An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for April 20, 2022.

Here’s a variety of notable things I’ve recently found that you may also be interested in checking out:

• Quick reminder, T Thorn Coyle’s crowdfunding effort with 37 hours to go: “The Steel Clan Saga: Action Adventure Epic Fantasy. Queer Action Adventure with Motorcycles, Dragons, Anarchy, and Swords.”—”My Name is T. Thorn Coyle and this is my second Kickstarter campaign. My first campaign—Bookshop Witch—was very successful. Kickstarter even named it a “Project We Love.” That inspired me to reach out to readers with more stories from the recesses of my mind. I love fantasy, magic, and the mystery of the barely known. My favorite stories hinge on the thought that something strange and wondrous is always just around the corner, or glimmering at the edges of our vision. And I try to live my life as if this is so. Author of four major fantasy-based novel series, ten multi-genre short story collections, and several nonfiction books, I’ve written since around age five. This is also when my voracious reading habit began, as I sought out a sense of wonder, escaping the sometimes brutal reality of my childhood. I often say books saved my life—thanks librarians!—and I mean it. But though I read a lot of fantasy of all stripes, and while epic and adventure fantasy delights me, sometimes I want… more. I want epic fantasy that does not rely on a quasi-feudal order. I want queer characters, a variety of cultures, and diverse religions. I want books where people like you and me fight for what they love. Apparently my subconscious agrees, because as soon as I began thinking on it, the Knights of the Steel Clan roared up, motorcycles rumbling, steel in hand, emphatically saying, ‘We are free.'”
• “When to See a Fuckton of Planets Align in the Sky This Month. There is so much planetary alignment happening in the next few months, you’re going to be sick of planets.”
• Tweet—”TWO YEARS FROM TODAY: The “Great American Eclipse” will carve a path of totality right through the heart of Texas. For up to 4 minutes, near-total darkness will occur in the middle of the afternoon. Austin, San Antonio, and DFW are included. Mark your calendars! #txwx”
• Thread—”On the origins of Easter: a thread. By the 150s CE ancient Christians held annual observances of Jesus’ death and (supposed) resurrection. They didn’t fix exact dates until 325, but that was a resolution to a debate that had been running since the mid-2nd century. 1/21″
• “The Conspiracy to Turn Aaron Into Moses’ Brother. Aaron seems to be an afterthought in Moses’ Exodus story and Moses seems to be an alien branch on Aaron’s family tree.”
• Thread—”Another Witch Bottle has been found! And its contents have never been studied…until now. A magical-medicine thread.”
• “Psychic Beats Shit Out of Man Counting Tarot Cards” (This is a spoof site). This one isn’t: “Improve Your Tarot Readings by Avoiding ‘Meaning Paralysis’. Stop asking “what do these cards mean?” and tell the story right in front of you.”
• Tweet—”New feature: I spent several months looking into a fascinating, upsetting, very complicated dispute in the herbalism world, over whether one of its most famous teachers is abusive.” See “The Herbalism Community Is at War With Itself Over Abuse Allegations. Famed herbalist and teacher Susun Weed says anger is part of her teaching method. Some of her former apprentices say it went too far.”
• “TikTok witches are accusing each other of being toxic, gatekeepers, and misinformation spreaders. WitchTok is a popular TikTok subgenre with 25 billion views on tagged videos. The community appears welcoming and inclusive, but there is also infighting. Accusations of misinformation and “gatekeeping” are dividing the community.”
• Tweet—”The Can Can is a Dionysian hymn??” Watch “Orpheus in the Underworld – French Can Can (Final: Le Galop Infernal).” Tweet—”For those of us who love Chthonian deities and myths, there is a very worthwhile rabbit hole in the tweet quoted by this quoted tweet…”
• “Create Your Own Tarot Cards – Preorder for Bonuses“—”Preorder Create Your Own Tarot Cards by Adrianne Hawthorne and Theresa Reed, and receive an exclusive invitation to a zoom event with the authors on May 19, at 6pm CT! Plus, the first 100 people who submit their preorders will receive autographed bookplates! Preorder your copy by May 1, 2022 from any retailer and enter your information into the form below.” About Create Your Own Tarot Cards: A step-by-step guide to designing a unique and personalized tarot deck [Amazon, Publisher, Local Library] by Adrianne Hawthorne and Theresa Reed, due May 2022—”Learn about the art of reading tarot cards, and then paint your own colorful deck! This step-by-step guide includes card stock with 80 blank cards so you can practice right away. With painting lessons from Adrianne Hawthorne of Ponnopozz, an artist with a vibrant, contemporary style, Create Your Own Tarot Cards will inspire you to make your own beautifully expressive tarot cards in a variety of colors. In addition to learning how to create a personalized deck, Theresa Reed, The Tarot Lady, situates you in the world of tarot with a thorough introduction to this ancient art, as well as an overview of tarot reading. It’s a perfect primer for beginners! Acrylic and gouache painting projects are presented in a step-by-step format with easy-to-follow instructions. All projects are accompanied by beautiful photography and a clean, contemporary design. The included card stock with 80 blank, one-sided cards (2.25″ × 4.25″) allows you to jump right in to painting. Create Your Own Tarot Cards encourages you to craft your own personal colorful style. Connect with your creativity and intuition with this fresh and fun take on this timeless tradition.”
