January 15
Vietnam fines reckless drivers half the average annual salary
Vietnam fines reckless drivers half the average annual salary. Vietnam, where 11,500 people die in traffic accidents every year, has introduced severe new penalties for those who break road rules as well as bounties for those who dob them in.
Lynkedin Lyrics
Cunning Linguists
The fusion of several trends that have been coalescing for some time
Now the outlines of a popular political movement are becoming clearer, and this movement has no relation at all to the right or the left as we know them. The philosophers of the Enlightenment, whose belief in the possibility of law-based democratic states gave us both the American and French Revolutions, railed against what they called obscurantism: darkness, obfuscation, irrationality. But the prophets of what we might now call the New Obscurantism offer exactly those things: magical solutions, an aura of spirituality, superstition, and the cultivation of fear. from The New Rasputins by Anne Applebaum [The Atlantic; ungated]
January 14
Of Autocrats and the Media
For many, Hungary’s Victor Orban is the contemporary patron saint of autocratic rule. Certainly, he leaves “little doubt over what his model calls for,” A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times noted in a Washington Post op-ed this fall citing, “loud applause from attendees of a Republican political conference held in Budapest in 2022,” when Orban said, “Dear friends: We must have our own media.” [more inside]
AlmazanKitchen
The YouTube channel of AlmazanKitchen is technically a series of advertisements for its fancy-pants chef's knife. It is also the most intense, voice-free, music-free, 4K food porn you will ever see. Suggested starting points: Pork Belly with Crispy Skin. Carbonara with Handmade Pasta and Dry-Aged Bacon. Cheese and Egg Toast. Carolina Reaper Triple Chili Chicken Wings. Szechuan Pork Noodles.
Click here for a very good cry. (many good boys)
The Good Dogs (and People) of the LA Wildfires [YouTube Short approx 2:56] With quiet apologies to the good people now discussing the properties of good posting in Metatalk, I offer this single link because someone may appreciate a good cry right now. [more inside]
Cynicism is the cheap seats.
We Don't Need More Cynics. We Need More Builders.
"Here’s a more charitable reading of cynicism: it’s not an intellectual position. It’s an emotional defense mechanism. If you expect the worst, you’ll never be disappointed. If you assume everything is corrupt, you can’t be betrayed. But this protection comes at a terrible price. The cynic builds emotional armor that also functions as a prison, keeping out not just pain but also possibility, connection, and growth."
Giant neon-pink slugs back with a vengeance after bushfires
Giant neon-pink slugs back with a vengeance after bushfires.
Citizen slug sleuths are helping scientists keep track of unique creatures that have made a remarkable comeback at Mount Kaputar in New South Wales (Australia).
"I have been lucky — living two lives in one lifetime"
Finally, an actually useful function for home security cameras.
Day One
"Day One" is a short scifi story by K. Duncan, published December 2024 in Trollbreath Magazine. The author notes "It's more or less a manifesto. It's about what could happen, and what has to." and "A 2023 that might have happened, in braver, more just world". He was still a shill for corporations and developers, for charter schools, still worthless on prison and poverty, but it was like an electric shock and a game-end Gatorade soak to hear him say “I am ordering the immediate disarmament of the Philadelphia Police Department.”
WEST-OF-HOUSE “West of House”
The Visible Zorker – Play Zork in one pane and follow the original ZIL source code and state of the virtual machine in adjacent panes as you play. (Or just read Andrew Plotkin's article about making this visualization.)
Where to go? Not at Starbucks, unless you buy something
CNN Business: Starbucks ends its 'open-door' policies. A new Coffeehouse Code of Conduct was announced and allegedly posted on their doors yesterday, reversing the 2018 decision to let anybody hang out there. [more inside]
"Slow blur/roses in the snow"
Black Tape For A Blue Girl: Live at the Middle East, Boston, July 21 1998 (SLYT, except here's a Bandcamp link)
What is RedNote?
