I'm back
Officially home after my first work trip of the year. It was a good time but time to transition back to the real world after six days on the road.
Yesterday was taking Elwood to the vet for a small medical procedure. Given his age, I was very concerned but everything came back good. He's home now and on the road to full recovery.
This morning was a dental cleaning and check-up, which was a mixed bag of good news and bad as they recognized improved dental hygiene, but also have two spots they want to give fillings. Ah the joys of growing old.
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Kushiel's Dart - 2 of 5
Kushiel's Dart is adult high fantasy fiction. It is not my normal cup of tea but I was drawn to it and found it's setting interesting. The main character is a woman who is masochistic and is raised to utilize that as a form of courtesan. The story itself takes a spin off of Judeo-Christian narratives with thinly veiled name changes, as well as the European map being renamed.
The tropes and ideas are not subtle, but the story itself is one of political intrigue. As is often the case I found the ending a bit of a let down after the intricate build up. Additionally, it lacks a pay off I was looking for.
This is a story which rides on the characters in it and the rest is just window dressing. There are two more in the series but I don't see myself seeking them out.
Kushiel's Dart by
Currently Reading - 22 Feb. 2023
An Immense World by Ed Yong
A review of the book on goodreads:
This is one of the best science books I have read. Read this if you are at all curious about how other animals experience the world. You probably weren’t aware that humans can echo-locate. But other animals are capable of so much more than we are. Their abilities are amazingly fine-tuned to meet their needs. All of the concepts and experiments were very clearly explained and the audiobook was expertly narrated by the author.
Still early into this book, but I'm looking forward to it. It's fascinating, already, and I'm just into the first chapter.
An Immense World by
The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes
Just begun this morning as an audiobook from the library after a recommendation from a friend. Already enjoying it, though I'm just a little ways in. It's campy urban fantasy which is something I enjoy for the lightweight nature of it. We'll see how it develops.
The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by
I had started King's The Gunslinger but fell off. Based on genre and writing, I should enjoy it and perhaps if I pushed through I would, but I just haven't gotten hooked. So, when Fred the Vampire Accountant became available from the library, I switched over.
Warren Beatty retains Dick Tracy movie rights to 2027
As pulled from this Mastodon post with a screencap from another social network:
In 1990, Warren Beatty made a Dick Tracy movie. But no one would let him make another one, and even tried to do a TV show without him. He got so mad he decided to find a loophole in his contract and get decades of petty revenge.
Every couple of decades, he makes a no-budget 20-some minute TV special where he complains to Leonard Maltin while wearing his old costume, and releases it unannounced in the middle of the night on TCM. This week, at 85 years old, he premiered his new one, called Dick Tracy Zooms In. He didn't even have to show up on set. However, he has gone to court to make sure that they legally count as sequels, and thus renew his rights to the character. He does this solely so that no one else can legally use the character for anything.
This new special will make the character his until 2027, when Dick Tracy goes into the public domain and anyone can use him for free.
This is art. This is some A+ Andy Kaufman-level trolling. I will never watch either of these specials, because the whole point is that they are unwatchable, low effort, and awful enough to be a middle finger to some bean counting whipper snapper who made Warren Beatty mad in the 90s. But I am so happy they exist. I'd rather know these bird flips by an old man taking a grudge to the grave are in the world than a Dick Tracy Disney+ show staring Chris Pratt.
I completely agree with the original author's feeling that this is some Andy Kaufman-level trolling.
PS - Fuck the American copyright system.
Seattle bans caste discrimination
The city council in the capital of Washington state voted on Tuesday night to add caste, a hierarchical social system dating back thousands of years and practised throughout South Asia among people of all religions, to the city’s anti-discrimination laws.
I think this is an excellent thing to call out, even though castes do not dominate American culture the way they do in other parts of the world, that discrimination can (and does) follow people here. Here's hoping this protection continues to gain traction elsewhere in the US.
That said - I do have to call out that they refer to Seattle as the capital, which is incorrect. Washington's capital is Olympia, Washington. Though Seattle badly wanted it to be here when it joined the union.
Putin's had a bad year
Pulled the below excerpt from the Axios newsletter, but I link to the full article it comes from. This is a good review and reminder that Vladimir Putin has had a really shitty year. (One of the many he deserves.) Unfortunately his misfortune also drags down millions of other people.
With Friday marking one year of the war in Ukraine, the list of assumptions Moscow got wrong is long — and growing, Axios' Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath writes:
- Putin thought Kyiv would fall. But Volodymyr Zelensky remains Ukraine's president and continues to welcome world leaders, including President Biden this week.
- Putin thought Russia would overpower a weak Ukrainian force. But Russian troops weren't ready to fight what turned out to be a strong and resilient Ukrainian force.
- Russia ended up needing reinforcements on the battlefield — which Putin also had failed to anticipate.
- Putin bet that the West wouldn't stick with Ukraine. But the U.S. and Europe's resolve has remained unwavering.
Why it matters: The war has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe — making the world a more unstable place since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022.
- Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are dead. Countless buildings have been destroyed. Tens of thousands of troops have been killed or seriously wounded on each side, AP reports.
- The invasion shattered European security, redrew nations' relations and frayed the tightly woven global economy.
"Companies Can’t Ask You to Shut up to Receive Severance, NLRB Rules"
The National Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday that employers can no longer demand laid-off employees avoid publicly disparaging the company as part of their severance agreements, nor can they stop affected employees from disclosing the terms of their exit packages. Doing so, the federal agency determined, would be a violation of the laid-off employees' rights under the National Labor Relations Act.
The decision reverses two previous decisions, both in 2020, regarding the gambling company International Game Technology and Baylor University Medical Center, which held that such severance agreements were lawful. The board now says that determination was wrong and failed to recognize "that unlawful provisions in a severance agreement proffered to employees have a reasonable tendency to interfere with, restrain, or coerce the exercise of employee rights."
How do we own ourselves in the 'post truth' era?
With the era of internet AI driven fake videos and audio, I am finding myself wondering more and more about how individuals exist in the coming "post truth" years. Even beyond knowing what news is real and fake, which is terrifying enough.
Imagine, you call a company for customer service and part of those Terms you didn't read include them sampling your voice such that they can now deepfake you. Or walking into a store, which allows cameras positioned to do the rudimentary 360 degree scan needed for low res body insertion into video (such as what we're seeing from the NBA recently.)
Not that either scenario is explicitly for super villain-esque plans, but more just for owning your identity.
It is not hard to imagine a cellphone company offering to, for a fee, allow you to deepfake your friends as the voice for notifications on your phone.
Or imagine going to the theater and watching a movie, only to suddenly spot a doppelganger of yourself in the crowd at a pivotal movie scene. You weren't paid as an extra for this film, but because you attended [insert large conglomerate owned entity] you gave them rights to use your three dimensional likeness in perpetuity.
How do we, as individuals, opt out of giving up these rights? How does the government legislate in this era?
Do I need to wear t-shirts that say in blocktext, "I DO NOT CONSENT" or something similarly absurd?
Automated Archives for February, 22nd 2023
This post was automatically generated
Mastodon Bookmarks
Wallabag Additions
These are articles that which I saved today so that I may read them later. Substance and quality will vary drastically.
- How Florence Pugh Became Hollywood’s Most Grounded Superstar (vogue.com)
- Can We Stop Being Cynical and Give Biden the Huge Props He Deserves for Kyiv? (newrepublic.com)
- Conspiracies are the price of freedom (unherd.com)
Chess For the Day
Record: 5-1-6
Net Elo Change: -6
Games Played