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13 January 2020
[crime] Do It For State Snaps: How a Feud Over a URL Ended in a Bloody Shootout … an astonishing true crime story about how an internet domain name led to a violent dispute. The gunman wore a baseball cap, had pantyhose pulled over his face, and sunglasses covered his eyes.
Deyo briefly raised his arms in surrender – then bolted into his bedroom. He slammed the door behind him and braced for impact. Moments later, the intruder kicked through the doorway and grabbed Deyo by the neck.
“Where’s your computer?” he demanded. According to Deyo’s courtroom testimony, he led the man across the hall and into his office with the gun now shoved into the small of his back. He sat down, the man opened up his MacBook Pro, and Deyo felt the gun move from his spine to the rear of his skull, the metal hard on his scalp.
“Okay, motherfucker,” Deyo recalled him saying. “GoDaddy.com.” 9 January 2020
[comics] Sandman to Hark! A Vagrant: the best comics of the decade … another comics roundup of the past decade this time from the Guardian. ‘Providence by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows (2015-17) – The capstone to Moore’s remarkable career in comics, Providence is a horror narrative of staggering depth and detail. The book works as a complex meditation on identity and morality, but it’s also a huge addition to the body of narrative gamesmanship surrounding HP Lovecraft, who lived and worked in the city that gives the story its name. Providence (the comic) at first appears to be a collection of oblique, linked short stories and then resolves into a gigantic vision of inevitable – providential – destruction, wrought by countless tiny, familiar failures.’
[tags: Comics][ permalink][ Comments Off on Best Comics of the Decade from the Guardian…] 8 January 2020
[crime] Who Really Killed Jimmy Hoffa? … Errol Morris examines who really killed Jimmy Hoffa. ‘What happens next is a matter of conjecture, of inference-a collision between unimpeachable data such as phone calls, the unreliability of witness testimony, and fish-delivery times. We do know several things for certain: there’s a real world out there, a real asphalt parking lot, a real phone booth, and a real Machus Red Fox (now called Andiamo). And Jimmy Hoffa was there, left, and never came back.’ 7 January 2020
[tech] How the Death of iTunes Explains the 2010s … Some thoughts on how tech trends in the 2010s turned us all into digital hoarders. ‘A friend compared looking at a smartphone home screen to looking at the messiest closet in someone’s house. “I would never ask to see either of them,” she said. But trying to organize your phone (or computer) is like trying to organize a closet that can always get larger. Now there’s essentially no hard limit on what you can store on a personal device, be it phone or computer-since 2010, the cost of a gigabyte of hard-drive space has fallen from 10 cents to 1 cent. Why spend your one wild and precious life organizing app icons on a home screen? Why throw out books when you can always buy a new bookshelf?’
[tags: Tech][ permalink][ Comments Off on How the Death of iTunes Explains the 2010s] 6 January 2020
[movies] “The monster is always to blame-what a convenient stereotype. Everything’s the monster’s fault” [ via] … 
[tags: Movies, Quotes][ permalink][ Comments Off on “The monster is always to blame — what a convenient stereotype. “] 4 January 2020
[comics] The Tempest by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill – it’s been a blast … Reviewing the final major comics work from Moore and O’Neill. ‘Power is often a sham in The Tempest, and many of its superheroes are amateur copies of American originals, who themselves are built on a lie; those behind the scenes are not to be trusted. Moore and O’Neill, of course, are also using the creations of others. But they make something new from them. For all the silliness, there’s a reverence here, and a giddiness to these grumpy old men that spills from The Tempest’s pages in joyful hat-tips and preposterous set pieces. As a reader, you feel like a visitor at a party with a bewildering guest list, two hosts who won’t shut up and a new wonder around every corner.’ 3 January 2020
[politics] Who said it: Dominic Cummings or Nathan Barley? … ‘We need some true wild cards, artists … weirdos from William Gibson novels like that girl hired by Bigend as a brand ‘diviner’ who feels sick at the sight of Tommy Hilfiger or that Chinese-Cuban free runner from a crime family hired by the KGB.’
[blog] Go click: Jamie Zawinsky’s 50 most popular blog posts from 2019 … Zawinsky’s blog is reliably funny, offbeat and relevant to my interests.
[tags: Blogs, Web][ permalink][ Comments Off on The 50 most popular 2019 blog posts from jwz.] 2 January 2020
[web] href.cool: Links of the 2010s … a roundup of the offbeat web sites from the 2010s.
[tags: Web][ permalink][ Comments Off on href.cool’s Links of the 2010s] 31 December 2019
[til] 52 things I learned in 2019 … Fifty-two TIL from Tom Whitwell. ‘Polling by phone has become very expensive, as the number of Americans willing to respond to unexpected or unknown callers has dropped. In the mid-to-late-20th century response rates were as high as 70%… [falling to] a mere 6% of the people it tried to survey in 2018.’
