My life is pretty boring right now. I’m mostly just sitting around being available to my kids when they need me, aggregating information about the outside world, ignoring mealybugs on my plants, getting wrist pain from crocheting, drawing silly cartoons, and Having A Lot of Opinions.
I’d still normally have interesting things to say about that, but lowering my caffeine intake has really kicked my butt. If you’re bored about hearing how I am not Getting Anything Done because of multiple successive withdrawals, don’t worry. I’m bored of experiencing it. This crap takes months.
Plus all these substances are how I’ve self-medicated my neurocognitive issues, so everything I know about Getting Stuff Done In That Condition is useless to me now. I have to relearn like. everything. again.
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I’ve been banging on the “power companies are going to kill us all” drum ever since the Camp Fire in Paradise, California killed so many people, thanks to PG&E’s unmaintained infrastructure. That was over five years ago now. I wrote a book partially inspired by it called “His Memory in Ashes.” Anyway, the huge Texas panhandle fire this year was…drumroll please…caused by unmaintained infrastructure from the power company. (NPR) This is gonna keep happening. There has been no political willpower to fix it and the people with money don’t wanna.
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NPR published the most selfish article about how a wife’s desire to have Her Old Life Back is equally (or more) important as her high risk husband’s desire to mask against COVID. You know what, lady? I bet he’d like to have his old life back too. A lot of us would. Public health doesn’t matter to America. We would rather just let people die and be disabled so that people like you can fuck around with the illusion of having Your Old Life Back.
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In ongoing “Community is a great show that had the most absolutely toxic work environment possibly ever” news, Joel McHale reports he once dislocated Chevy Chase’s shoulder in a scuffle. (Variety) I’m sure nobody was sad he did that, but even so.
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BookRiot recommended Black Paradox by Junji Ito. I haven’t read that one so I’m gonna pick it up.
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Cosmopolitan talks about the human rights violations of child labor in influencer families (my phrasing, not theirs).
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You know I can’t resist Weird Organism Stories so here’s an Ars Technica piece about how cicadas pee in jets instead of droplets. Amazing!
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Ars Technica also reports on Air Pods Pro possibly getting “hearing aid” mode, which is cool. I actually use the “aware” mode on my noise-cancelling headphones (I have both Apple and Bose) to limit the amount of auditory input I receive from the world, which is kinda the opposite thing, but I already think of them as accessibility devices is the point here.
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A private space rocket launched in Japan exploded seconds after leaving the launching pad. Bummer for the company, but awesome for those of us who like to watch explosions. (AJE)
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Colbert’s studio didn’t want him to show KStew’s Rolling Stone cover. (Variety) The heteros really just can’t handle the raw sexual power of gender fuckery. They’re so weak.
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Netflix is putting Jennifer Lopez in a mecha suit. I’m so happy. (TSFKA Tor dot com)
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A company is gonna try mining helium-3 from lunar regolith. (Ars Technica) There’s nothing humans won’t try to exploit, even our Moon.
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Lawyers, Guns, and Money shared a good chunk of an interesting NYMag article about gender/sex. NYMag is paywalled, so the LGM link is the one I’m sharing.
