ai report the news, you decide how freaked out to be.

 

Amanda Nelson's Congress update for June 1st, 2026

We’re back with this week’s whiteboard! Congress was on recess last week (you’re shocked, I know you’re shocked) but we have lots to catch up on, including:

• NDAA funding for 2027, which includes a section tying our military supply chain, research, and AI development to Israel’s

• The status of the “Protect” kids/don’t say trans bill

• Catching up on the status of the ballroom funding and the DOJ slush fund of $1.776 billion

 The first two are the things to call your reps about!

https://open.substack.com/pub/amandasmildtakes/p/congress-wants-to-tie-our-military?r=1opwqh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

AI On The March

From humans @ magica.com

AI will replace your job as soon as it learns to spell and other news from the front

In the AI universe, no one can figure out what The Plan™ is, let alone what it's going to be.

 

 

 

Source: AI Snacks newsletter from magica.com. 

Surprise, surprise! Hate speech is bustin' out all over Substack

 

What I thought was a relatively innocent comment, "Show us the proof," to the assertion that "Paul Krugman has an extremely poor track record with predictions" turned into a demand that I disclose that I am "a jew." Not satisfied to leave it there, another commenter joined in to call me a "faggot boi" based on my Substack posts.

This is the relevant section of the content guidelines: 

Hate 

Substack cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition.

Clearly, Substack has a serious harassment/hate speech problem. Report an issue and they promise not to let you know how it was decided. Seriously. They will not share what if any action was taken when you report a content violation. 

So, what's a content creator to do? I can tell you that this one will move all of his posts off Substack and delete his account before it turns into Twittter with subscriptions. 

ETA: I flagged the comments, Tyler from Substack replied, and I responded to his e-mail.

On Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 12:43:05 PM EDT, Substack Support <support@substack.zendesk.com> wrote:#- Please type your reply above this line -##

Hi there,
 
Tyler from Substack Standards and Enforcement here. Thanks for reaching out about this. 
 
We take all reports of violations to our Content Guidelines seriously and thoroughly evaluate them. Though we're unable to disclose specific details about actions taken with publishers on the platform, we'll be taking any steps necessary to ensure publishers adhere to Substack's Terms of Use. Thank you. 
 
Best wishes,

Tyler @ Substack

Hello there, Tyler. Thanks for getting back to me with a vague promise of action that may or not have been taken since you can't tell me what happened.

So publishers have to adhere to the Content Guidelines but comments can contain hate speech and slurs. Got it.

Frankly, I don't see why I should have to tolerate someone calling me a "faggot boi" and Substack not doing anything about it.

 

"Departures": Caught up in a bad romance

 

 

Departures is Pillion without the humor.

The theme song is “Bad Romance,” over and over. I would have walked out if I hadn’t paid for the ticket.

It’s as if your friend with self-esteem issues (Benji, Lloyd Eyre-Morgan) tells you in excruciating detail about the dead-end relationship that just ended. As he tells the story, you can spot every red flag that he ignored but he was so besotted that he just plowed right ahead. As relationships go, it wasn’t much of one, made up of eight marijuana-laced and boozed-up weekends in Amsterdam with an enigmatic 40-something hunk (Jake, David Tag), one a month. From the start, when your friend couldn’t tell if the guy was even gay and he brought a hooker to the apartment soon after they unpacked, it was clear that there was no way it could go on.To no one’s surprise it didn’t, and to your great relief it looked he found a way to get over it. In Greek drama that’s known as a deus ex machina, and here he’s named Kieran.

The usual disclaimer about the characters in the movie not resembling anyone living or dead ends the movie. Since Lloyd Eyre-Morgan is the screenwriter, co-director, and lead I have my doubts.

Finally, I have a bone to pick with New York Times film critic Chris Azzopardi. U.K. distributor Peccadillo Pictures touted Departures as a New York Times Critic’s Pick in a recent email and that made me think I needed to see the movie before it left the IFC Center. Azzopardi wrote, “A voice to watch, Eyre-Morgan wrote Departures and directed it with Neil Ely. The film balances a mordantly funny deconstruction of romance with the harsher realities of gay life: internalized homophobia, body dysmorphia, alcoholism, sexual abuse, parental expectations to be a “happy gay.” It’s a lot, maybe too much for some. Even the camerawork feels confrontational, with tight close-ups and high angles that subjugate Benji. Departures is still tender and winsome, with graphic-novel-style animation lightening the load, but is ultimately punishing in tone. It lives by a truth that might ring familiar for gay men particularly: Humor that cuts deep is a form of survival.”

