Stephen Miller, Channeling Trump, Has Built More Power Than Ever - The New York Times

Mr. Zuckerberg blamed his former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, for Facebook’s culture, according to one of the people with knowledge of the meeting. He said new guidelines and a series of layoffs amounted to a reset and that more changes were coming.

Zuck blaming the person who helped scale Facebook’s data mining machine that made him rich beyond his wildest dreams. The article goes on to note that Stephen Miller essentially approved Zuck’s anti-DEI program before launch. 🫠

The RedNote honeymoon won’t last - by Taylor Lorenz

I don’t want to pour cold water on all the beautiful moments where people are genuinely connecting across cultures, but this honeymoon phase will not last, nor will RedNote ever truly be able to replicate TikTok’s popularity.

Signed up for RedNote this week. Americans are enchanted by videos of Chinese cities and culture. They’re angry and feel mislead by years of US propaganda.

The RedNote honeymoon won’t last, but Pandora’s box won’t close either. Feels like that start of something. Not sure what, though.

2024 Word of the Year Is “Rawdog”:

While the word originated as a vulgar slang term referring to having sex without a condom, rawdogging ended up crossing over into mainstream usage for a wide variety of activities, like the travel trend in which a passenger sits through a flight without any distractions. 

If Ol' Dirty Bastard wasn’t mainstream appeal, then I don’t know what is.

I’m Not a Robot (Short Film): A failed CAPTCHA test sends a woman into an identity crisis.

Nice little sci-fi short you can watch for free on the New Yorker website.

Government Fears Liberal Jan. 6 Style Attack as Trump Inauguration Nears

Amusing as it is to imagine the likes of Rachel Maddow, Jen Rubin or any of their fans bum rushing the capitol, one’s imagination is the only place that’s ever happening. 

In no way am I saying a “liberal insurrection” is imminent, but I think Ken is missing something here. Election Fraud conspiracies have spread like wildfire since Trump’s victory. Right now, there’s a festering subreddit with tens of thousands of subs dedicated to exposing a mass conspiracy that handed Trump the election.

I know liberals like to think they aren’t susceptible to disinformation and propaganda (even though a big part of their messaging is that no one is immune), but these left-wing conspiracy theorists sounds an awful like the right-wing conspiracy theorists from 2020. Except for, you know, This Time It’s Real(tm) /s.

Wrote this a couple of years ago. Thought it was relevant now, and a good refresher on the lengths Zuckerberg went to to ban TikTok: As Tiktok goes so goes the nation

Good resource: How to donate to LA fire victims, and avoid falling for scams | Mashable

Periodic reminder: I don’t do any affiliate marketing or paid recommendations. Whatever I share is because I wanted to share 🫡.

Maybe that changes one day; I don’t want to say never. But if it does, I’ll be loud about it.

The Killmonger Problem (YouTube)

A sharp analysis of the movie Gladiator II, Black radicals portrayed in cinema, and the “bad guys have a point” phenomenon.

Every smartphone in LA accidentally received a wildfire evacuation alert | TechCrunch:

But on Thursday afternoon, a wildfire evacuation alert was mistakenly sent to the smartphone of every resident in Los Angeles County, a region with more than 9 million people.

Oof.

Needle (iOS) is a music-based social media platform. I’ve been perusing the feed, discovering new music for the last few days and I like it. It’s cozy and simple to use.

Currently, the app reports no data collection and it looks like it’s an indie developer. 👍

Let’s be friends on there so I can subject you to my music taste.

DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOTOS (Short Film)

Even the most well-meaning Americans have a terrible blind spot when it comes to Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans, and a legacy of US policy that has cause a lot of harm.

The best way to help Puerto Ricans achieve self determination is to learn your history, and understand how US policy negatively affects the island today.

This short firm by Bad Bunny doesn’t address everything, but it’s a good start.

