Lmst

Someone told me to be calm today. Ever had a moment when an ordinary phrase strikes you like a god-hammer? Cracked me like a bell.

I started chuckling and then full-on laughing maniacally at the idea of being calm. Realizing that I was, in fact, a long way from calm, and my inappropriate laughter was further evidence of it 😂 The confusion on the poor speaker's face was nearly gratifying.

Fuck it then, if the times call for madness then madness it is.

#absurd #dystopia #kafkaesque

Publishing shouldn't be a Kafka novel! Editorial offices need to sort themselves out. One problem is outsourcing to companies that use undertrained staff working from inflexible scripts.

#JournalPublishing #JournalEditing #EditorialOffices #EditorialScreening #AcademicPublishing #Kafkaesque

Reviewer 2 Must Be Stopped! on Facebook

Nate Joseph 4d

Me submits to "top tier" journal in my field.

Editorial desk: sends back. "Please include a title".

Me looks. The title is there. Puts in giant bold font: TITLE: "my title". Resubmits.

Editorial desk: sends back, please add title to manuscript.

Me: emails editorial. "I am confused my manuscript has a title."

Editorial board emails back. "Please add title".

What da hell!

Update:

The editorial board admitted this was a mistake and has passed on the paper for review.

Updated again: The paper was rejected by editorial for undisclosed reasons.

👩‍💻🔄 Amazon engineers are finding their jobs eerily similar to warehouse gigs, except with fewer forklifts and more endless loops of #JavaScript. The New York Times suggests enabling JS for full immersion in this #Kafkaesque tech purgatory. 🏗️💻
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/business/amazon-ai-coders.html #AmazonJobs #TechPurgatory #EngineeringLife #WarehouseComparison #HackerNews #ngated

@iurecz "zašmodrchanec téhle byrokratické příšery a zjistěme, co za hrůzy se za těmi čtyřmi písmenky skrývají...."

"v rukou byrokratů se stává dlážděním cesty do pekel. Každá organizace, firma, i jednotlivec, který zpracovává osobní údaje bude vystaven velkému množství požadavků"

"překomplikované direktivě GDPR"

"obrovské pokuty. Jejich horní limit je nastaven na 20 miliónů eur či 4 % celosvětového obratu, dle toho, co je vyšší."

"člověk nejraději smazal i kontakty v telefonu, aby to náhodou nějak nespadalo do GDPR."

https://www.instaluj.cz/magazin/byrokracie-si-rika-gdpr

#GDPR #kafkaesque #bureaucracy

🚨BREAKING: Humanity's collective brain cell has apparently moved on from CPUs to something shinier. Now your browser's a confused dinosaur, staring at the extinction of support. 💻🔨 Meanwhile, X Corp's Help Center is a #Kafkaesque labyrinth of "support" suggestions. 🤦‍♂️
https://twitter.com/lauriewired/status/1922015999118680495 #HackerNews #CPUSupport #TechTrends #BrowserChanges #HackerNews #ngated

Damn, Donald!

Back at it, again, with the black vans.

#kafkaesque

BestoftheLeft #1706: "Trump's Kafkaesque Deportation Nightmare is the Shame of the Nation"

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or at loom.ly/IZcSUS0

🎙 EDITOR’S NOTE: On finding glimmers of hope for the future

💙 Ad-free shows & more: bestoftheleft.com/support

#podcast #progressive #progressives #progressivepolitics #politics #uspolitics #immigration #deportation #trump #dueprocess #kafkaesque #constitutionalcrisis #kilmarabregogarcia #elsalvador #scotus

After being blessed with an experience of having to try to talk to the L1 support guy who has no clue about the issue with possibly some of it echoing to the devs on the other side, l will also be blessed with a complaint process over that being trying to talk to our team lead who has no clue either, hoping some of it will echo to some competent person over there.

#kafkaesque as much as it gets.

Kafka traveling under Schroedinger's Visa:

(from a thread by Sasha Gusev):

Dr. Émile P. Torres:
Four students at Case Western Reserve University were told that their visas had been revoked and that they will need to leave the country, while the semester is still going. Now, turns out, they don't! What a complete sh*tshow.