American users are turning to RedNote, the Chinese equivalent of Instagram/Pinterest, ahead of a looming TikTok ban, which legislators are now urging Biden to extend the Jan 19 deadline for. TikTok has called rumors that it is considering a sale to Elon Musk, "pure fiction", and its parent company ByteDance has said that it would shut down rather than sell to an American buyer. [more inside]
Stern's RUSH Pinball
You like Canadian prog-rock? You like pinball? Have I got something for you.
rocks
When Caillois reads “the writing of stones,” when he pores over the whorls and swirls in an agate, he ponders the revelation of cosmic time they grant him. “They provide moreover, taken on the spot and at a certain instant of its development, an irreversible cut made into the fabric of the universe. Like fossil imprints, this mark, this trace, is not only an effigy, but the thing itself stabilized by a miracle, which attests to itself and to the hidden laws of our shared formation where the whole of nature was borne along.” [cabinet] [more inside]
“and it has haunted not just me but the birding community at large”
The Wrongest Bird in Movie History is an episode of the Slate podcast Decoder Ring [transcript]. In it guest producer Forrest Wickman goes in search of the answer to a question that has bedeviled birders for a quarter-century: Why is the bird identified as a ‘Pygmy Nuthatch’ in the Charlie Angels movie neither look nor sound like a Pygmy Nuthatch? And boy, does Wickman get answers.
Too much of a sensitive loner to be a Fascist
Acquiescing to the way the world works is one of the temptations of being a journalist, and in Italy, for nearly a generation, the way the world worked had been Fascist. If it was now to be democratic instead, then so much the better. Journalism also taught Buzzati—when he wasn’t dealing with naval battles—the value of precise, concrete writing. from A Man Out of Time [Harper's; ungated]. [more inside]
January 13
On the Strasmin, the Oistrem, and Far-Off Botaram
After a decade of inactivity, the epic strange-setting fantasy comic A Stray to Botaram has resumed updating; the author has vowed to see the journey to the end. This was preceded by a project to remaster old pages and turn text posts into pages, so whether this is new or old to you, I suggest starting from the beginning, at what only initially looks like a newspaper comic strip from an alternate reality, here.
The Second
"In an alternate version of today’s world where dueling is still acceptable, Philip, a man of tradition, must perform the role of “Second” on the day of his only son’s duel." [more inside]
Taquitos.net turns 25
"We've eaten 11,501 snacks spanning 87 categories from 2056 companies in 96 countries. That's 164 major brands and 163 flavors." (previously) (more previously) (even more previously)
Wood Turning with Richard Raffan
Richard Raffan is a long-time wood turner with a large number of videos on YouTube. They might be too inside-baseball to be of general interest, but if you like watching things made by a master craftsman and artist, you may enjoy them. This is Richard’s YouTube home page . [more inside]
…It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice…
"I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of time they spend making music.” If it's been more than 24 hours since you last flew into a rage about tech-bros who want to “disrupt” art without understanding the first thing about art, have I got an interview for you! [more inside]
Eagle-eyed teen helps capture rogue frog on Tassie lavender farm
Eagle-eyed teen helps capture rogue frog on Tassie lavender farm (Tasmania, Australia).
A 13-year-old girl found and helped capture an invasive Peron's tree frog after a tourist's photo posted online alerted authorities of the biosecurity threat. Tasmania is an island, so it does not have the same frog species and frog diseases which are found on mainland Australia. [more inside]
"The form is one page long. No back. Just a front."
"Six People to Revise You" by J.R. Dawson, a short and moving science fiction story published January 2025 in Uncanny Magazine (available in text and audio), begins:
A parent or guardian
Someone who has known you since childhood
A mentor or teacher
An employer or coworker
A spouse, partner, or close intimate friend
Someone who does not consider themself a loved one
the anglerfish
There Is No Safe Word. How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades. [Non-paywalled link.
Content warning: contains graphic descriptions of child abuse and sexual assault and emotional/sexual abuse.]
