From January 2017, A.R. Moxon on Nazis:

Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives anymore.

They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?

Tags: A.R. Moxon · Nazis · politics

A 10-hour ambient cover of Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar soundtrack, perfect for relaxing, focus, studying, or drifting off to sleep.

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I don’t know about you, but my brain is short-circuiting a bit from the news today, so I was glad to run across this video of Benedict Cumberbatch reading Ross Beeley’s letter published by McSweeney’s in 2011 called An Open Letter to the Gentleman Blow-Drying His Balls in ...

Back in June, I posted about the 4K restoration of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai coming out in theaters; here’s the trailer: I just checked and the 4K version appears to be out on streaming and 4K Blu-ray. The 4K Blu-ray is available from the Criterion Collection and inc...

Reupping this Jamelle Bouie piece from Dec: Now Is Not the Time for Surrender. He’s talking about Democratic politicians and they still are not doing much to oppose Trump. This is driving me *nuts*. Fight, you assholes!

The planned new spinoff of the CBS series “FBI” will focus on CIA agents and is currently titled “FBI: CIA”. 😂 Not even The Simpsons at its peak could have come up with something this nonsensical.

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The full trailer for season three of The White Lotus. “You will leave an entirely different person.”

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Director Denis Villeneuve steps into the Criterion Closet to choose and talk about a few of his favorite films, including Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors trilogy, Steven Soderbergh’s Che, and Seven Samurai. At one point, he says, “We all look like Smurfs next to Fellini.”

Tags: Criterion Collection · Denis Villeneuve · movies · video

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“NBA greats think this D-II coach is a basketball genius. So why don’t you know who he is?” I love reading about stuff like this.

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I spent too long playing Neal Agarwal’s Simulation Clicker. “Stimulation Clicker takes players on the all-too-familiar journey from ‘this is neat’ to ‘this is ruining my life.’”

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ElevationLab is selling a waterproof AirTag case that provides 10-years of battery life. “Easy assembly: Discard AirTag’s battery and door, place on the custom contact, install AA batteries, screw shut.”

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TabBoo is a browser extension that adds “random jumpscares to sites you’re trying to avoid”.

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The New Yorker is 100 years old this year and part of the celebrations include an exhibition at the NYPL that showcases “founding documents, rare manuscripts, photographs, and timeless cover and cartoon art” from the magazine.

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In June 1971, the BBC aired a segment on a “mysterious” and “niche” sports imported from America called “jogging”. It’s in black & white, which makes it feel even older than it is, and they interview (while jogging!) Tory MP Ernest Marples, who says he often jogs to Parliament from his house in a lounge suit. This is something straight out of Monty Python…more interviews with people while they are running please.

BTW, Wikipedia has this to say about Marples:

In later life, Marples was elevated to the peerage before fleeing to Monaco at very short notice to avoid prosecution for tax fraud.

Once a runner, always a runner. (thx, dunstan)

Tags: Ernest Marples · running · sports · video

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A history of computer screensavers, from dumb terminal screen dimming in the 70s to flying toasters and beyond.

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From Teen Vogue: How Trans Kids Can Protect Themselves Now That Trump Is in Office. “Despite what can seem like a deluge of anti-trans bills, policies, and language, there are a lot of people on your side, fighting for trans rights.”

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“The Wiener Holocaust Library, one of the largest Nazi-era archives in the world, has launched a new online portal putting over 150,000 pages of evidence of the Holocaust and those who resisted it at the hands of researchers worldwide.”

80 years ago today, the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. An estimated 1.1 million people (Jews, Poles, Russian POWs, Roma) were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1940 and 1945, and this date was subsequently chosen by the United Nations as Internatio...

“The Homosaurus is an international linked data vocabulary of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) terms.”

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Oh this is just delightful: for the opening of his documentary film on the history of music on SNL he co-directed with Oz Rodriguez, Questlove produced what the NY Times calls “a high-speed, six-minute DJ mix of SNL music highlights”. So. Good. From the same piece in the ...

The Source of the Irish Potato Famine Pathogen Is Finally Identified. “Researchers nailed down the Andes Mountains in South America as the birthplace of Phtytophthora infestans, otherwise known as potato blight or late blight.”

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Oh man, very sad news: Pableaux Johnson has died. If you were at SXSW in the late 90s or early 00s, you probably ran into Pableaux, probably at a big dinner he threw, probably him handing you, a stranger just minutes before, a plate of food. Fuck.

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Without really meaning to, this week I’ve posted a few related articles around the theme of how to survive the next four years of the new oligarchical, authoritarian regime here in the US. I thought it would be helpful to compile them into one post, with excerpts that are pa...

This post by Matt Webb on “a bunch of stuff that happened” works best when you imagine the last three lines being read by Ricky Jay (a la in Magnolia).

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“Live, laugh, tape fish on ATMs.” Last year, a Utah teen was arrested for taping fish to ATMs and posting pictures of the fishy ATMs to an Instagram account.

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From Antiques Roadshow in 1990, a look at a rare first edition copy of The Hobbit. It’s got a dust jacket and is accompanied by a personal letter from J.R.R. Tolkien himself.

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Global economy could face 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 from climate shocks, say actuaries. They say conventional predictions ignore “tipping points, sea temperature rises, migration and conflict as a result of global heating”.

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A real-time map of passenger trains in the US and Canada. Good for marveling at the teensy, embarrassing number of trains operating in the US.

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From astronomer Yuri Beletsky, a photo of Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) arching over ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. Unfortunately, it seems like the comet disintegrated as it swooped around the Sun, always a danger. The nucleus of Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3) held together dur...

An interview with Questlove on his upcoming documentary on the history of music on SNL. “I will never forget seeing Devo as a 7-year-old — laughing like: ‘Are these aliens? What the hell is this?’” The film starts with a 6-min DJ mix by Questlove.

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