Sasha Gusev: This has to be one of the craziest admissions from A JUDGE that I've ever seen in a court transcript. What the hell are we doing here?!

THE COURT: Do you realize that this is Kafkaesque? I've got two experienced immigration lawyers on behalf of a client who is months away from graduation, who has done nothing wrong, who has been terminated from a system that you all keep telling me has no effect on his immigration status, although that clearly is BS. And now, his two very experienced lawyers can't even tell him whether or not he's here legally, because the Court can't tell him whether or not he's here legally, because the government's counsel can't tell him if he's here legally.

And the broader context is somehow even more embarrassing:

MR. *redacted*: I'm not able to answer that question, Your Honor.

THE COURT: How are you not able to answer that question? What does that even mean? He's either here legally or he's not here legally. You're the government's lawyer. Is he here legally? I mean, how is Mr. *redacted* supposed to know if he's here legally if you don't even know if he is here legally?

MR. *redacted* : He was lawfully admitted to the United States.

THE COURT: No, no, Mr. *redacted* there's a -- no, no Mr. *redacted* there is a yes or no answer here. We are not, this is not Schrodinger's visa, either he's here legally or he's not here legally. If you cannot answer the question, you have to explain to me why you cannot answer that question.

MR. *redacted*: I cannot answer that question. I have talked to ICE as to whether or not they consider at this point in time the individual, whether or not they are maintaining lawful status.

THE COURT: And what does ICE say to that?

MR. *redacted*: I have not received a response, Your Honor.

#USpol #immigration #kafkaesque

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1914125716943159324.html

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/17/international-student-visas-deport-dhs-ice/

Screenshots of text included in post and a headline from The Intercept showing protesters, one sign saying Get ICE OUT of OUR Neighborhoods

Dr. Émile P. Torres: Four students at Case Western Reserve University were told that their visas had been revoked and that they will need to leave the country, while the semester is still going. Now, turns out, they don't! What a complete sh*tshow. -

THE COURT: Do you realize that this is Kafkaesque?
I've got two experienced immigration lawyers on behalf of a client who is months away from graduation, who has done nothing wrong, who has been terminated from a system that you all keep telling me has no effect on his immigration status, although that clearly is BS. And now, his two very experienced lawyers can't even tell him whether or not he's here legally, because the Court can't tell him whether or not he's here legally, because the government's counsel can't tell him if he's here legally.

Ah, because programming in Rust wasn't hard enough, now you can flounder in it en Deutsch! 🙃 Just what we needed: yet another way to be utterly confused in two languages at once. Bravo, #GitHub, for making code feel even more like a Kafka novel. 🐞🔍
https://github.com/michidk/rost #RustProgramming #Language #Humor #MultilingualCoding #Kafkaesque #HackerNews #ngated

A moment to appreciate the Kafkaesque situation of faculty time sheets.

At two schools in different states I've been required* to submit an electronic time sheet every month, detailing days and even hours of sick, vacation, and/or other leave time I've "used". I've also been ordered or pressured to charge/pay sick days** for illness or bereavement. Faculty (at these schools) almost never charge sick days, for the simple reason that nobody will do our job when we're not there. I've tried to push back on this and only succeeded in getting even higher up on some administrators' shit lists.

The administrators want faculty to reduce their accumulated sick time if they miss class, though they are absolutely not going to pay someone else to cover the classes, research, service, and advising while the faculty member is out. They seem to think this concept is unthinkable.

Now I, like everyone else I know, don't inform administrators when I am out sick etc. If I can get a colleague to cover a class (we often trade favors), great, but no way am I losing earned sick days when I still have to do everything as if I hadn't missed class, anyway.

I've also asked about overtime: If we're required (in theory) to document every hour we miss of our job, shouldn't we also be at least documenting extra hours we put in? The response to this question has been vaguely threatening with a strong suggestion that anyone asking that question is not a team player. The verbal answer has been, in essence, "No, because you're not hourly; you're salaried."

