I haven’t seen any of the previous series. I really need to catch up.

Patrick Rhone –

The problem of learning the turn of your favorite authors personal lives is that it becomes impossible to read their work without reading into their work.

Might as well take the ones I have yet to get to and throw them in the bin knowing I likely wont be able to read them now.

Sad.

Will Leitch, writing for the Washington Post, has an in-depth story on how R.E.M. quietly quit.

At the height of its popularity, R.E.M. regularly played before more than 100,000 fans. It was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. But because the band is so self-effacing and because it has resisted nearly every temptation to do the sort of nostalgia maneuvers that keep retired rock acts in the public mind, if you weren’t around to listen to R.E.M. during its prime, it’s quite possible you’ve never heard of it. The band has, essentially, disappeared from American culture.

I’m glad I grew up when R.E.M. was an active band. They never were my favorite, but they are inexorably linked to my teenage years.

David Brooks, in his opinion column for The New York Times, outlines what has happened to expertise, intelligence, and why this new administration wants figureheads and not qualified people in important jobs.

We live in a soap opera country. We live in a social media/cable TV country. In our culture you don’t want to focus on boring policy questions; you want to engage in the kind of endless culture war that gets voters riled up. You don’t want to focus on topics that would require study; you focus on images and easy-to-understand issues that generate instant visceral reactions. You don’t win this game by engaging in serious thought; you win by mere attitudinizing — by striking a pose. Your job is not to advance an argument that might help the country; your job is to go viral.

Pete Hegseth is of course the living, breathing embodiment of this culture. The world is on fire and what’s his obsession? Wokeness in the military. I went through high school trying to bluff my way through class after doing none of the reading, and in Hegseth, I recognize a master of the craft. During the hearings Hegseth repeatedly said he was going to defend the meritocracy. In what kind of meritocracy is being a Fox TV host preparation for being secretary of defense?

He goes on later to write about how things should be.

We don’t want to live in a populist paradise in which expertise is suspect and ignorance a sign of virtue. Nor do we want to live in an elitist world in which technocrats try to rule the world…

We need to settle upon a place where experts are respected and inform decision-making, but civilians make the ultimate calls. In a healthy democracy people revere great learning on substantive issues; they understand the world is too complex to be captured in bite-size slogans; but they also appreciate the wisdom that comes from concrete experience and know that most hard calls have to be made in light of the deeply held values that have made America what it is.

All of this has been corrupted by the war for short attention spans.

We do not live in a healthy democracy and that’s heartbreaking.

Indiewire’s chief film critic, David Ehrlich presented his annual, and expertly edited, montage of his 25 Best Films of 2024.

Sundays are for playing on your phone and unquenchable existential dread

— Jonathan Edward Durham (@thisone0verhere.bsky.social) 2025-01-12T20:23:51.581Z

Steve Schmidt, writing in his Substack newsletter The Warning, has some eloquent words regarding the horrifying fires in Los Angeles.

Like the Great Fire of London in 1666, the Great Fire of Los Angeles will be recalled for 500 years.

The scale of the conflagration is biblical. These epochal fires will join Chicago and San Francisco atop an infamous registry of American destruction.

The fires are still spreading, still growing. There is no precedent, and no similar event by scale, cost or damage that has ever occurred in America. None.

The “Big One” came, but it wasn’t an earthquake that triggered the inferno, it was January winds that brought with it a storm surge of fire.

The worst case scenario has arrived, and don’t let anyone tell you that it was unforeseeable.

The conflagration was entirely predictable, and ultimately, inevitable. In fact, it was destiny. I don’t say that lightly.

The winds have brought Armageddon, and a brutal judgement upon the genius and arrogance of mankind’s building on a Garden of Eden, tempting the wrath of creation.

This is why I have written about Titanic so often. The lessons are enduring — even if the learnings have been fleeting.

“The problem with common sense is that it isn’t all that common and many people think they have way more sense than they really do.” – Patrick Rhone

Emily Singer, writing for The Daily Kos, has the lead on the only story anyone should be talking about.

Donald Trump is officially an adjudicated convicted felon, after a judge in New York on Friday sentenced him Friday morning for the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records Trump was found guilty of in May. While Trump has already been convicted, his sentencing formalizes his criminal conviction.

Trump, however, will face no jail time or any fines for his crimes of trying to cover up hush money payments he made to a Playboy model and a porn actress during the 2016 campaign, with Judge Juan Merchan sentencing him to “unconditional discharge.”

Merchan said it was the “only lawful sentence” he could impose after Trump won the election in November.

So very tired of him already.

Nicholas Bate –

There is a point at which the gains of a beneficial process disappear. And fall away rapidly.

• Exercise is good for you. But too much clearly isn’t.
• E-mail is efficient (gets stuff done), but over-reliance and an addiction curtails effectiveness (getting the right things done).
• Hot-desking is a total pain on a Monday when you simply end up sitting in a corridor with a lap-top balanced on your knees slowly developing a pain in the neck.
• Zoom calls are easy to book but nobody is ‘mentally’ there.
• Chasing an ever high standard of living can reduce the quality of your life.
• Lists of values look good in the annual report but cause cynicism in some of your best and most hard-working teams.
• Throwing all marketing communication at social media disguises the lack of an actual strategy.

Stay alert to the traps set deep in the woods. Stay awake. Stay Hunter-Gatherer 21 Century.