First of all, there’s nothing funny, let alone “mordantly funny.” And it’s neither tender nor winsome, though it is definitely punishing. I felt undeservedly punished at many points of its 82 minutes that felt more like 102. “Humor that cuts deep is a form of survival”? Puh-leeze, Chris. If you can show me the humor, then we can discuss how it’s a form of survival.

After that review, Chris Azzopardi joins The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody as a critic to ignore. Read the full review here (gift link): ‘Departures’ Review: Finding Levity Amid the Pain.

Richard Brody, the misguided film critic

It's as useful to find a critic with whom you disagree as to find one you agree with, and I've found a very useful critic: The New Yorker's film critic, Richard Brody. Here's what he said about Marty Supreme and Rear Window in his review of Wuthering Heights.

Marty Supreme is driven by romance, and the thinness of its central couple’s relationship—the one that begins and ends the movie—is compensated for by its thematic implication of a bond of ineffable absoluteness, a passion beyond words. In this regard, Marty Supreme, set in 1952, reminds me of one of that era’s great movies, Rear Window, in which Alfred Hitchcock offers, in a monologue spoken by the superb character actress Thelma Ritter, a definitive credo of transcendentally carnal love. But, Marty Supreme, true to its title and its eponymous character, isn’t a women’s picture; the romance, sharply conceived though it is, is ultimately little more than a series of obstacles on the protagonist’s athletically existential journey.

First, if you've seen Marty Supreme you know it's not a romance, it's not driven by romance, there's no ineffable passion, and what he calls "the central couple" is nothing of the kind. Marty has no feelings for Rachel when they meet in the shoe store, he has nothing to do with her for eight or nine months, and the tears he sheds in the final shot are more likely to be for his lost career as a ping pong champion than newfound love for his son. And second, the "monologue" from Rear Window is not a monologue; it's part of a conversation between Stella (Thelma Ritter) and Jeff (James Stewart) in which she tells him to marry Lisa (Grace Kelly) because she's clearly in love with him. "Carnal love" is an unbearably high-falutin' description of what she's saying. (I've posted the dialogue from a version of the script in the comments.)

Brody said that Wuthering Heights represents a welcome return to romantic movies, though it's news to me that they ever left. He's constructed a thesis about the rebirth of romance, done his damnedest to maneuver Wuthering Heights into it, and it doesn't fit.

 

Whoever doesn't love Thelma Ritter better leave now. You're dead to me. This is the dialogue from Rear Window that Brody called a monologue.

STELLA: Look, Mr. Jefferies. I'm not educated. I'm not even sophisticated. But I can tell you this — when a man and a woman see each other, and like each other -- they should come together — wham! like two taxis on Broadway. Not sit around studying each other like specimens in a bottle.

JEFF: There's an intelligent approach to marriage.

STELLA: Intelligence! Nothing has caused the human race more trouble. Modern marriage!

JEFF: We've progressed emotionally in —

STELLA: Baloney! Once, it was see somebody, get excited, get married — Now, it's read books, fence with four-syllable words, psychoanalyze each other until you can't tell a petting party from a civil service exam.

JEFF: People have different emotional levels that —

STELLA: Ask for trouble and you'll get it. Why, there's a good boy in my neighborhood who went with a nice girl from across the street for three years. Then he refused to marry her. Why? Because she only scored 61 on a Look magazine marriage quiz! When I married Myles we were both maladjusted misfits. We still are. And we've loved every minute of it. 

JEFF: That's fine, Stella. Now would you make me a sandwich?

STELLA: Okay — but I'm going to spread some common sense on the bread. Lisa Fremont's loaded to her fingertips with love for you. I'll give you two words of advice. Marry her.

JEFF: She pay you much?