Despite of my sniffiness about AI, I have to admit that Amazon.com’s “books people like you liked” algorithm is pretty good. That’s not surprising, because they have so much data behind it, nobody has been arsed to spend the money to manipulate the reviews in my part of the market, and the algorithm is really easy to implement. I’ve tried to cut back on my purchases via Amazon, but sometimes I use the recommendations to search for the books on Ebay.
[Warning: Mild Movie Spoilers]
This should be a strong sermon but it won’t – it’s going to meander a bit, because today I don’t feel strong.
[Warning: Spiders]
If you’re already feeling sad, just skip this post.
I have come to see James Baldwin as one of the greatest American writers. 
His writing flows perfectly from soft and thoughtful to adamantine; it’s hard for me to describe it because I don’t play at that level and I never will.
When I was done interviewing Tom Van Vleck, he suggested I might want to read Mechanizing Proof, by Donald MacKenzie. [wc] Which, I did.
See it.
It’s a mix of comedy and spoken word oration, and it is incredibly good. Make sure your FOX-watching homophobic uncle watches it by mistake.
Gadsby manages to break down the inconsistencies inherent in “free speech” in the most brilliant, painful, passionate way I’ve ever heard. Technically, it’s comedy, so I’ll say this is one of the great comedy performances – and a great replacement for the work of another comedian I used to love, who turned out to be a disgrace.
In the Year of The Pig [wc] was one of the first feature-length documentaries attempting to reveal the foolishness and corruption of the Vietnam War.
This posting contains spoilers for Infinity War.
Imagine you’re a graduate student in American History and you write a thesis that’s so good, so striking, and so timely that it’s deservedly a best-seller: 200,000 copies. As Ray Wylie Hubbard says, “careers have been built on less.”