I might post more Sara Reads the Feed for a minute. I try to keep the sources of information I read rather broad, international, and from many perspectives. I’ve added a few new sources to my regular feed reads. I’m not sure what’s going to stick around. A couple of these sources are paywalled (like Vanity Fair) which makes it unappetizing to share; others are paywalled and deep in the bottom of a billionaire’s pocket (like WaPo). I’m just trying stuff out for now. While I do more active reading again, I’ll just be posting more as I go along, too. It’ll quiet down again as I winnow the sources I follow and get used to the flow of information.
There’s really no methodology to what I decide to share. I read a lot more than I link. I’m not anyone’s news source, so I don’t really need to provide any of the sorta “breaking news” updates I come across. But I do have a few topics of personal interest that I can’t resist. Systemic inequity, the ecology, spirituality, and reparative practices are particularly good to me. I mostly try to avoid era-specific politics and focus instead on broader trends. Basically, the IRL worldbuilding of my nation and neighbors.
Movie stuff also wanders in a lot, for obvious reasons.
Otherwise, there’s really no method to my madness.
~
I appreciate Rolling Stone’s article about how COVID isn’t over for millions of people, and cannot be.
~
A recreation of the Enterprise-D bridge is going on display soon! (Ars Technica)
It’s not actually the original set from TNG, as that was destroyed while filming Star Trek: Generations, when the saucer section crash-lands on Veridian III. But three replicas were made, overseen by Michael Okuda and Herman Zimmerman, the show’s set designers. Two of those welcomed Trekkies at Star Trek: The Experience, an attraction in Las Vegas until it closed in 2008.
The third spent time in Hollywood, then traveled to Europe and Asia for Star Trek: World Tour before it ended up languishing in a warehouse in Long Beach. It’s this third globe-trotting Enterprise-D bridge that—like the grit that gets an oyster to create a pearl—now finds a science-fiction museum accreted around it. Well, mostly—the chairs used by Riker, Troi, Data, and some other bits were salvaged from the Las Vegas exhibit.
I will always miss Star Trek: The Experience.
~
Some really cool, rare, historic items from Okinawa, which were looted in WWII, were discovered in a Massachusetts attic. The family did the right thing and reported them to the FBI. The FBI then handed them over to Japan. (Smithsonian Mag)
~
Most mammals don’t actually go through menopause. Some whales do. Whaleopause? (NPR)
~
Also very cool: This article about poetry as spiritual practice. (The Marginalian)
~
According to WaPo, the communications assistant for the royal family earns $32,000 a year. I feel like that explains a lot. The royals are so stingy and greedy.
What seemed like an ordinary job posting gained huge online attention, as the royal family faces a media crisis — and is unable to shake the firestorm of conspiracy theories regarding the health and whereabouts of Catherine, the Princess of Wales.
“They don’t need a communications assistant, they need a crisis communications specialist who can deliver difficult and sensitive messages. And they need to pay that person way more than this!” Alannah Arrington, a communications specialist in Virginia, posted on X, referring to the posted salary of 25,642.50 pounds per year (about $32,500).
Some joked that they would do the job unpaid just to find out what was going on amid a frenzy over Catherine that’s now known as “Kate-gate” in the United Kingdom. According to the LinkedIn post, at least 100 people have already applied for the position.
Since I wrote this part of the post, it has been announced that Kate has cancer, which only makes the behavior of the Firm more unsettling. These are not private citizens. But if we assume they are entitled to privacy, you can still see how King Charles’s diagnosis prevented a lot of the insanity that has unfolded in the last couple months. The incompetency feels either cruelly deliberate or cruelly neglectful.
~
Windows Notepad is getting spell check and stuff, and I don’t want it. (Ars Technica) Sometimes you just need a really really barebones place to stick text. I guess Notepad++ and other third-party software can fill in, but I liked using the built-in stuff.
~
Balloon Juice shares more about Donald J Trump’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, and relentlessly ongoing day. Basically the judge who is in charge of his finances gets to be more annoying about it. He must be so unhappy.
~
I’ve been watching the information systems element of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Interrupting communications systems in this era is totally different from the past. Russia has used a novel data wiper to take out more than 10,000 of Ukraine’s satellite modems. (Ars Technica)
