Yesterday was so much fun. I watched a ton of movies while weaving, which is so much slower for me than crochet. I can’t put my finger on why it takes so long, nor why I find it dissatisfying, yet I keep picking up that cheap little lap loom to keep adding rows.

It’s not as fun as crochet but it’s Good Enough on days when my hands/arms/shoulders/chest muscles have had enough of punching a hook through tightly-woven heavy-weight acrylic and I clearly need a rest. Who knew I’d have to treat crochet like heavy lifting sometimes? In terms of recovery, anyway.

Didn’t I mention I was watching movies? I was about to *stop* watching movies when I decided to do one more before bed. On a whim, I tossed Four Christmases on the tv, and I loved it. I never would have picked that of my own volition. What a treat!

Of course the world is still outside and my feed is on fire. Shall we read a bit?

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One side-effect of COVID I wouldn’t have expected? It slowed work toward ending tuberculosis. Nonetheless, doctors are getting closer to the end of TB, and they think we’ll see it in this generation.

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I am not a global policy wonk but I’m guessing that Biden and Xi finding a pleasant place in US/China relations is good news for general stability, especially during war in Ukraine and Gaza.

When asked if he would still describe Xi as a dictator, Biden said (to paraphrase): “Yeah, because communists have dictators.”

There are plenty of people in power who see democracy and communism as enemies of one another. Folks can’t escape conflating One Particular Execution of Political System with the Whole Political System. I argue that America doesn’t look real good in its execution of democracy either. Our leadership is so old, they’re still waving McCarthyist era flags, and that’s a *real* bad era for democracy. In America, communism is China’s or Cuba’s dictatorships.

This is on my mind because I was talking to someone in the Boomer generation about her knee-jerk response to words like communism and socialism. A whole generation conditioned to jerkaknee over something so hard, they’ll kick anyone who says, “Maybe public ownership can be better than private ownership in some situations?” There’s minimal room for nuanced discussion about systems of governance that might do more for the social contract America is failing to fulfill.

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My first and favorite talking point about usage of the computer stuff we market as AI is “we need consenting and compensated inclusion in data sets.” Which is to say, I think ‘AI’ can be cool when everyone has agreed to be involved. I still have gross feelings about YouTube’s AI song thing, but that’s probably because my next few talking points are about the ecological impact, practices which continue aggregating wealth at the top, and “how much synthetic media do we really need?”

I do respect how much *fun* AI can be to play with, especially for non-artists, so this is probably in that vein.

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The Crown is back. Before I try it again, I’m going to need a LOT of good reviews saying they treated Diana right. They whiffed it in season 5.

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For kids in crisis, it’s getting harder to find long-term residential treatment.

Intermountain parents and staff were shocked when the facility announced suddenly at the end of the summer that it would close its doors this fall, blaming staffing shortages. […] Megan Stokes recently worked as executive director of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs. She thinks staff shortages are not the full story regarding Intermountain’s troubles.

“We are seeing a lot of long-term facilities moving to what they call the short-term, intensive outpatient,” she says. “You’re able to get insurance money easier.”

Too many families are suffering unsupported in this country. Many folks are stuck at home in a situation where they can’t provide safe and appropriate care for their children.

Healthcare reform would help a lot of people. I want to see insurers out of the game entirely and medicine made nonprofit. Unrealistic, I know, because there is private insurance even in places like Canada and the UK, but that shouldn’t be the endgame goal.

We have to keep talking about the silent tragedies happening to families all around us right now because they’re too busy to tell us they need help.

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Sega in America is accused of union-busting via layoffs.

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Shadow & Bone was cancelled by Netflix. I’m sad on one hand – I loved the first season, and all the Darkling/Alina fics that spawned from it are *my* Reylo. On the other hand, I didn’t get through the second season and kinda completely hated it. Would I want to hate a third season? No, but if this kills my flow of filthy fanfic, I’m gonna get grumpy.

Unfortunately, that also means no Six of Crows spinoff.

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Jon Stewart versus China continues? This thing has been weird for a while.

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“Can we please stop shooting things in space?” ask private space companies. “It’s hard to fly around the debris.”

