Posts Tagged ‘liches’
Memorial Day Links!
The worst part of my late thirties is the terrible recognition that somewhere deep down I *do* take pride in a mowed lawn.
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) May 28, 2017
* This weekend I got a chance to read an advance copy of Iain M. Banks, from the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series. It’s great! Highly recommended for fans of the Culture or of space opera more generally. Alfred Bester, which I also read this weekend, was great too!
* Anyway, who’s ready to be a walking blood-bag for an immortal tech lich?
* What Will Kill Neoliberalism? My money is on the managerial class one but with cash-for-sterilization and euthanasia payouts for the poors.
* 50 años de Cien años de soledad.
* Jared! Jared! Jared! Jared! Jared!
* In the United States, the Trump Organization took Mr. Davies’s coat of arms for its own, making one small adjustment — replacing the word “Integritas,” Latin for integrity, with “Trump.”
The best ones, of course, are the ones they don’t have to change at all. pic.twitter.com/WXz747czMm
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) May 28, 2017
* What Mr. Trump got was a pair of lawsuits: one filed by Ms. Nwanguma and the other by one of Candidate Trump’s most fervent young admirers among the white nationalist movement, Mr. Heimbach.
* This country is officially a global laughing stock. Or worse.
* That third bill, the “Michael Davis, Jr. and Danny Oliver in Honor of State and Local Law Enforcement Act,” which appeared in a tweeted photo of White House strategist Steve Bannon’s policy agenda, would see immigration violations traditionally treated as civil infractions transformed into criminal violations, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Speaking before judiciary committee members Thursday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the provision would “turn millions of Americans into criminals overnight.” Nadler added that the legislation was “straight out of the Donald Trump mass deportation playbook.”
* I’m Cory Booker, for #TheResistance.
* How low do you have to sink to lose an election in this country? Republicans have been trying to answer that question for years. But they’ve been unable to find out, because Democrats somehow keep failing to beat them.
HRC PEOPLE: No more white guys!
BERNIE PEOPLE: No, power to the working man!
ZUCKERBERG: Would you accept literally the worst solution— Sady Doyle (@sadydoyle) May 29, 2017
* Sheriff’s Clarke Definitely Real Medals. Washington Post breaks down Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.’s pins, to Clarke’s ire.
* “Solar power delivers cheapest unsubsidised electricity ever, anywhere, by any technology.”
* The night before the University of California Board of Regents voted to raise student tuition to help cash-strapped campuses, they threw themselves a party at the luxury Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco and billed the university. The tab for the Jan. 25 banquet: $17,600 for 65 people, or $270 a head.
but the "kernel of truth" to all anti-academic, anti-humanist tirades is that knowledge should be free & scholarship should serve the public
— traxus4420 (@traxus4420) May 29, 2017
* In the richest country in human history.
* Three trillion and counting.
* “11 Years Old, a Mom, and Pushed to Marry Her Rapist in Florida.”
* Threads thinking about slavery, history, and ethical reasoning from @zunguzungu and @BigMeanInternet.
* It looks like Trump somehow managed to ruin even Fargo.
* Science fiction, the future that failed. I would buy this self-help book. The law, in its majestic equality. When you’re sad. Social media is ruining everything. White people, no! Shades of Satan!
* *This* is how you issue a heartfelt and meaningful apology.
* And Nintendo says I may, someday, have a Switch.
Happy Memorial Day, destroy all memorials to the confederacy!
— Aaron Bady (@zunguzungu) May 29, 2017
I would like to wish everyone, including all haters and losers (of which, sadly, there are many) a truly happy and enjoyable Memorial Day!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2015
Written by gerrycanavan
May 29, 2017 at 12:51 pm
Posted in Look at what I found on the Internet
Tagged with #TheResistance, academia, administrative blight, Alfred Bester, America, austerity, capitalism, cash for sterilization, child marriages, class struggle, Cory Booker, Democratic primary 2020, Democrats, deportation, depression, Don't mention the war, Donald Trump, euthanasia, Fargo, Florida, futurity, Germany, Gul Dukat, history, homelessness, How the University Works, Iain M. Banks, immigration, immortality, Information wants to be free, integrity, Iraq War, Jared Kushner, kids today, lawns, liches, Lois Lane, Mark Zuckerberg, Memorial Day, Milwaukee, misogyny, Modern Masters of Science Fiction, neoliberalism, New Hampshire, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Oklahoma, One Hundred Years of Solitude, parenting, politics, rape, rape culture, Republicans, Russia, Satan, science fiction, self-help, Sheriff Clarke, Silicon Valley, slavery, social media, solar power, Superman, the courts, The Culture, the inadequacy of apology, the law, The New York Post, the Singularity, transhumanism, University of California, vasectomies, war on education, white nationalism, white people, white supremacy, Wisconsin
Easter Links! Find Them All!