[tags: Life][ permalink][ Comments Off on 52 Things Learned in 2019] 25 December 2019
[tv] Good King Memorex … Happy Christmas… here’s another BBC Christmas Tape from 1979.
[tags: Xmas][ permalink][ Comments Off on “Good King Memorex” – 1979’s BBC Christmas Tape] 24 December 2019
[memes] 100 Best Memes Of The Decade … Another roundup of the decade list. ‘ “This Is Fine” Dog: The meme has been used a lot to describe various political situations: The official @GOP Twitter used it once, and a senator even described the comic during a Senate Intelligence Committee while describing how Russian election interference was not fine. But the staying power of the dog is about how we all grin and bear it through everything that’s happened over this decade that feels like the house is on fire – the climate crisis, elections, the disappointing last season of Game of Thrones. There is nothing that captures the 2010s more than “this is fine” dog.’ 23 December 2019
[mindblown] Reddit’s Best Mindblowing Facts of All Time … ‘There are more permutations of a standard deck of 52 cards than there are seconds since the Big Bang.’
[tags: Weird][ permalink][ Comments Off on The Best Mindblowing Facts of All Time] 20 December 2019
19 December 2019
[marvel] A Very Marvel Christmas… Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 … Pictures from Marvel’s 1979 Office Christmas Party. ‘To the left is Larry Hama, who at that point in time – and taking over Crazy Magazine – was still new to the offices. We were getting used to this scary, extra handsome long-haired man-with-no-eyes look and he was getting used to us. Lynne can be seen in the background, apparently getting proposed to by Larry from the mailroom. The three coma victims on the couch are Ralph Macchio, Mark Gruenwald and Creator Writer Steven Grant.’18 December 2019
[movies] My Painful Quest to Find the Worst Christmas Movie Ever Made … A Gonzoesque search of terrible Christmas movies. ‘I figured this attitude would inform the rest of the movie: It would examine the materialism that’s taken over Christmas, and tell the viewer they should instead focus on doing good in the world, as God would want. But no. The rest of the movie is actually a series of monologues in which Cameron justifies the excesses of the festive season by explaining to the brother-in-law that every single aspect of Christmas is super godly, actually. This includes a theory that Christmas trees have a biblical basis because there were trees in the Garden of Eden, and the cross Jesus was crucified on was also made from a tree.’ (on viewing Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas)
[tags: Movies, Xmas][ permalink][ Comments Off on A Quest to Find the Worst Christmas Movie Ever Made] 17 December 2019
[tv] A brief history of the BBC Christmas Tapes … A history of the amusing, unofficial videotapes created by backroom staff at British TV stations and distributed to colleagues at Christmas. ‘The sketches and songs performed by the VT staff themselves are another matter, however. Aside from the industry-standard naked women which pop up every five minutes (always a puzzle – presumably VT engineers had perfectly good wives at home, not to mention access to proper pornography?), the homegrown humour usually amounts to little more than a frustrated engineer singing about obscure editing procedures to the tune of Da Do Ron Ron. Sometimes they try hard, and it looks amiable enough (one bloke at Central did a sub-Neil Innes effort called ‘I’m Just A VTR Dropout’ which was really smashing), while others mine new depths in desperation – on one occasion, Legs & Co being asked to lip-sync an effort called Nice Legs Shame About The Chromophase, for fuck’s sake.’
[tags: TV, Xmas][ permalink][ Comments Off on White Powder Christmas 1978 – The BBC Christmas Tapes] 16 December 2019
[xmas] Christmas Links 2019 … Stuart over at Feeling Listless is collecting seasonal links as he did in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
[tags: Xmas][ permalink][ Comments Off on Christmas Links 2019 From Feeling Listless] 13 December 2019
[life] Simply 17 ‘shower thoughts’ that will make you stop and think, if only for a moment … ‘There is no physical evidence to say that today is Wednesday, we all just have to trust that someone has kept count since the first one ever.’ 12 December 2019
[books] How William Gibson Keeps His Science Fiction Real … William Gibson profile. ‘Futurists he knew had begun talking about “the Singularity-”the moment when humanity is transformed completely by technology. Gibson didn’t buy it; he aimed to represent a “half-assed Singularity-”a world transforming dramatically but haphazardly. “It doesn’t feel to me that it’s in our nature to do anything perfectly,” he said’
[tags: Books, People][ permalink][ Comments Off on “A Half-Assed Singularity” – William Gibson Profile] 11 December 2019
[tv] ‘The baddies are going to win again’: a brutally honest guide to election night TV … Stuart Heritage on Election Night TV. ‘1am: Despair – Results are coming in thick and fast, and it’s starting to look as if the exit polls were right after all. This is going to be a drubbing. The baddies are going to win again, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
[tags: Funny, TV][ permalink][ Comments Off on Stuart Heritage on Election Night TV] 10 December 2019
[politics] Politics in the time of Web 1.0 … Looking back at early British political party websites from the mid-nineties. ‘Piss taking aside, there’s something endearing about these sites. Most of them look like they were done on Microsoft Word, but they remind us of when the internet was viewed primarily as an information resource and not a weapon.’ 
