jwz

Spinning Platters did a nice write-up of our Lords of Acid + Little Miss Nasty show. (We almost never get reviews of our shows, or press about upcoming ones, so that's always great to see.)

A few notes on upcoming shows:

RIP Douglas McCarthy of Nitzer Ebb. For those wondering: McCarthy had stepped back from touring with the band due to his health, and had not been scheduled to be a part of this tour, so our Nitzer Ebb show on Sep 11 is still happening as planned, with founding member Bon Harris on vocals.

That's a busy weekend, because the following day we have Missing Persons and the day after that, Glōm Fest, both of which I'm looking forward to.

More immediately, let me draw your attention to:

Jul 4: we have a live performance by Dev (of Like a G6 and Bass Down Low fame.) She hasn't been back here since 2015.

Jun 7: the return of Gothicumbia, which is a really fun party.

Film screenings!

Coming up in just four weeks on Jul 5, Cyberdelia and 8bitSF present Super Mario Bros '93 ! A screening of the audacious 1993 cyberpunk masterpiece that Nintendo wishes we would all forget, this unhinged fever-dream is presented with a re-imagined musical score performed LIVE by San Francisco chiptune legend, Crashfaster! To be followed, of course, by a chiptunes dance party and a Luigi costume contest.

We had some difficulty getting the license for this, because at first they thought that we wanted to screen the 2023 movie, which is "in moratorium".

Reader, we did not.

Then on Sep 5 it's the big event, Cyberdelia proper, celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Hackers.

On Nov 7 we've got Goblin Legacy with Maurizio Guarini, performing selections from their film scores for Suspiria, Patrick, Buio Omega, Deep Red, Tenebrae and Dawn of the Dead. This won't be a screening of an entire movie, but will feature clips from their long repertoire.

Street fair day shows!

We've got the Indie Oasis Big Gay Day Party on Jun 28, Pride weekend, 3pm - 9pm. And we will have a party in DNA Pizza during Dore Alley on Sep 27 with DJ PrepAPig, which is one of the best DJ names I've heard recently.

I haven't done a photo gallery round-up in quite some time, so here are some galleries from some recent notable shows that you should have come to:

Big Country + Tommy Tutone + Gene Loves Jezebel + Bow Wow Wow Lords of Acid + Little Miss Nasty Monday Hubba Obscura + Atheist + Origin Sorry For Party Rocking After Life Space Station Burlesque Tribulation + Unto Others Venjent Eyehategod Sorry For Party Rocking Visions of Atlantis Powerman 5000 Project X Belphegor Lotus Juice AniCLover TRON '82 Pow 13

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The weaponization of Waymo:

Other witnesses and journalists who were there shared the same story: People summoned the cars to light them on fire when they arrived. Protestors were reportedly calling them "spy cars" as they were vandalized and set ablaze, and some noted how the cars can share data with the LAPD.

As a result, there's been some speculation that the cars were burned to destroy evidence. There's likely more to it than that -- and that the cars weren't torched to destroy evidence as much to punish collaborators. [...]

ICE raids are carried out using data provided by Silicon Valley companies -- most notably Peter Thiel and Alex Karp's Palantir, which has a $30 million contract with ICE to manage a "real-time" surveillance system on immigrants. But whether directly or through third party contractors, much of big tech, including Google, has made deals with ICE, too. [...]

In light of previous epidemics of self-driving car trashings and torchings, such actions are liable to spring from the growing reservoir of public anger towards a Silicon Valley that has grown unaccountable and extractive -- and has now largely aligned itself with a punitive state.

Please send more photos of burning or burned murderbots. These images are my new happy place.

I will also accept donations of videos of same, but only if they don't have people talking over them or are loaded with watermarks. Those make me itch. Something with a nice crackle. Like a Yule log.

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Why did the fires cause such obliteration? The answer starts with the battery.