This made me laugh so, so hard.

Seeing Chip Carter's beautiful eulogy is reminding me of a fancy-people thing that I never learned until well into adulthood.

Chip is a nickname for a guy named after his dad. Skip is a nickname for a guy named after his grandfather. Trip is a nickname for a guy named after his dad AND grandfather.

— Angus Johnston (@angus.bsky.social) 2025-01-09T17:33:45.759Z

An escape room but it’s just your nice warm car with your favorite songs on shuffle and the actual world is outside

— Jonathan Edward Durham ([@thisone0verhere.bsky.social](http://thisone0verhere.bsky.social)) January 8, 2025 at 12:25 PM

Warren Ellis –

There are plans, I have read, to send humans to the south pole of the moon. That’s where the water is, and it presents a more stable communication position with Earth. The new issue it presents to human exoplanetary habitation is to do with light.

At the South Pole, the sun never rises more than seven degrees off the horizon. That means the shadows are long and deep black, and the sun will always be in people’s eyes. Moving around on the moon will mean moving from pitch black to bright white in a single step, and human eyes can’t adapt to that.

Everyone’s going to be blind on the moon.

Charlie Warzel, writing for The Atlantic, has the story on Mark Zuckerberg and Meta’s right-ward shift regarding “free expression.”

The social-media hall monitors have been so restrictive on “topics of immigration and gender that they’re out of touch with mainstream discourse,” Zuckerberg said with the zeal of an activist. He spoke about “a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech” following “nonstop” concerns about misinformation from the “legacy media” and four years of the United States government “pushing for censorship.” It is clear from Zuckerberg’s announcement that he views establishment powers as having tried and failed to solve political problems by suppressing his users. That message is sure to delight Donald Trump and the incoming administration. But there’s one tiny hitch. Zuckerberg is talking about himself and his own policies. The establishment? That’s him.

The changes to Meta’s properties, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, are being framed by the CEO as a return “to our roots around free expression.” This bit of framing is key, painting him as having been right all along. It also conveniently elides nearly a decade of decisions made by Zuckerberg, who not only is Meta’s founder but also holds a majority of voting power in the company, meaning the board cannot vote him out. He is Meta’s unimpeachable king. […]

Zuckerberg’s personal politics have always been inextricably linked to his company’s political and financial interests. Above all else, the Facebook founder seems compelled by any ideology that allows the company to grow rapidly and make money without having to take too much responsibility for what happens on its platforms. Zuckerberg knows which way the political wind is blowing and appears to be trying to ride it while, simultaneously, being at least a little bit afraid of it.

Sigh. Slower than I should, I’ll be using Facebook, Instagram, and Threads even less than I already do now.

Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada and leader of the Liberal Party there, today announced his resignation after nearly a decade in the job.

This feels like the passing of a torch, but I’m afraid the torch is going to set a bunch of things on fire.

Seth Godin –

An artifact is an object that holds or signifies an idea.

A book on paper is an artifact: it’s the object plus the words. Now that you can get the words in many other ways, the value of the book is changed.

A wedding ring is an artifact. If lost, it has sentimental value far greater than what you could buy a similar replacement for.

Sometimes, the value of an idea fades away, which is why many old books are worthless. Garage sales are filled with previously valuable items that hold ideas that people aren’t attracted to.

And sometimes, the value of the object fades away, but the idea remains important. That’s what happens when you upgrade your laptop.

When the world shifts, the artifacts around us change in value

On his blog, Spyglass, M.G. Siegler has thoughts on all these tech bros, especially Tim Cook, dropping a cool million to Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Oh, I’m sorry, did I say “fealty”? I meant “unity”, which is the rationale Cook is apparently giving for the donation, “sources” told Axios' Mike Allen. That’s speaking to the unity of the country, which, fair enough, I guess. But really, the most interesting element is the unity amongst these CEOs in all somehow deciding to give the exact same amount of money. Clearly, there was either direct coordination here – a sort of, “how much money do you think we should all give so this isn’t some sort of bidding war?“2 – or indirect by way of the first such donation from Mark Zuckerberg at Meta.

But token amount of money aside – and, to be clear, this is essentially couch cushion money for both the companies and CEOs involved here – this donation is not some sort of “great American tradition” as Cook is said to be trying to frame it. Certainly not for Apple itself. And while other tech companies have given money to other inaugurations in the past, notably to President Biden’s day four years ago, these $1M checks are above and beyond anything done historically from these companies.4

Look, there are many reasons why I’m not the CEO of a trillion-dollar company. But certainly on that list would be that I don’t think I could make such a donation. Easy for me to say not being anywhere close to that position and decision, of course. But still, if you take a step back and take into account all we know, or at least think we know about these individuals and companies, do we really believe any of them are truly comfortable with these donations? Perhaps a couple of them are, but I would not put Tim Cook on that list.5 Come on, obviously most of these companies and individuals as proxies are writing these checks because they feel like they have to. In the name of unity, yes. Unity in that they’re all in the same bad predicament.

Trump has been soliciting bribes in the most mob-like, obvious way. He’s saying, “Yo Tim Apple, that’s a nice company you got there. It would be a shame if anything untoward would come upon it.” And Tim Cook decided to play the game.

It’s also important to note that $1M is literally peanuts to all of these tech bro billionaires, but it’s likely enough to keep Trump from looking their way during the next excruciating four years.