... which doesn't explain why we have to track the hours we "miss".

We have no set number of hours to work. Admin sends lots of "expectation" messages about when we should be on campus, etc., but (a) decades-old union agreements specify that there is no set number of hours, and (b) if admin pushes that too hard I assume they are flirting with paying faculty for the actual hours we work, and no administrator wants that.

* "required" = get nagged until I do it every month

** In my current system, accumulated sick days at retirement determine pro-rated discounts to monthly premiums if staying on the state health insurance plan, so faculty are motivated to maximize sick days and administrators are motivated to minimize them.

#highered #faculty #teaching #professor #management #labor #kafkaesque

In "When the Cattle Gun Touches Her Forehead" by Ben Serna-Grey, trillionaires get the Nobel while a father slaves on a tower to reduce atmospheric CO2 and his wife submits to in utero genetic engineering to make the baby eat plastic. Satiric treatment of eco-fascism. Strongly recommended

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1N6MGDV

#Kafka
#kafkaesque
#satire
#sciencefiction
#Amreading
#Amreadinsscifi
#Amreadingfiction
#AmReadingFiction
#WritersOfMastodon
#AuthorsOfMastodon
#WritingCommunity
#Bookstodon

Trump dismantling the US justice system and people are arguing about Google accepting ‘Gulf of America’ for geolocation… 🤣 Kafka eat your heart out! #Kafkaesque #WereDoomed

Know your #rights! Interactions with ICE

Full text in the alt text. Please share!

#ICE #CBP #policeState #immigration #fascism #FirstTheyCameFor #WelcomeTheStranger #asylum #sanctuary #border #refugees #displacedpersons #Orwellian #Kafkaesque

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!

IF YOU INTERACT WITH ICE:

1. Ask if you are free to leave. If so, you may calmly walk out.

2. You have the right to refuse consent to a search.

3. You have the right to remain silent. You do not have to discuss your immigration status with anyone, such as about where you were born, whether you are a citizen, or how you entered the country.

4. If you have valid immigration documents, you should show them. Never provide fake documents.

5. If you are arrested, say that you wish to remain silent until speaking with a lawyer.

6. You have the right to record your interaction with immigration agents as long as you do not interfere.

artpal.com/eddlestonian

#kafka #kafkaesque #dystopia #dystopic
#art #artist #print #creativity #digitalart #artforsale #arts #digital #digitalcreator #digitalcreatorjourney #mastodonart #mastodonarts #mastoart #fediverse #fediart #wallartforsale #VisualArts #CreativeArts #AIgenerated #AI
#design #contemporaryart #artgallery

artpal.com/eddlestonian

#kafka #kafkaesque #dystopia #dystopic
#art #artist #print #creativity #digitalart #artforsale #arts #digital #digitalcreator #digitalcreatorjourney #mastodonart #mastodonarts #mastoart #fediverse #fediart #wallartforsale #VisualArts #CreativeArts #AIgenerated #AI
#design #contemporaryart #artgallery

artpal.com/eddlestonian

#kafka #kafkaesque #dystopia #dystopic
#art #artist #print #creativity #digitalart #artforsale #arts #digital #digitalcreator #digitalcreatorjourney #mastodonart #mastodonarts #mastoart #fediverse #fediart #wallartforsale #VisualArts #CreativeArts #AIgenerated #AI
#design #contemporaryart #artgallery

artpal.com/eddlestonian

#kafka #kafkaesque #dystopia #dystopic
#art #artist #print #creativity #digitalart #artforsale #arts #digital #digitalcreator #digitalcreatorjourney #mastodonart #mastodonarts #mastoart #fediverse #fediart #wallartforsale #VisualArts #CreativeArts #AIgenerated #AI
#design #contemporaryart #artgallery

When people who evidently have never read Kafka charges you of being kafkaesque:

#kafkaesque

@jstatepost @eff Yes, indeed, what could possibly go wrong with what is essentially America’s secret police using AI in their unfathomable processes and opaque machinations? Nothing #Kafkaesque about that at all.

#Kafkaesque

Client Info