I mentioned a while back that I got a $15 balance board off Amazon and I love it. Guess what? It’s mostly fixed my hip pain (at least the way that matters to me right now). I can stand at my desk for hours. When my hip/back starts aching at all, I climb on the balance board.

My guess is that it’s just engaging all the muscles I normally don’t engage standing and sitting around, and that’s enough to stabilize my hip. Or whatever. The first week or so, I felt that achiness that indicates muscle growth in all sorts of weird places, like the adductors, obliques, and even my *deltoids*? (I think because my arms have to stabilize me against the desk to use my computer.)

Whatever I was missing in my routine to alleviate pain, the board has helped way more than using the treadmill at my desk and going for walks and stuff. It’s awesome.

Typing honestly isn’t my favorite on the balance board, just because it makes me so tall that I can’t raise my standing desk any higher and it’s not ergonomically ideal. But I’ve been using it a lot for gaming. My combination is padded standing mat + balance board + slippers with supportive soles, and I can stay standing for hours.

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My favorite chuckle of the morning came from Christopher Nolan complaining that a Peloton instructor shit-talked Tenet during a class (Variety), unaware Nolan was in the class. Hysterical. Nolan’s response was (paraphrased) “How dare you? Criticism shouldn’t be instinct but a job.” Meaning he thinks nobody should have opinions on movies where he might hear them unless they’re a critic.

I still love Nolan’s directorial style, but the last couple years have made it clear he’s intolerably precious. He’s among the guard of Hollywood who feels entitled to the movie community’s time. He feels the movie community should have gates and keepers. He thinks that he should have a certain number of big screens for a certain period of time. He thinks the masses should keep their opinions to themselves, as someone who only gets these budgets because the masses tolerate him.

I think Nolan is a giant wiener who should accept nobody *needs* to take movies as preciously as he does. And he should accept that being a household name means everyone has opinions on him. He can’t reshape the world to his demands no matter how many times he stomps his feet; the world is not made of executives kissing his rings for providing profit-generating content. Nolan needs to learn to Deal With It.

I like art to be rowdy and messy and full of unprofessional people and so Nolan’s preciousness has officially made him a target of my playful mockery. I hope he never knows another peaceful Peloton class. Fucking Peloton! They hurt his feelings! What a precious little wiener. lmao.

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Kate Hudson keenly noted that romcoms are hard to make now (The Hollywood Reporter) because, ultimately, studios aren’t investing in good writers. The headline is about actors, but she says it’s because studios aren’t getting writers that write movies worth big-name time. Hudson is surely longing for another Nora Ephron, much like Meg Ryan, and it’s just nice seeing folks remember that writing matters once in a while.

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I am not disturbed by the man in Las Vegas attacking the judge. (NPR) Did you watch the video? He tried to make himself vulnerable in a plea for leniency based on his overall behavior, and she crisply, patronizingly said something like, you need a taste of punishment, byyyeee. I just think it would take a real strong person not to lose their shit over this.

I don’t know what he did to land in the court. Maybe he’s a horrible person. But I just don’t think that people with the power to toss humans into the meat grinder of our carceral system with the sneering dismissal of a middle school math teacher should be *surprised* if they get an unpleasant reaction. Do you know how violent the entire prison system is? Do you know what’s going to take over this man’s entire life for months/years to come, and probably has already done a mess to him?

I’m not violent personally; I just find it a willfully ignorant position to act like judges are vulnerable lil innocent babies when they are knowing, powerful participants in a vicious system. This man looked so desperate to me. America puts way too many people in desperate positions.

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Vili Fualaau, the victim of Mary Kay Letourneau, doesn’t like May December. (IndieWire)

When I watched the movie, I thought it was more broadly cribbed off the type of abuse in the Letourneau case, not about the Letourneau case specifically. Shortly thereafter I learned that some lines were directly taken from an interview with Fualaau and Letourneau, and the lisp that was so central to the female characters also came from the real-life abuser. It’s not as much a mosaic as I thought. It’s much more direct, like Velvet Goldmine.

I do feel like May December is yet another act of abuse against Fualaau, effectively; it’s insane we live in a world where others’ stories are fair game for profit-making schemes. The fact that May December is one of the most tasteful and respectful iterations doesn’t matter from the viewpoint of the man it’s about.

It’s crazy to think he’s been dealing with this public scrutiny of his life for so long. Letourneau truly robbed this person of any opportunity to be innocent, and the various sordid retellings make creators complicit in this theft.

As for my position as a viewer who loved the movie, I don’t know. I already deal with this dilemma in all sorts of media that I routinely enjoy. True crime is riddled with people who don’t consent to their involvement; the industry is built on furthering trauma against victims. I think it’s normal for humans to be sordidly curious. I also think all humans have deep deep flaws, and maybe my conscious willingness (and enthusiasm) to engage with media that makes entertainment of others’ pain is one of my worse ones.

