Daylight Savings Time Links

The extra hour today means I have time to post some links. There are many, as it’s been a while.

 

Nuclear and Environment

“Lockheed Announces Breakthrough on Nuclear Fusion Energy.”

Matthew L. Wald, “Calls to Use Yucca Mountain as a Nuclear Waste Site, Now Deemed Safe.”

Rizwan Asghar, “Illicit Nuclear Trafficking.”

“Emergency Agencies Practice Response to Nuclear Explosion in Times Square.” (Didn’t DeLillo have something to say about this kind of thing . . . ?)

Jonathan Tirone, “U.S. Said to Join Russia in Blocking Nuclear Safety Moves.”

“Notice to Congress: Continuation of the National Emergency on Russian Fissile Material.”

Darren Boyle, “Inside China’s Top Secret Nuclear Bunker: Cold War Relic Built into a Mountain to Fend off Soviet Attack Is Now a Tourist Attraction.” (Thanks to Terrence Ross for a lot of the above links.)

“Asgard’s Fire,” on thorium reactors.

Ari Phillips, “New Study Details Alarming Acceleration in Sea Rise.”

Continue reading

A Few More October Links

Hyperarchivalism

Jason Schreier, “It Took Two Years To Make Final Fantasy VII‘s Midgar in Minecraft.”

It Took Two Years To Make Final Fantasy VII's Midgar In Minecraft

And more in huge fantasy worlds created in Minecraft: Laura Hudson, “How Fans Created Game of Thrones in a Minecraft Map the Size of LA.”

And I think this may very well be the death-knell of the age of superhero blockbusters (but also a megatext I’ll be writing about in, say, 2022): Dee Lockett, “DC Announces 10 New Superhero Films in Next Six Years, Including Wonder Woman (and Suicide Squad [!?] and Shazam [!?] and Cyborg [!?] . . . this can’t go well).

Continue reading

October Links

Hyperarchivalism and Big Data

Evgeny Morozov, “The Planning Machine: Cybersyn and the Origins of the Big Data Nation.”

Frank Pasquale reviews Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century: “Capital’s Offense: Law’s Entrenchment of Inequality.”

Nathan Jurgenson, “View From Nowhere: On the Cultural Ideology of Big Data.”

Cathy O’Neil, “Who Big Data Thinks We Are (When It Thinks We’re Not Looking),” a review of Christian Rudder’s Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking).

Julia Prescott, “We Saw the World’s First Throne Made Out of Jerry Macguire VHS Tapes.”

And Torie Rose DeGhett, “The War Photo No One Would Publish.”

Continue reading

The Trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Adaptation of Pynchon’s Inherent Vice and Other Links

Life has been quite busy, so I don’t even have that big of a backlog of links, but there’s been some interesting things afoot and I’m way behind on some of this stuff. So, without further ado. . . .

The trailer to Paul Thomas Anderson’s forthcoming adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice (2009) should be required viewing:

 

Logan Hill, “Pynchon’s Cameo, and Other Surrealities: Paul Thomas Anderson Films Inherent Vice.”

And a reflection on the trailer from some of the people at Grantland.

Continue reading

A Couple More September Links (Spoiler, the US Still Has Nukes in Europe)

Leigh Phillips, “Four European States Host US Nuclear Bombs, WikiLeaks Reveals.”

Gregory Fried, “The King Is Dead: Heidegger’s ‘Black Notebooks.'”

Cory Doctorow, “Stephen Harper Sells Canada: China Can Secretly Sue to Repeal Canadian Laws.”

boundary 2 has made available Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s “The Future of Reading? Memories and Thoughts toward a Genealogical Approach.”

Maya Rhodan, “Nearly 5 Million Google Passwords Leaked to Russian Site.”

Simon Parkin, “Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest.”

Podcast: Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey.

And Carolyn Kellogg on Alison Bechdel and Terrance Hayes receiving MacArthur Fellowships.

Many September Links

As predicted, I have been quite busy indeed and have not had a chance to post anything over the past couple of weeks. A bunch of fascinating stuff has been happening, a bunch of interesting books are coming out, etc., so I’m sad that I’ve been remiss in my duties. Hopefully this large batch of links will make up for that.

 

Apocalypse and After

George Dvorsky, “Have Humans Already Conquered the Threat of Extinction?”

Or not. Graham Turner and Cathy Alexander, “Limits to Growth Was Right: New Research Shows We’re Nearing Collapse.”

One of the first reviews of Naomi Klein’s new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.

Jessica Corbett and Ethan Corey, “5 Crucial Lessons for the Left from Naomi Klein’s New Book.”

Eric Holthaus, “New Study Links Polar Vortex to Climate Change.”

Eugene Thacker on Radiolab.

And who knows where to put this one: Alison Flood, “Margaret Atwood’s New Work Will Remain Unseen for a Century.”

Continue reading

Beginning of the Semester Links, Fall 2014

Tomorrow I return to the classroom at the University of Pittsburgh for another semester. As I imagine that this will also mean I’m about to be considerably busier, and that this will mean a bit less posting on the ole blog (links or otherwise), some links to mark the occasion.

Disaster and Environmental 

Daniel Politi, “Napa Valley Earthquake Is the Strongest to Hit the Bay Area Since 1989.”

Ferguson

Douglas Williams, “Love Me, Ferguson, I’m a Liberal.”

Alexandra Schwartz, “On Being Seen: An Interview with Claudia Rankine from Ferguson.”

Matt Apuzo and Michael S. Schmidt, “In Washington, Second Thoughts on Arming the Police.” Continue reading

Ferguson and Other Links

Ferguson

The running blog from Fergusons latest: Ben Mathis-Lilley and Elliot Hannon, “Officer Who Stopped Michael Brown Did Not Know He Was a Robbery Suspect.”

Photos from Ferguson.

Robert Stephens II, “In Defense of the Ferguson Riots.”

An open letter from David Simon.

Rembert Browne, “The Front Lines of Ferguson.”

“This Time, For Once, What It Is, It Is.”

Daniel Politti, “After a Day of Calm, Ferguson Reignites: Looting, Clashes with Police and Tear Gas.”

Jack Mirkinson, “Police Threaten to Shoot, Mace Reporters in Ferguson.”

Dylan Scott, “Mayor Defends Police: I Can’t Second-Guess These Officers.”

Jamelle Bouie, “The Militarization of the Police.”

The militarization of US Police.

Sahil Kapur, “House Democrat Unveils Bill to Demilitarize Local Police.”

Rand Paul, “We Must Demilitarize the Police.”

“There’s a Police Coup Going on Right Now in Ferguson, MO.”

Matthew Yglesias, “Enough is Enough in Ferguson.”

Mychal Denzel Smith, “The Death of Michael Brown and the Search for Justice in Black America.”

LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, “Policing the Police.”

Joe Coscorelli, “Obama Treads Lightly, Again, on Ferguson: ‘Listen and Heal,’ Don’t ‘Holler and Shout.'”

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, “The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race.”

And a must see: John Oliver on Ferguson.

Continue reading