* The 2015 Hugo nominees have been announced, and they’re a mess. The Hugo Awards Were Always Political. But Now They’re Only Political. A Note About the Hugo Nominations This Year. The Puppy-Free Hugo Award Voter’s Guide. The Biggest Little SF Publisher you never heard of declares war. “Why I Declined a Hugo Award Nomination.”
* And in response to the question “Well, what should have been nominated for a Hugo?”: “Andromache and the Dragon,” by my brilliant Marquette colleague Brittany Pladek!
* “The Many Faces of Tatiana Maslany”: In portraying a horde of clones on ‘Orphan Black,’ the actress has created TV’s strangest — and most sophisticated — meditation on femininity. And a special bonus companion piece: Meet The Woman (Besides Tatiana Maslany) Who Plays Every Single “Orphan Black” Clone.
* Reddit’s Bizarre, Surreal, Maddening, Hypnotic, Divisive, and Possibly Evil April Fools’ Joke. I’ve become obsessed with this.
* CFP: Ephemeral Television. CFP: Into the Pensieve: The Harry Potter Generation in Retrospect.
* Watching them turn off the Rothkos.
* Somali Militants Kill 147 at Kenyan University.
* Iran’s Been Two Years Away From a Nuclear Weapon for Three Decades. The Iran deal. What if the Iranians are people too?
* So how much money is the NCAA making? In 2010, CBS and Turner Broadcasting gave the NCAA $10.8 billion for a fourteen-year broadcast monopoly on March Madness games. Estimated ad revenue for the 2013 tournament reached $1.15 billion, while ticket revenue brought in another $71.7 million. Last year no less than thirty-five coaches pulled down salaries higher than $1 million before bonuses; Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski topped the list with an income of more than $9.6 million.
* Guarding against the errant, suicidal murderous pilot belongs to a category called “wicked problems” — the complexity of the system and the conflicting incentives mean that every solution introduces another set of problems, so the only way forward is always going to be an imperfect one. Second, and perhaps more importantly, is that this once again reveals how, as humans, we are lousy at risk assessment, and also lousy of accepting this weakness. The problem is wicked, but its occurrence is so rare that it is almost unheard of — partly why it terrifies us so. Our imagination, biases and fears are terrible guides to what should actually be done to keep us safer, and this has significant consequences in a whole host of fields, ranging from terrorism to childcare to health-care.
* So you see, people like Tim Cook are selective in their moral universalism; morality, it turns out, is universal only insofar as extends to the particular desires of a Western bourgeoisie; deny a gay couple a wedding bouquet that they could get at the florist down the street anyway, and that is a cause for outrage and concern; extract minerals using indentured Congolese servants, well, look, we’ve got marginal cost to consider! The moral argument, it turns out, curdles when exposed to the profit motive, and the universality of justice actually does end at certain borders, one way or another.
* How the Slave Trade Built America.
* But unlike its predecessor, the show has no obvious narrative progression. Nacho’s important, or he’s not; the Kettlemans are half the show, or maybe we should care about Sandpiper. There are flashbacks to Jimmy’s past where Bob Odenkirk is playing either 25 or 57—a savvy criminal or a neophyte screw-up. In the lead-up to Better Call Saul, there were theories that the show would be funnier than Breaking Bad (maybe a sitcom?) or more procedural than Breaking Bad (maybe The Good Wife for bad boys?) or more episodic (like X-Files with lawyers!). None of that is true, and all of that is true. It’s interesting, but not the way great TV is interesting. Better Call Saul reminds me more of Treme or John From Cincinnati: post-masterpiece meanders.
* In TV’s Silver Age, a logjam of shows that are ‘pretty good,’ but not great.
* Here’s A Map That Shows All The Future Megacities From Science Fiction.
* Can science fiction be a form of social activism? Walidah Imarisha thinks so, and she’s recruited everyone from LeVar Burton to Mumia Abu-Jamal to help her prove it.
* Johns Hopkins Faces $1-Billion Lawsuit Over U.S. Experiments in Guatemala.
* sirens.io, blogging from seven years in the future.
* Are Aliens Behind Mysterious Radio Bursts? Scientists Weigh In.
* Calif. Governor Orders Mandatory Water Restrictions For 1st Time In History. It’s up to us to singlehandedly save california from drought by turning off the tap when we brush our teeth! California is pumping water that fell to Earth 20,000 years ago. California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth. R.I.P. California (1850-2016): What We’ll Lose And Learn From The World’s First Major Water Collapse. Children of the Drought.
* Starting this week, 25,000 households in Baltimore will suddenly lose their access to water for owing bills of $250 or more, with very little notice given and no public hearings.
* Oceans might take 1,000 years to recover from climate change, study suggests.
* Drug field tests used by cops are so bad they react positively to air, soap, candy.
* Trolley Problem: The Game. Advanced Trolley Problems.
* Scott Walker’s budget cuts $5.7 million from pollution control efforts.
