- The Case for Shunning
Is there nothing anybody would say that would cause you to cease your association with them? If so, then what you are is not a proponent of free speech, but lazy amorality.
This article is very quotable, but i’ll go with that, because it feels like it gets to the heart of it. People like Scott Adams will immolate themselves, and then talk about the consequences of their actions in terms of free speech, all the while ignoring the actual attacks on free speech happening all around us.
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- The Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the Hacker Who Saved the Internet.
Hutchins was the fellow who stopped the WannaCry malware, later arrested by the FBI for unethical hacking during his youth.
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- Giving characters a typographic voice in Obsidian’s new RPG Penitent.
I really want to play this game now.
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- Watching a Girl’s Life Change on the Lower East Side.
An essay about the photographic series Glendalis, by Angela Cappetta.
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- Extremely Hardcore.
A long read on the state of twitter 3 months after it’s purchase by Elon Musk. What a train wreck.
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- Welcome to hell, Elon. Nilay Patel writes about Elon's purchase of Twitter. Imagine paying 44 billion dollars for that hell site. Disney bought Marvel and Star Wars for 4 billion each, and those things both print money. # [1]
- Why Wordle Works, According to Desmos Lesson Developers. This is a great overview of Wordle, and some of the things that makes it so compelling. #
- Why Marriage Requires Amnesia: Do I hate my husband? Oh for sure, yes, definitely. This essay is hilarious. By Heather Havrilesky. #
- Have We Forgotten How to Read Critically? A fantastic essay by Kate Harding on how people have become particularly dumb when it comes to reading online. #
- Porch Cameras and Facebook Groups Are Turning Streets into Surveillance States.
The online neighbourhood group is akin to a gated community within a community: an enclave for those with the time, means, and know-how to keep an area pure. There is an obvious logic to it. If you Âcannot put up literal gates, put up virtual ones.
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- Want to See a Modern Country Commit Suicide? Take a Hard Look at Britain. It's kind of incredible how big of an own goal Brexit was. #
- Cancelled Toronto. It's impressive how much transit this city manages to not build. #
- A Deep Cut: The Green Knight. A long review and analysis of the movie. The film departs from the original story in some interesting ways. #
- Inside the rise and fall of the Buca empire. This article is really fascinating. #
- Living While Black, in Japan. It speaks to just how dark things are in America that people will happily brush aside some of the casual ignorance that comes with living in such a homogeneous place. Everyone is so happy to be in Japan. They feel free in a way they never did in the US. Such an interesting little video. (via Kottke) #
- Did a University of Toronto Donor Block the Hiring of a Scholar for Her Writing on Palestine? This feels like a real own goal for the University of Toronto. #
- Is Trump Actually Still in Control? It's funny to me that Trump is too dangerous to be on Twitter, but apparently not too dangerous to be the president of the United States of America. That guy has nuclear launch codes. #
- Twitter, Facebook, etc, have finally removed Trump from their platform. This newsletter opens with a great discussion of this topic.
I am tired of letting these companies try to convince us that their violent and racist users with hundreds of thousands of followers creating content shared millions of times are somehow not indicative of what these websites fundamentally are. Trump is a not unique outlier on Facebook and Twitter, he is Facebook and Twitter.
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- Who Did J.K. Rowling Become? An interesting look at Rowling, and her transformation into an angry online twitter TERF. #
- The Friend by Matthew Teague. This story is being turned into a movie now. A hard read, about cancer and friendship. #
- No Crying at the Dinner Table. Oh man: this short film is good. #
- The Not So Hidden Israeli Politics of 'The Last of Us Part II'. The sequel to Last of Us is far more muddled than the original, but I still love it. There is a lot of criticism directed at the game, and it's interesting to read people's thoughts about where it fails. I didn't pick up on these parallels to the conflict in Israel, but it certainly feels like a viable take on things. #