That’s not satisfying commentary, I know. But I think it’s true all at once that May December is great filmmaking, and an act of abuse against Fualaau, and a sign that I like juicy stuff even when it hurts people. The fact the movie itself may ask us how similar we are to Portman and Moore’s characters in our complicity with this situation is so much of why I liked it.

There’s also a lot of conversation right now as to whether May December should be regarded as comedy. (Variety)

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It’s interesting to hear that use of hearing aids (NPR) can lengthen life span, since hearing loss can worsen cognitive *everything,* isolate the individual, and send them to an early grave.

I don’t need hearing assistance (yet?) but I do use glasses, and have done so since elementary school. My eyes aren’t that bad. I can get around a house fine without glasses, and if I’m not attached to seeing details or reading captions, I can watch TV.

But I noticed if I go without my glasses for a while, I kinda fully disconnect from the world. I just start drifting. I don’t respond as strongly to anything. I can imagine how losing hearing might cause a more profound drift unless consciously combated.

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Reading about the old Vectrex console was an absolute delight for me yesterday. (Ars Technica) It makes me wonder how different gaming might look if we’d focused on vector-based rather than point-based design.

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Al Jazeera English notes this is a big year for elections and democracy is kinda on the ballot everywhere.

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In 1905, Lucy Parsons wrote her feelings about the problems with labor in capitalism, which I could have written nowadays 120 years later. I’d surely have more fart jokes though. Read it on Panarchy.

Every person who is rendering no good to humanity is useless, no matter how hard he works. Head work and hand work are equally hard and equally useful if rightly applied. All men, rich and poor, are working at something; perhaps one at useful labor, the other at useless labor. Nevertheless they are each and all using their energies at some occupation.

Men work because they cannot hold their physical and mental energies in check without causing themselves pain. But we have made work disagreeable because we have allowed conditions to obtain which force us to continue to work after we are tired, or at something for which we have no taste, take no interest in and have no adaptability for.

For this reason we lose pleasure in work and it becomes irksome to us; for this reason, often what we do is done in a slovenly manner and the community loses thereby. The selfish scheme called “property rights” has superseded human rights and created four times more useless work than is required to produce and distribute all the comforts and luxuries of life.

All these useless workers are either capitalists or the allies of capitalists. In this class of workers whose sole business is to sustain the “rights of property” can be classed the lawyers, jailers, police, bankers, insurance companies, agents and nearly all bosses in all branches of industry; add to these those who cannot get work and those in prisons, and we get some conception of the vast hordes that must be supported by those who perform useful labor, and these must devote their entire life’s energies in keeping up the “rights of property,” a thing which they have neither a share nor interest in.

And this condition of affairs makes paupers, suicides, thieves, cut-throats, liars, vagabonds, hypocrites, and unsocial beings generally.

Who, pray, are benefitting by all this waste and confusion? The few, a mere small percentage of the population of the world. All the remainder submit, because they think “it always has been so and it must always be so.” The work of those who have a conception of a true society of the future, must devote all their efforts toward disabusing the people’s minds of the ancient falsehoods. It can be done. Many other hoary lies have passed away, so will this one, too.

As a side note, eleven miners are trapped in Zimbabwe. (AJE) These are subsistence miners working in unsafe unregulated mining sites. It seems to make it easy for the owners of the mines to mostly shrug when things happen. The owner sent a team to rescue folks, but they say they can’t get in because of unsafe ground. The ground was already unsafe and they let the subsistence miners go. Anyway, just thinking about labor today. My heart goes to the miners and the families and hope rescue operations proceed smoothly.

I’ve still been reading about Barbie here and there, since it’s the run-up to awards season. I watched the movie quite belatedly. A lot of my impression from the marketing was that it was meant to be posited as revolutionary, but I found the movie representing the contrary; it felt like a head-pat in response to the pain it spent a lot of time recognizing (to no greater end). The result felt validating of America’s corporatocracy more than subversive.

But the stuff I’m still reading makes me feel my impression from marketing was wrong too. Although they used imagery and language of revolution, talking to people involved makes it seem more like they wanted to create a cute confection that is extremely referential but without the burden of responsibility for its ideas. It’s Just A Toy Movie.

I’m personally annoyed by a generation of creators who freely, openly state that they don’t want any burden of responsibility for their ideas. I see it in writers all the time. I’m Just Writing Entertainment. There’s no reason words can’t be disposable in this way; I aspire to something else, but it’s fine for things to just…exist. I guess. Well, it’s fine in writing, because even the greatest writers are essentially nobodies. But in Barbie, I’m a little less forgiving, since there is so much budget and so many eyes.