Winter Vibes

I found this cool archive site of Japanese woodblock prints, today. Here’s some of my favorites with a winter theme.

Unknown by Yoshida Hiroshi

Early Winter in the Mountains by Kohei Sasajima

Higashi Honganji Temple by Kotozuka Eiichi

Camellia in Winter

Almost There by Rome Joshua

Beauty and Children in Winter by Kikugawa Eizan

Mt. Rainier by Yoshida Toshi

44 Akasaka by Utagawa Hiroshige II

Snow at Matsuchiyama by Utagawa Hiroshige

Cybertruck explodes in front of Trump-branded Hotel, Elon Musk vows to get to the bottom of things. Satire, symbolism dead, etc etc.

The whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now.

Will post more information as soon as we learn anything.

We’ve never seen anything like this. https://t.co/MpmICGvLXf

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 1, 2025

I’ve been in a relatively mild comment argument on Instagram for two days about whether the beach level in Mario Sunshine is Frutiger Aero.

I need to reassess some things in my life lmao.

The New York Post is very upset that some “punks” spray painted “Deny Defend Depose” on Jeffery Epstein’s old mansion.

NYT has been taking Ls for a hundred years.

burning protest | Flickr by Alex Schaefer:

Prints for purchase

The Will Smith Spaghetti Index has become a measure of progress in AI generated video.

Here’s the latest posted to r/chatgpt:

Still looks like shit.

My Letter box log of Se7en (Spoilers):

Maybe this is an obvious detail, but I hadn’t noticed before. For the entire film, detectives Summerset and Mills sludge through damp darkness searching for the truth. It’s not until the third and final act that we ever see the sun. And in that last minute, the truth is revealed in a dark and damp box.

I also noticed how Fincher used themes of beginnings and endings as a sort of misdirect. I don’t recall how I thought Seven would end when I first saw the movie, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was Summerset who’d be killed—the old detective days from retiring. What made the ending so stunning, other than the obvious, was that it was the new detective with the new wife and child who fell victim to John Doe.

I have a prediction for 2025 that I think is inevitable:

Big media conglomerates will start acquiring publishing platforms like Substack. Indie journalists who’ve strayed too far from the trad-media script will be deprioritized in the platforms’ recommendation engines.

People will cry fowl but there won’t be much anyone (in the US) can do about it. I can even see some legislation passed to help these acquisitions in some way. Assuming the media can sweet-talk the President enough to avoid a veto.

Edit: Looks like Elon tried purchasing Substack back in 2023 according to a recent report. 😅

MAGA and tech bros fighting for the worst type of person award.

Theatre drama: According to a Reels post by castingbythem, some theatres over reported the number of employees by tens or even hundreds and made off with millions of dollars in some cases. Allegedly, these theatres counted unpaid actors and staff as full-time paid employees.

As someone dialed into the Atlanta theatre scene in 2020, I remember how many actors, comedians, and stage workers struggled to meet their basic needs during the pandemic. I’m sure none of the Atlanta-based theatres were this dishonest, but I hope the media look into this so people can know the truth.

John Stewart on Crossfire (2005):

Tucker Carlson: Is John Kerry the best the Democrats can do?

Jon Stewart: I always thought in a democracy—and again, I don’t know, I’ve only ever lived in this country—that there’s a process where they call’em primaries. And they don’t always go with the best, but they go with whoever won.

What a quaint little anecdote about our old Democratic process. Anyway, you can see on the pundits faces just how fucked they knew they were. Good interview.

Futurism, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 1954:

FUTURISM, initiated with the publication of Marinetti’s Manifesto of Futurism in 1909, was the most aggressive and, if short-lived, certainly the most polemic art movement of our time. Its revolutionary ideas were empiric rather than pedagogic and were filled with iconoclasm in its defiant repudiation of traditional art, supplanting idols of the past with the machine of the present.

I won’t pretend to know anything about art history, let alone the Futurism art movement, but these paintings are beautiful.