Content warning: contains graphic descriptions of child abuse and sexual assault and emotional/sexual abuse.]
Society to Advocate for the Return of Intermissions in Movies
FANFARE THIS WEEK... New movies: everyone's Criterion Closet buddy Pamela Anderson stuns in The Last Showgirl; "Holocaust tours, with lunch" in A Real Pain; a Hungarian-born architect immigrates to the US in bladder-busting 215 minute epic The Brutalist; running, quips in hit sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 3; a biopic of UK pop star Robbie Williams with a CGI chimp in the title role in Better Man; Sean Wang's critically acclaimed coming-of-age dramedy Dìdi; and dead-eyed Philomena Cunk asks the worst possible questions in Cunk on Life. And, in TV: Star Wars spinoff Skeleton Crew; post-apocalypse drama/mystery Silo; the serial-killer-in-his-youth prequel series Dexter: Original Sin; Netflix's buzzy new western American Primeval; post-COVID ER dramaThe Pitt; and the highly anticipated Abbott Elementary/It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossover. [more inside]
The 25 Best Films of 2024
[Content Warning: a lot of blood, brief glimpses of body horror, there is an image of a character in one film starting to be enveloped in flames.]
Indiewire's chief film critic, David Ehrlich presented his annual, and expertly edited, montage of his 25 Best Films of 2024 (Vimeo). [more inside]
Indiewire's chief film critic, David Ehrlich presented his annual, and expertly edited, montage of his 25 Best Films of 2024 (Vimeo). [more inside]
"Really?"
The cost of the Canadian dream
(slCBC) The Canadian government announced on Oct. 24, 2024 that it is scaling back on immigration targets for the next three years, immediately cutting 2025’s target by 21 per cent, and more for the years after. The number of temporary residents, including international students and foreign workers, will also be considerably reduced.
Hello, baby
This is important: We exist in time. Whenever someone is born, it opens a window into time, a glimpse of the universe that stretches from the moment your eyes first blink open until they finally shut. This is about to be your window.
(WaPo column by Alexandra Petri, gift link)
(WaPo column by Alexandra Petri, gift link)
Fripp & Eno's "(No Pussyfooting)"
The MeFite as noisemaker... it's your weekly free thread
What sort of noises do you make? Do you make music like Alice Coltrane? Are you a cross-linguistic onomatopoiea fan? Or are optical sound effects more your thing? Ever enter a yodeling contest, like they have at the Iowa State Fair? Or is the groan more your thing, as with groaning boards, groaning ghosts, or plain groaners?
Perhaps your noises are more fundamental? There's more to life than noise, though. How are you doing? What's happening this week in your life?
The secretive annual migration of Christmas Island's blue crabs
The secretive annual migration of Christmas Island's blue crabs.
You've heard of the Christmas Island red crab migration. But what about the blue one? Christmas Island's blue crab migration is low key, even for locals.
The blue crab species Discoplax celeste is only found on Christmas Island.
It is one of more than 20 species of land crab on the island.
The blue crab migration to the coast happens around January or February each year.
A basic conceptual re-orientation is a necessary starting point
Blaming nature or the climate for disasters deflects responsibility. It is largely human influence that produces vulnerability. Pointing the finger at natural causes creates a politically convenient crisis narrative that is used to justify reactive disaster laws and policies. For example, it is easier for city governments to blame nature instead of addressing human-caused social and physical vulnerability. A deflection of responsibility also leads to a continuation of an unequitable status quo where the most vulnerable people in society are worst affected repeatedly in every disaster. A discourse that attributes disasters to nature paves a subtle exit path for those responsible for creating vulnerability. from Stop blaming the climate for disasters [Nature; pdf]
January 12
What Section 31 says about the Federation
Star Trek: Section 31 is about the most dangerous idea in Trek canon. Mary Sue founder Susana Polo writes, "either Section 31 is a betrayal of everything the Federation stands for, or the Federation isn’t utopian.".