America Ferrera at least thinks that it’s important enough to have a Feminism 101 movie (Variety), which is fair too, I guess. I’m just. Like. Okay. We have so many Feminism 101 movies. Can I have Feminism 201? Feminism 220? I *like* feminism and I don’t *want* feminism that’s so entrenched in corporate stuff, at all, and it just feels *evil* if you’re going to try to also do that without responsibility for your message because she’s Just A Doll. Also, the feminism of Barbie was awfully concerned with Ken, who kinda remains the main show. (Variety)

I’m thirty-five years old and I’m being told by women my age, and older, that Barbie is just the greatest thing ever, and if Barbie and Ken’s Feminism 101 is the greatest thing then I don’t know where the fuck I stand.

Since I’ve got such a personal grudge around the very ideas they’re throwing out there, I think I really gotta reevaluate Barbie in a couple years to see if I still think it’s an incredibly cynical glass onion. I’m not being cool about it right now, lol.

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Engadget’s article about the volume of Teslas delivered this year reminds me of recent reports that Teslas have poor build quality (Reuters). When I see this headline, I mostly think about a lotta people driving cars that break a lot, without customer service or accountability for the damage.

Growing up from the 90s to the 20s now has been an odd era for consumerism. I’ve seen things going from being built extremely ruggedly, possibly irresponsibly so when you consider the volume of plastic involved, to some kind of balance of quality and value, to price over everything else. Prices have stabilized or dropped for a lot of goods in the last decade, but with inflation, and whatever other economic factors smarty smart people would evoke, that means that the products have had to all become like tissue paper to keep up with demands.

My personal favorite example is ring slings. I bought a ring sling from a major manufacturer for $40 or $50 when I had my second baby almost a decade ago. The old ring sling is long gone (donated to another family), but its fabric and rings were thick and sturdy. Two years ago, I bought another ring sling off Amazon for the same price – I got the one with the best reviews and searched for the stiffest fabric. The modern equivalent really does feel like tissue paper. I think the rings are metal, but they’re not metal-metal somehow. It’s just *cheap*.

Everything feels like that now. It’s not good value. Everything is cheap. But cheap doesn’t actually mean we’re paying low prices; relative to stagnant wages, stuff is really more expensive. Others have called it enshittification. I wonder what comes next. It’s felt like a race to the bottom–are we there yet?

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Treating things cheaply isn’t new. There are episodes of culture classic Doctor Who (The Independent) we will never see because the BBC treated them as cheap, recording over the original reels, disposing of them, or storing them improperly.

The same guy making cheap Teslas is treating rockets as cheap. (Ars Technica) The commander of the first consumer space flight laments that their historic vessel doesn’t seem to be preserved in any way. It was reused, and then possibly scrapped? That’s the whole business model. The attitude Musk spreads across the companies under his influence is one of dispensability.

Properly preserving history is a respectful, thoughtful process. Musk is in the business of making history, not caring about it. Someone who really cared about history would at least be investing into real infrastructure projects, which would last generations, and force people to associate his memory with something positive. Gross, who cares about nerd stuff like that? Am I right?

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Colossal notes that a lot of properties entered public domain this year besides Steamboat Willie. There’s some other interesting stuff. You can find a full rundown on a Duke University page.

Highlights that caught my eye:

• Lady Chatterley’s Lover (the novel)
• All Quiet on the Western Front (the novel)
• House at Pooh Corner (bringing Tigger into the public domain)
• Peter Pan (the stage play)
• The Man Who Laughs (the movie that inspired The Joker)
• Makin’ Whoopee (the song)_

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Like probably most people, I’m scratching my head over the idea of a Minecraft movie. (Tor)

I don’t love the Minecraft property whenever they try to insert narratives, like their chapter-based stories or what have you, so it’s safe to say in advance this one won’t be for me. But whether that holds true or not is really up to my kids.

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Balloon Juice notes that the conservative attack on education in America continues. This one is a direct career jump from a GOP politician into higher ed. You’ve probably also heard that Gay was pressed into stepping down (AJE) from her position as president of Harvard based on a multi-pronged attack accusing her of anti-Semitism and plagiarism.

You know what’s kinda wild about life? No matter what you think, no matter your attitude, you can find community. You can have the most foolish ideas and the least amount of experience, but if you’re loud and persistent, you will find people who validate your worldview enough to keep you there.

I see loads of folks with zero real experience become experts in their fields by convincing people they’re experts. I see folks charging expert fees for their amateur information/skills all the time. Likewise, you can just opt out of all of that, and if you make your values something bizarre then you’ll eventually find folks who are in the same place.

This isn’t judgment. This is me saying, whatever you’re doing right now? It’s enough. If you feel insecure or like a fraud, you don’t have to. If there’s any secret to life, it’s persistence. The way you become the right person for something is just by being the person who is there.