Each I-Pace can carry roughly 90 kilowatt-hours of stored chemical energy, comparable to about 170 pounds (77 kilograms) of TNT. That energy is distributed across hundreds of lithium-ion pouch cells, which are sealed in flammable electrolyte and separated by polymer films as thin as snack-bag plastic. When any one cell is punctured or overheated -- or set aflame with an incendiary device -- chemical reactions generate more heat than the cell can shed, and neighboring cells follow in a chain reaction. This positive-feedback loop is called "thermal runaway." According to a 2024 study in the Journal of Power Sources, as the battery burns, its temperature can soar past 1,000 degrees Celsius.

At that point, the pack becomes its own furnace. Aluminum sections of the car's floor surrender, liquefying at about 660 degrees C and taking the underbody with them. Magnesium parts -- seat-base frames, the bracket that holds the steering column and the cross-car beam that is located behind the dashboard -- flare bright white. Patches of magnesium can catch fire and burn fiercely. Plastics disappear as vapor, wheels lose their tire, and even the lidar mast on the roof quickly resembles an overcooked marshmallow. A 2025 study in Fire Technology and a 2023 study in Applied Energy noted that the placement of the battery on the floor -- sometimes referred to as a "skateboard architecture" -- makes the floor the hottest zone. Thus, flames radiate upward and outward, cooking everything above.

All the while, the battery cells vent hydrogen fluoride, a toxic, lung-searing gas documented in laboratory test burns of commercial lithium packs. [...] Historically, first responders without supplied-air protection have developed throat burns and breathing difficulties upon arriving at scenes with burning lithium-ion batteries. Depending on the hydrogen fluoride levels, an exposed person can begin coughing up blood within minutes. [...]

Firefighters call such blazes "battery box fires," and they hate them. Flame-retardant foams do little, and fire departments now favor high-pressure water lances or immersion pits. Dousing a runaway battery usually means lowering temperatures below the runaway threshold for every last battery cell -- a task that, according to a 2021 interview with Thayer Smith of the Austin Fire Department, can swallow 30,000 to 40,000 gallons (about 114,000 to 151,000 liters) of water. That's at least 40 times the amount of water required to extinguish a gasoline-car fire.

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Hegelian Princess:

Really amazing that there's all these libs wringing their hands about the optics of the LA protests when "the optics of the LA protests" are literally this

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Unable to find a source for this one. I hope it's real.

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Waymo Pauses Service in Downtown LA Neighborhood Where They're Getting Lit on Fire:

The fact that Waymos need to use video cameras that are constantly recording their surroundings in order to function means that police have begun to look at them as sources of surveillance footage. [...]

The fact is that police have begun to look at anything with a camera as a source of surveillance that they are entitled to for whatever reasons they choose. So even though driverless cars nominally have nothing to do with law enforcement, police are treating them as though they are their own roving surveillance cameras.

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Allegedly that train is a mile long and is transporting:

• 28 Abrams tanks (M1A2 main battle tank)
• 3 armored recovery vehicles (M88)
• 28 Bradleys (M2A3 infantry fighting vehicle)
• 5 Paladins (M109A7 self-propelled howitzer), and
• 28 Strykers (infantry carrier vehicle)

I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking that maybe the guy who attempted one coup already bringing a well-armed military force into our capitol city and, crucially, within artillery-range of the Pentagon, is just throwing himself a birthday party, but also maybe not.

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Check out this dystopian shit: I see this almost every night. After a hard day of spending 16+ hours deadheading around the city with no passengers, clogging roads, endangering pedestrians and surveilling everybody, the murderbots return to the murderhive en masse.

But, check out that performative "camera shutter" noise that happens at about 3 seconds in. That was actually the second one: the first one fired just as soon as my bike slowed to a stop at the corner. It's not the first time I've heard this, either. We know that these murderbots are recording everything, all the time, with no oversight, expiration, or control of any kind. So why would they play that noise? And when do they do it? Is it when they see a bike? When they see a face looking at them? When someone flips them off?

There is only one way to interpret that sound, and it is as a threat.

Waymo is a cop.

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I am really enjoying this series W0rldtr33, which takes the positions that A) the Internet is very literally evil, and B) the Internet is a physical thing that can be blown up with bombs.

This was certainly on my mind last night when I posted:

The internet is down. Oh no. Our POS is down. Oh no. We are cash only. Oh no.

*Whispers* please don't come back.

and that thing about credit cards a few months ago.

"I'm in."

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