Here’s a spot we just did. Merry Trekmas!
•Will Minority Report cybergloves ever make sense?
These days it sometimes feels like we are working out the details of the future
Is Children of Men 2016’s Most Relevant Film?
“Look, I’m absolutely pessimistic about the present,” Cuarón says. “But I’m very optimistic about the future.”
How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists
Drug 85 Times as Potent as Marijuana Caused a ‘Zombielike’ State in Brooklyn
Screenwriters, start your engines
Is this real?
•The Great A.I. Awakening
Why Fitbit buying Pebble makes sense — at least, in the short term
Trump’s Kleptocracy Already Feels Like Old News
Alex Trebek’s Diss Ignited A Nerdcore Hip-Hop Rebellion
Amazon Prime video streaming expected to launch in Canada Dec. 1: Bell Media exec
Interesting!
Genre As Method: The Vaporwave Family Tree, From Eccojams to Hardvapour
Experts Urge Hillary Clinton to Challenge Election Results
It's official: NASA's peer-reviewed EM Drive paper has finally been published
The impossible engine works
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer, an excerpt
Daft Science by Coins
very excellent album of Beastie / Daft Punk mashup. (thanks Beau)
Anime master Hayao Miyazaki is coming out of retirement to make one last film
Renegade Facebook Employees Form Task Force To Battle Fake News
Post-election spate of hate crimes worse than post-9/11, experts say
Dancing to the end with Leonard Cohen
Devastating personal account of Cohen’s significance
No Solution, Only Movement: The Depths of Leonard Cohen
“What matters to me right now is what Leonard Cohen did with sadness in its most basic form. I badly need that sense of possibility. I need to feel that being crushed or demolished doesn’t have to be the end of the story but, rather, a stalwart beginning.”
The Trump Runs Strong in This One
Looks like I picked a bad week to quit thinking about Trump.
Discussed with a friend how the election results are a form of trauma and having thought about it a bit more, it’s totally true. Personally, I react by avoidance, but it’s not enough to keep the anger and sadness from seeping through. Avoidance is rarely the best play; it’s not a proper coping mechanism. You can’t avoid some things – like winter. It’s gonna get cold. All you can do is make sure your house is warm and don’t stay outside too long.
So I think that’s what I have to do. I don’t want to immerse myself in things I can’t change, leading only to frustration, anxiety, etc. So I’m not going to feel any sense of duty in terms of keeping up with Trump issues, getting pissed off at every awful thing he does, raging at every outrageous cabinet pick. But I will read the news like I normally do and when the news is wall-to-wall Trump, so be it.
I still want to find some way to focus my energy on something constructive. Perhaps this will simply be finding a charity that will help those victimized by his administration and supporters. But I assure you I will keep the Trumpus to a minimum on this blog.
Man, see? I need Trump therapy. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Thoughts for the Horrified
Krugman
Personal Trumpendectomy, Day 1
I’m trying to cut Trump out of my life and the prognosis is bleak. The news sites have no headlines without the word “Trump” in them. My Twitter feed is all Trump-related hair-pulling (notable: not one Trump supporter). Random strangers are talking about him everywhere: streetcar, coffee shop. Everyone at work, obviously. Facebook: screwed. In retrospect, the timing was impulsive and just plain bad. I find myself sneaking looks at Twitter despite myself and loading up Trump linx and reading them and nodding. Why did people vote for him? What should be done now? Perhaps ignoring isn’t the best response and/or even feasible…. Aaaaargh!
It’s all an urban-rural divide. It’s all white people. They’re racist. Yet a lot of them must have voted for Obama? Or, the Democrats abandoned working class whites. Hillary’s a flawed candidate. She’s fine but she didn’t excite the base, so they didn’t turn out like Obama did. Trump got the same votes as Romney. Alternately, he got more votes out of Romney areas than Romney did.
Or, since HRC actually won the popular vote, we should really be talking about how well she did and how it was Trump who failed.
Is it wrong that the best take on Trump’s appeal is from Cracked? Did I already link to that? I don’t even know anymore.
I’m personally fond of those posts that say, “let’s get back to work and resist.” I admire the grit, the unwillingness to rend garments and wail and gnash teeth. Is my urge to turn away and ignore reality really that great a response? But what could I do anyway? I’m not some famous beret-clad rebel leader soul-searching from his secret jungle lair, I’m just another upset liberal white nerd typing on the internet. Not that helpful! Sad!, even! Is there some other way? To do something constructive from Canada? I don’t know. I still want to try and take a break from politics from a while, but I’m not very good at it.