Fucking Off West.
Welcome back!
We missed you, last week because former Tech Editor Hawthorn Bradley and I were driving the 2000 miles from Columbia, Missouri to Portland - Extratone's new home. Despite a failed attempt to slash my Jaguar's tire in Wyoming, we are safe and sound, though I am currently homeless and "liveblogging" the experience.
If you haven't already, be sure to catch up on The Movie Closet. Last week, they took on the One-Liner, and this week, they began October - a particular element for film podcasts, of course - by pitching Scream Queens.
Thursday night, we met up with Isiah, who offered me the chance to try virtual reality for the first time via PlayStation VR. I conceded and wrote about the experience.
And if you're really behind, and you like to get All Fired Up & Huffy about media, have a go at my September Editor's Letter.
|
|
DIVISION
⊚ Old people are working more.
“People are coming into retirement with a lot more anxiety and a lot less buying power.”
⊚ GQ in-depth on the assassination of Kim Jong-Un's brother.
“Pyongyang wanted to send a worldwide message by murdering Kim Jong-nam in this gruesome, public way.”
⊚ Appropriating culture: The Oregon County Fair.
“If there were not cultural appropriation there would never have been hippies. I don’t mean to be flippant, but we turned away from the culture of the time and looked elsewhere.”
⊚ Mark Zuckerberg should probably listen to Barack Obama.
We're hoping the former Commander-in-Chief uses his fists the next time the two meet.
⊚ Margaret Bergman Lambert's superior Jewish body.
Essential insight on the complex international and inter-ideological relationships involved with the Olympic Games in the early 20th-century.
⊚ “If you ask Big Pharma right now, Mike Moore is the devil.”
"Moore is confident that the opioid industry will be driven to negotiate for the same reasons tobacco companies were: to end the demonization and obtain financial predictability."
⊚ "In recent years, Democrats’ views on racial discrimination also have changed, driving an overall shift in public opinion."
"Currently, 41% of Americans say racial discrimination is the main reason many blacks cannot get ahead – the largest share expressing this view in surveys dating back 23 years. Still, somewhat more Americans (49%) say blacks who cannot get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition."
⊚ President Jimmy Carter on North Korean leaders.
"They are probably the most isolated people on Earth and almost unanimously believe that their greatest threat is from a preemptory military attack by the United States."
⊚ “If you ask Big Pharma right now, Mike Moore is the devil.”
"Moore is confident that the opioid industry will be driven to negotiate for the same reasons tobacco companies were: to end the demonization and obtain financial predictability."
⊚ Kurt Anderson on the American Gun Delusion.
"Very, very few of the guns in America are used for hunting. Americans who own guns today keep arsenals in a way people did not 40 years ago."
⊚ Y I M B Y S.
"Rather than suffer in silence as they struggle to find affordable places to live, they are heading to planning meetings en masse to argue for more housing."
⊚ Despite everything, Christians aren't likely to shun Tump.
"Many people of faith are convinced that their ability to believe, proclaim and practice their genuine faith convictions is in danger not just of ridicule but also of punishment."
|
|
ART
⊚ Josh Topolsky on Apple's decline.
"It's not just the hardware, or the UI. The ecosystem is unwell."
⊚ Steampunk's catastrophic erosion of culture.
"Of course. There it is. Mercilessly, steampunk. Consistently, steampunk. For Christ’s sake, steampunk."
⊳⊳ Yeah... Steampunk is awful. What's worse? When Steampunk is oblivious to its own impreialism.
"I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to suggest that Cape Town’s affection for steampunk is ideologically bad, a way for white people to be misty-eyed about the past without copping to it."
⊚ Kazuo Ishiguro on "The Crash."
⊳⊳ The author's technique that allowed him to finish most of a novel in four days.
"The priority was simply to get the ideas surfacing and growing. Awful sentences, hideous dialogue, scenes that went nowhere – I let them remain and ploughed on."
⊚ A gorgeous feature from The Atlantic on the technical etymology of "smart buildlings."
"The clean, cool, energy-efficient buildings we take for granted today are the result of more than 150 years of innovation."
⊚ Work out your solitude muscle.
"Philosophers have long made a careful, and important, distinction between solitude and loneliness."
⊚ Jim Grey's Carmel Automobilia.
Hawthorn Bradley Jr.'s favorite photoblogger attended the 2017 Carmel Automobilia with a Pentax ME & Spotmatic F.
|
|
MEDIA
⊚ Secretly-rich Wish.
"The low prices are due to where the products are coming from: direct from Chinese manufacturers with no middleman."
⊚ WIRED's Edgar Alvarez on the timing of Twitter's character experiment.
⋆ Twitter Product Manager Aliza Rosen: "Tweets get right to the point with the information or thoughts that matter. That is something we will never change."
⊳⊳ Those of us who've been on Twitter nearly 10 years tend to fret over even the littlest changes to the service. You could argue that the prospective increased limit may encourage Tump and his acolytes to be more articulate, but we all know it's a futile effort. I'd argue that the format should stay as it is now - anything different is not going to save or condemn the company, either way.
⊚ Sam Newhouse Jr. - owner of The new Yorker - has died.
“That sounds very interesting. I look forward to reading it.” - the correct language of a financially-invested, editorially-independent owner with his staff.
⊚ Telegram's relationship with the Kremlin.
“We want to remain flexible and independent, dropping shells we previously used if we face risks in a given jurisdiction.” - we hope the KGB monitors our channel, specifically.
⊚ Jad Abumrad interviewed by Peter Kafka.
About as tantelizing as it gets for media nerds - Radiolab's host on Recode Media.
⊚ Mark Zuckerberg must R̵̝̼̼E̜̘̤͝P̀E̺͍̻̲̦̖͞N̳T̬̹.
"Facebook has got to deal with the fact that it makes meaning in the world — it is the principal meaning maker. Through its algorithm and advertising practices, it enacts an editorial policy that is not neutral and not knowable. Facebook must begin to make editorial decisions, expose them, and defend them without running away."
⊚ AIM will be going for good on December 15th.
WIRED's David Pierce made us feel quite elderly with his tribute to AOL's Instant Messenger, which will be shut down for good this Winter, though most of us had no idea it was still operating, anyway.
⊚ The TSA has a blog...
Incredible.
|
|
|
|
