It's even worse than it appears..
Most of the attempts of humor in replies to twitter-like posts are of the "you had to be there" variety, as in it might have made sense when you typed it, but I don't get it. And it's even worse, I am irony-deprived, I often don't get jokes, something about how my mind works. But today I actually got a reply on Bluesky that's worth passing on. I posted a picture of a dialog box with one of my snarky slogans. Dan Berlyoung thought the dialog was interesting. "I kinda love that this is in a dialog box. One has to wonder what action on a computer would elicit this response." Man that's a great question. And that btw is what art is about. You put something in a dialog because that's the way it was presented by the software. I could have selected the text and put that into the tweet. But nahh, this is more interesting. And to answer the question Dan asks, in this specific case, the action that elicited this response was that I chose a placeholder command from a context menu in a piece of software that's a construction site, in other words it could have been any of the dozens of snarky slogans. Kind of reminds me of a piece I wrote a long time ago where bees who were about to die reflect on the meaning of existence. Turns out it meant a lot less than one might think. #
Highly recommend the HBO two-part interview with and profile of Mel Brooks who was 99 years old when the interviews were done. Includes quotes from lots of famous comedians. And the philosophy of comedy as art. So many things to say. Why is physical humor the funniest? And the funniest of all the excerpts was the farting scene in Blazing Saddles. Humans are so damned simple. #

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Last update: Sunday February 8, 2026; 10:15 AM EST.

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