[tags: Politics, Web][ permalink][ Comments Off on Looking Back at Early British Political Party Websites…] 9 December 2019
[xmas] Mince pies tasted by baker Alice Fevronia: ‘It screams Christmas’ … Mince Pie Reviews … ‘Very quickly our dynamic reveals itself. Alice loves minces pies – “They’re a pretty integral part of my Christmas,” she admits – whereas I tend to see them as dry and boring and far too much work. She nibbles carefully at the pies, savouring each morsel; my technique is basically to stuff the whole thing in my mouth and then feel sick.’ 6 December 2019
[politics] Uncovered: reality of how smartphones turned election news into chaos … Interesting attempt to study how Social Media influences election news. ‘Several participants were observed sharing articles on Facebook without clicking the links, and excitedly diving into comment sections for an argument before looking at the articles. Most showed a tendency to read news that confirmed their existing views. Some behaviours were more surprising, hinting we may be becoming a nation of trolls. One 22-year-old Conservative-voting woman was observed going out of her way to read reputable mainstream news sources so she had a balanced understanding of Labour policies. But she would then seek out provocative far-right blog posts to share on Facebook because their headlines would anger her leftwing friends and create online drama.’ 5 December 2019
[comics] Best comics and graphic novels of 2019 … With mentions of Ware, Moore & O’Neill and Seth among others. ‘At the heart of the epically inventive Rusty Brown (Jonathan Cape) is a single day at a Nebraska school in the mid-1970s, from which Ware spins the life stories of a shy nerd, his frustrated father, the privileged class jerk and a thoughtful, banjo-playing teacher. A doll is lost, a space mission charted, a car crashed and cupcakes baked, while snow tumbles, pages turn red with trauma and panels shrink to postage-stamp proportions – this is beauty you have to squint at.’
[tags: Comics][ permalink][ Comments Off on Best comics of 2019 from the Guardian] 4 December 2019
[time] The 2010s Have Broken Our Sense Of Time … How mobiles phones and social media changed our perception of time. ‘Using a phone is tied up with the relentless, perpendicular feeling of living through the Trump presidency: the algorithms that are never quite with you in the moment, the imperishable supply of new Instagram stories, the scrolling through what you said six hours ago, the four new texts, the absence of texts, that text from three days ago that has warmed up your entire life, the four versions of the same news alert. You can find yourself wondering why you’re seeing this now – or knowing too well why it is so.’
3 December 2019
[history] Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ … ‘A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night-for 18 months. “For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year,” wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record “a failure of bread from the years 536-539.” Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says.’
[tags: History][ permalink][ Comments Off on 536AD was the Worst Year to be Alive] 2 December 2019
[life]Try Beautiful News … Need a lift? Try this site. 
28 November 2019
[trolls] That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It … How Russian disinformation/trolling campaigns look in 2019. ‘We have experienced a range of emotions studying what the IRA has produced, from disgust at their overt racism to amusement at their sometimes self-reflective humor. Mostly, however, we’ve been impressed. Professional trolls are good at their job. They have studied us. They understand how to harness our biases (and hashtags) for their own purposes. They know what pressure points to push and how best to drive us to distrust our neighbors. The professionals know you catch more flies with honey. They don’t go to social media looking for a fight; they go looking for new best friends. And they have found them.’
27 November 2019
[books] The 50 best nonfiction books of the past 25 years … Slate’s list of the best nonfiction. David Carr’s Night of the Gun: ‘For The Night of the Gun, Carr applied his reporter’s eye to his own story, digging into those lost years and uncovering painful and frightening truths about the man he was while in the throes of addiction. Released into a post-James Frey, post-JT LeRoy era when skeptics found memoir increasingly unreliable, Carr’s live-wire combination of autobiography and journalism explores not only the secrets of his own life but also the ways in which the stories we all tell ourselves evolve into the versions we can live with. The Night of the Gun makes plain how hard, and how necessary, it is to face the past with diligence and humility.’
[tags: Books][ permalink][ Comments Off on The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years.]
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