The Public Domain Image Archive and more from The Public Domain Review
Infinite View, Shuffle View, and Catalogue View are three ways to explore the Public Domain Image Archive recently announced by The Public Domain Review. Coverage at Open Culture and Hyperallergic. More details about the project. Bluesky account to follow for updates. Also at The Public Domain Review this week: "The public airing of grievances continues in the next and final issue of 391 ... Picabia describes Surrealism as 'Dada disguised as an advertising balloon for the house of Breton & Co.', and Breton as 'an actor who wants all the leading roles in the theatre of illusionists'"--Daisy Sainsbury on "Perpetual Movement: Francis Picabia's 391 Review (1917–1924)." Bluesky account for The Public Domain Review.
Ay-Ya-Ya-Ya-Yah
So, you want to demonstrate the speedrunning of one of the greatest arcade racing experiences ever, but there's a small problem with the music licensing. The answer - speedrun Crazy Taxi with a live band doing the backing. (SLYT)
Steven Soderbergh's "Solaris"
At a time when many American movies pump up every fugitive emotion into a clanging assault on the audience, Soderbergh’s Solaris is quiet and introspective. There are some shocks and surprises, but this is not Alien. It is a workshop for a discussion of human identity. It considers not only how we relate to others, but how we relate to our ideas of others. - Roger Ebert [more inside]
Apokálypsis now
Peter Thiel wrote an op-ed for the Financial Times: A time for truth and reconciliation; Gizmodo and The Daily Beast respond. Even the Daily Mail is baffled.
Chronic Pain Is a Hidden Epidemic. It’s Time for a Revolution.
As many as two billion people suffer from chronic pain, can science finally bring us relief? [NYT / Archive]
Resist the urge to make turn signal noises
YouTube user tontarotaro's "community" page is a wall of short, cute Pokémon animations.
all that glisters should probably be denominated waaaaay smaller
In Coinage and the Tyranny of Fantasy ‘Gold’, historical blogger Bret Devereaux takes a dive into historical coinage and accounting to explain why, when you get down to it, Dungeons & Dragons and most other historical/fantasy RPG settings are out of their goddam minds if they think people were lugging gold coins around on a daily basis.
Bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong
"In Hong Kong, skilled armies of scaffolders can erect enough bamboo to engulf a building in a day — even hours — using techniques that are thousands of years old, and have been passed down through generations."
The biobattery that needs to be fed
"A battery that needs feeding instead of charging? This is exactly what researchers have achieved with their 3D-printed, biodegradable fungal battery. The living battery could supply power to sensors for agriculture or research in remote regions. Once the work is done, it digests itself from the inside." [more inside]
Ellen Ternan
A bright, penniless girl of eighteen who found herself admired by a rich older man had good reason to be excited. The role laid down by her society were suddenly reversed: having been always powerless, she now began to be in command. In Nelly's case the man she might command was also brilliant and famous, a charming and entertaining companion, and in a position to transform her life, which in any case held few counter-attractions.
How to sit down
"If you have taken on a complex subject and try to engage with it too soon, the writing will be off, with a hard, raw tang. That applies to matter that hasn’t yet been fully digested, and includes subjects, like your childhood if it’s recent or your social scene if you’re in the middle of it, that might need years or decades of marinating; much depends on individual temperament." Author, chronicler, critic and essayist Lucy Sante is writing about writing [substack]. [more inside]
Lucrative tools for converting anxiety into income
We need to talk about the doomers and the attention economy they’ve built. Not because they’re entirely wrong — from climate change to political extremism, a lot of their concerns are valid — but because they’ve created something extraordinary: a perpetual motion machine powered by anxiety. Let’s call it the Doomscroll Industrial Complex (DIC). It operates on a simple principle: bad news is good business. But unlike traditional doom-peddlers who simply predicted the end times and waited to be proven right or wrong, today’s digital prophets have discovered a much more sustainable model. from How Anxiety Became a Business Model [Joan Westenberg] [more inside]