It’s actually kinda cool what I said in paragraph 2 – non-experts making careers out of stuff because they invested their time into it anyway. You know, I see this used by scammers a lot, but it ALSO means that you can just suddenly be King Of This Thing You Like for totally benign non-scammy reasons. You decide that. You make your social reality. You put out your sign and be consistent about it and folks are gonna gather. Like I’m a weird little nugget but I yell loudly about how much I love things and I just always manage to find folks who love the same stuff!

YOU ARE ENOUGH! Make 2024 your best friend by telling it that it’s gonna treat you right.* Become the king of whatever you love. Have a great week.

*If you’re just tired, sick, or sick and tired and no attitude is gonna change what you need changed in life, I validate you too <333 it’s really not always mind over matter, is it?

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Speaking of mind over matter, my elbow has been hurting me from crochet. I looked it up. It’s probably not a repetitive stress injury, but tendinitis, and I thought one of the recommended remedies was interesting: deliberate inflammation. The way they suggested doing it was “dry needling” (like acupuncture, I think) to increase blood flow, but it occurred to me, you know what else increases blood flow without stabbing myself? Doing gentle exercise.

I mean, honestly, I’m not averse to stabbing myself. I have piercings. I test my blood sugar and use lancets pretty regularly. I keep cacti on purpose. Getting poked productively sounds wonderful; it’s just probably gonna involve leaving the house to get it done properly.

What’s much easier is grabbing a water bottle and moving my arm around gently in all the normal movements. I’m so annoyed it helped.

It’s like how I’ve been helping my hip pain lately by getting onto a round balance board and swiveling my hips every which direction. I started out so unstable on the board, but now I can balance well enough to venture a few tentative squats. And if I start messing around on it for a while, I just feel a lot better.

The whole thing where I’m actually in more pain when I move less is such nonsense actually.

Other random mobility observations:

• It’s so important and helpful to stretch my arms above my head and behind my back. This is so good for neck/shoulders.
• If I spend a lot of time with my legs rotated knees-out (which I do because I love sitting cross-legged), I should stretch sometimes with legs rotated knees-in. The pretzel stretch can do this. This is so good for back/hips.
• Spreading my hands palm-down on a firm surface, like a counter or table, and resting some weight on the hand evenly is almost as good as doing something like downward dog without as much strain. At least talking about how much it helps my hand/arm pain.
• Doing a little bit all the time feels really good actually.

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America has more than a few of its own odd conservative quirks, but it’s always interesting to see where even more conservative societies draw their lines. In Russia, celebrities were arrested for an “almost naked” party. (AJE) Say what you will about the USA, but most corners are okay with naked hot people, I think?

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AMC Theaters kicked out a civil rights leader who needed his wheelchair in a movie theater. (NPR) It feels like the movie industry feels entitled to our viewership in-theaters. They don’t want to earn our attendance. This reminds me of Martin Scorcese wanting no intermission for his movie, even though people without profound disabilities can’t sit comfortably that long. And AMC doesn’t want this dude to have his own chair? Get outta here.

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Engadget has an article on canceling certain common subscriptions. I’ve been in the subscription-cancelling mood, myself. I finally figured out how to get rid of two of my worst, most persistent subscriptions. Now I just have to figure out the gym.

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The influencer segment of the marketing industry is getting knee-capped by AI influencers. (Ars Technica) Although we can all think of a few influencers the world could do without, I’m sure, this is one of those jobs that has been enabling people with disabilities and complex situations to work from home. It’s just amazing how this technology is persistently applied in ways that compress the more accessible parts of the labor market, yanno?

Another example of AI being considered for boring uses: Square Enix wants to use AI generation for coding, marketing, etc. (Engadget) I play a lot of RPGs and whatnot, and I think it would be cool to use generative text to create infinite interactions with NPCs that previously must (charmingly) repeat the same three lines over and over. Why can’t we conceive of AI for fun toy things, at the very least, instead of job-destroying things?

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Apparently my inhaler brand is getting jerked around by the manufacturer so they can eventually raise prices higher. Fun. (NPR)

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The Game of Thrones universe has animated series on the way. (Variety) I would prefer to see these kinds of adaptations done in animation, personally. House of the Dragon would have dealt with less recasting flip-floppery if they’d just animated the thing, and we could have so many more dragons.

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Tor dot Com shares books about forced body modification. The top story sounds interesting to me in particular. Honestly, this is kinda tapping into a whole type of story I’m definitely in the mood for.

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Zaddy Jordan Peele is teasing us with his next movie. I’m still predicting ghosts/possession. Or just hoping? I don’t honestly care. I love his movies. (Variety)