* The Most Popular Antidepressants Are Based On A Theory We Know Is Wrong. Most antidepressant users have never had depression.
* 12 New Science Fiction Comics You Absolutely Need to be Reading.
* Hero Price Is Right model begins the revolution by just giving away a car.
* First as an unexpectedly great show, then as I don’t know it doesn’t sound like a very good idea to me.
* New report says manned Mars mission could reach orbit by 2033, land by 2039.
* Clarke makes her point not with stirring courtroom rhetoric or devastating legal arguments but by a process of relentless accretion, case by case, win by win. This is her cause. Because if the state cannot put these defendants to death, then how can it put anyone to death? Thirty-five executions took place in the United States in 2014 for crimes that form an inventory of human cruelty—and yet few were as willful and egregious as those committed by Judy Clarke’s clients.
* Here is an example of the priorities in New York state’s budget: There is no increase in the minimum wage, but purchasers of yachts that cost more than $230,000 are exempt from the sales tax.
* U.S. Court Officially Rules that Friendship Is Worthless.
* Tales from the Trenches: I was SWATed.
* Texas Just Does Not Care How Hot Its Prisons Get.
* Duke tries throwing polio at cancer, as you do.
* Interesting article on design: The Secret History of the Apple Watch.
* Senate Republicans say the current system is unfair because rural residents are effectively supporting urban counties’ schools and services when they shop there. Yes, that’s literally how the system is intended to function.
* The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust.
* So you want to resurrect a college.
* These Slow-Motion Videos of Fluids Vibrating on Speakers Are Wonderful.
* Now Full House, and the Muppets too.
* These Photos Of Melanie Griffith And Her Pet Lion In The 1970s Are Everything. (UPDATE: Here’s the article that seems to be the original source, plus a little bit on Roar’s rerelease. Noteworthy lines from Wikipedia: “Over 70 of the cast and crew were injured during the production of this film.”)
* Landlord Sends Man $1,200 Bill To Cleanup His Roommate’s Blood, Who Was Shot Dead By Police.
* Stan VHS, A Tumblr Blog Featuring 1980s-Style VHS Cover Art for Modern Television Shows and Movies.
* SF Short of the Weekend: “Burnt Grass.”
* …and your short short of the weekend: “No One Is Thirsty.”
* I finally found enough time to be annoyed by Obama interviewing David Simon about The Wire.
* And because you demanded it: An oral history of Max Headroom.
Written by gerrycanavan
April 5, 2015 at 9:29 am
Posted in Look at what I found on the Internet
Tagged with airplanes, aliens, America, Andre the Giant, Apple, Apple Watch, art, austerity, Baltimore, Barack Obama, because rich people that's why, Better Call Saul, bias, big cats, Big Pharma, blogs, Boston, boycotts, brains, Breaking Bad, Brittany Pladek, California, cancer, capitalism, CFPs, charismatic megafauna, cities, class struggle, climate change, clones, Coach K, college, college basketball, college sports, comics, David Simon, death penalty, depression, design, Detroit, Diego Rivera, Diplomacy, dragons, drought, drugs, Duke, dystopia, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Easter, ecology, equality, ethics, fandom, fantasy, feminism, film, finance capital, frescoes, Frida Kahlo, friendship, Full House, futurity, Game of Thrones, gay rights, George R. R. Martin, Guatemala, happiness, Harry Potter, Harvard, HBO, horrors, How the University Works, Hugos, if you want a vision of the future, Indiana, indigenous futurism, indigenous peoples, informed consent, insider trading, Iran, Islamophobia, Johns Hopkins, Judy Clarke, justice, Kenya, kids, kids today, letters of recommendation, Levar Burton, liches, Lili Loofbourow, lions, mad science, maps, Marquette, Mars, Max Headroom, medical ethics, medicine, megacities, megadrought, Melanie Griffith, misogyny, moral panic, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Muppets, murder-suicide, NASA, NCAA, neoliberalism, New York, nostalgia, nuclear weapons, nuclearity, ocean acidification, oceans, Octavia Butler, Octavia's Brood, Orphan Black, outer space, parenting, Perry Bible Fellowship, photography, police brutality, police violence, polio, politics, pollution, prison-industrial complex, prisons, psychopharmacology, race, racism, rationality, reboots, Reddit, Republicans, risk assessment, Roar, Rothkos, Sad Puppies, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, science fiction, science is magic, Scott Water, SETI, sexism, short film, Sistine Chapel, slavery, social justice, Somalia, sound, superheroes, SWAT teams, Sweet Briar, Tatiana Maslany, taxes, technosis externality clusterfuck, television, terrorism, Texas, the 1980s, the Anthropocene, The Button, the courts, the law, the long now, The Price Is Right, the revolution is here, the undead, The Wire, tigers, trolley problem, Tumblr, unnecessary sequels, very short film, VHS, Vince Gilligan, Vox Day, war on drugs, water, wicked problems, Wisconsin, yachts