Russia shot down one of its older satellites, Kosmos 1408, with a Nudol missile launched from the ground. The test, intended to demonstrate Russia’s capability to shoot down assets in space, showered more than 1,500 pieces of debris into low-Earth orbit. This has forced the International Space Station and Chinese Tiangong station to perform avoidance maneuvers, along with many private and government-owned satellites.

Russia is not the only country to perform such tests. India recently did so, and in the more distant past, China and the US have also demonstrated such capabilities.

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You can read an excerpt from Tananarive Due’s new book, The Reformatory, on Tor.com.

Happy Wednesday. It’s a quiet week in the House of Reine. We put up the Christmas tree (this is late for us) and I’ve been enjoying my holiday turn toward romance- and comedy-themed movies. I watch a lot of the same movies every year, even if I hate them, which is how you end up with me developing an entire standup routine my family must endure whenever I watch Love Actually again.

I try to have an RSS feed reader that keeps me scrolling through hundreds of articles a day across many sites – that way I get a broad look at things and don’t get bogged down on Reddit. It seems it might be fun to read the feed “together” and round up some snippets of my commentary on the articles as we go.

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Meta calls for legislation to require parental approval for teens’ app downloads.

I don’t love anything that puts walls between youths and the potential support and information of the internet. Parents’ best interests are not always the kids’ best interests. Kids who are queer, abused, or otherwise reluctant to share everything with their parents deserve to be able to find community elsewhere. Sometimes the internet is the only place that can happen.

It seems like Meta doesn’t want to engage with their audience-manipulating practices; they want to put the onus on safety elsewhere, even if that’s going to make youths more vulnerable whether they get on the site or not. It’s fine for Instagram to manipulate people as long as adults give the thumbs up, right?

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Workers Unionize at Drawn & Quarterly, Vaunted Literary Graphic Novel Publisher.

It’s wonderful seeing how unions standing together are inspiring more unions to do the same. The labor movement historians called as a likely follow-up to this pandemic continues to gather momentum.

While “working with the publishing team and D&Q authors is a joy,” one publishing assistant, commenting under condition of anonymity, said in a statement, “we often work long hours and engage with the comics industry outside of our jobs because we are passionate about bringing excellent comics to readers without additional compensation. While there are lots of opportunities to take on more responsibilities and learn more skills in the publishing office, there are rarely paths to promotion for assistants. It’s hard to see or commit to a future if there are not transparent conversations about what all our learning and acquired skills might lead to.”

I hope the workers get what they’re asking for.

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Like Obamacare that way: Benefits from Biden’s infrastructure bill sinking in.

People generally like the impacts of Biden’s infrastructure bill.

Still, some polls show Biden trailing Trump.

Many Americans have always supported fascism. The ability to own, control, and destroy other humans is core to the foundation of the United States of America. Until we honestly reconcile this history and contemporary reality, we’re going to have plenty of enthusiastic grassroots support for getting fascist strongmen in charge.

That’s why the popularity of Biden’s infrastructure bill isn’t necessarily salient to the election. The fascist right has an unchanging base. Meanwhile, other Americans can see our own history and know that the center-right incrementalism of the Democratic party is worse than treading water unless we have serious reform against corruption.

I’m optimistic that the aforementioned labor movement could give rise to new leadership with a genuine eye for reform, but I don’t really have anything to back up that feeling except my dreamy wish it would happen.

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It’s been 10 years since Batkid. He’s now fifteen-years-old and healthy. That’s so nice.

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Who in the world wants this? Edith Piaf AI-Generated Biopic is in the works at Warner Music.

The film will be narrated by an AI-generated facsimile of Piaf’s voice and promises to “uncover aspects of her life that were previously unknown.”

“Animation will provide a modern take on her story, while the inclusion of archival footage, stage and TV performances, personal footage and TV interviews will provide audiences with an authentic look at the significant moments of Piaf’s life,” the music company said in announcing the project.

It’s hard to imagine how artificial narrative would be superior to human narrator. Since the estate is involved, it’s not like anyone else has the right to tell them no, but I suppose audiences will determine whether they prefer a resurrected Piaf or La Vie en Rose.