Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Rogue One is a great addition to the Star Wars universe because it takes a glaringly stupid plot mechanism—the exhaust port vulnerability in the Death Star—and attributes it to an architect’s sabotage. One of the dumbest things about the Star Wars franchise then becomes something sad, poignant, and believable. But Rogue One also raises…
Don’t stop your dog from barking at them. Don’t take their money. If you’re making coffee for them, make it wrong. Last week, Donald Trump was elected president by the United States. But he wasn’t elected by New Yorkers. In his hometown, Trump has for years been regarded as a clown—a tabloid regular, a Howard…
On March 15, 2002, 15 Saudi girls burned to death inside their school in Mecca. They were not trapped by fallen debris, or unaccounted for by firefighters. The mutaween, Saudi Arabia’s religious police, would not allow the girls to leave their burning school because they were not covering their hair or wearing their abayas. The…
We tend to think of the apocalypse as “the end of the world,” but that’s not really the case. They’re a revelation of things as they already were Postscript is Cameron Kunzelman’s weekly column about endings, apocalypses, deaths, bosses, and all sorts of other finalities. There are some real spoilers for both The Nightmare Before Christmas and Kingdom Hearts down below, so if you’re trying…
Bill O’Reilly’s “white establishment” comments ignite firestorm over his bald-faced racism Fox News host Bill O’Reilly went on a white supremacism-laden rant Tuesday night, saying that the effort to abolish the Electoral College is an attempt by “the left” to take away power from the “white establishment.” O’Reilly went on to denounce Democrats for being…
Hide CM floating unit The past year was almost certainly not the worst one ever, but 2016 does seem to have earned some sort of special designation. Barrier Status: ‘none’ A meme is currently circulating on Twitter in which people post two contrasting photos: one is “me at the beginning of 2016”; the other is…
Google Microdata Mobile only ad Article “Cover” Legislators passed a slate of bills to sharply reduce the power of the incoming governor, over the heated objections of Democrats and hundreds of protestors. Google Metadata Protestors demonstrate against the North Carolina General Assembly on Thursday.Gerry Broome / AP START “MORE ON” SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2…
An unusual correction now rides below the New York Times’s major story about Russian hacking in the November 8 election: “An earlier version of the main photograph with this article, of a filing cabinet and computer at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, should not have been published,” it says. That’s a significant admission from any publisher….
It’s been over a year since I started @thinkpiecebot, and it’s grown a LOT in the interim. The code is a huge, often unwieldy mess, there are over 100 formulas in it, and in the past couple of months the scope and the tone has gone through some… changes. Holy Shit, a Suit-Wearing Racist — Thinkpiece…
As the American public is being sold on the idea of the “Infobahn,” it is often suggested that the Internet is ushering in an age of enlightenment, that its structure is inherently leading to a kind of global consciousness raising. In particular, it was (and still is, in some circles) fashionable to suggest that the…