• From 2016: On the Animation of Statues by Brian Cotnoir—”On the Animation of Statues Is a collection of quotes, primary sources, notes and comments on the late-antiquity practice of “ensouling” statues in order to commune with the gods. Drawing from Iamblichus, Proclus, Greek Magical Papyri, Corpus Hermeticum, hymns, poetry and music, although the practice is never explicitly described, a hazy outline emerges. One thing, the composition of statues and talismans is, like alchemy, a hieratic art. Included Michal Psellos’ Epistle 187 a text on the animation of statues.”
• Crowdfunding effort for “More Asexual Fairy Tales. The third collection of Asexual Tales from Elizabeth Hopkinson, illustrated by Anna Hopkinson.”
• “Celestial Anatomy by Jam Doughty“—”Foldout zine, featuring illustrations of space and planets composed of ligaments, bones, trash, and other magical substances. About the artist: ‘I’m Jam! I live in Chicago with my partner, my pet snake Cromis, and my bike, Pizzaboi. I draw creatures, plants, buildings, things I find in the street, and collages of found paper ephemera. I aim to make art that helps people see themselves as part of an ecosystem.'”
• The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Malcolm Gaskill, due November 2022—”A gripping story of a family tragedy brought about by witch-hunting in Puritan New England that combines history, anthropology, sociology, politics, theology and psychology. In Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails, property vanishes, and people suffer convulsions as if possessed by demons. A woman is seen wading through the swamp like a lost soul. Disturbing dreams and visions proliferate. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics and the community becomes tangled in a web of distrust, resentment and denunciation. The finger of suspicion soon falls on a young couple with two small children: the prickly brickmaker, Hugh Parsons, and his troubled wife, Mary. Drawing on rich, previously unexplored source material, Malcolm Gaskill vividly evokes a strange past, one where lives were steeped in the divine and the diabolic, in omens, curses and enchantments. The Ruin of All Witches captures an entire society caught in agonized transition between superstition and enlightenment, tradition and innovation.”
• Spaceships Over Glasgow: Mogwai and Misspent Youth [Amazon UK, Bookshop UK, Publisher] by Stuart Braithwaite, due September 2022—”Born the son of Scotland’s last telescope-maker, Stuart Braithwaite was perhaps always destined for a life of psychedelic adventuring on the furthest frontiers of noise in MOGWAI, one of the best loved and most groundbreaking post-rock bands of the past three decades. Modestly delinquent at school, Stuart developed an early appetite for ‘alternative’ music in what might arguably be described as its halcyon days, the late 80s. Discovering bands like Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and Jesus and Mary Chain, and attending seminal gigs (often incongruously incognito as a young girl with long hair to compensate for his babyface features) by The Cure and Nirvana, Stuart compensated for his indifference to school work with a dedication to rock and roll … and of course the fledgling hedonism that comes with it. After an initial outing in the unfortunately (and provocatively named), Pregnant Nun, Stuart – alongside teenage friends Dominic Aitchison and Martin Bulloch – upgrades the band name to MOGWAI. They release their first single ‘Tuner/Lower’ in 1996. Championed by the legendary John Peel, and making a name for themselves for tinnitus-inducing live shows, MOGWAI’S subsequent single ‘Summer’ is named Single of the Week in NME. Their first album, Mogwai Young Team, follows to significant critical acclaim. Spaceships Over Glasgow is a lovesong to live rock and roll; to the passionate abandon we’ve all felt in the crowd (and some of us, if lucky enough, from the stage) at a truly incendiary gig. It is also the story of a life lived on the edge; of the high-times and hazardous pit-stops of international touring with a band of misfits and miscreants.”
• Tweet—”50 years in the making: the complete works of Voltaire in 205, meticulously edited volumes are now complete. Major celebratory event in Paris in early June” “Journées Voltaire 2022: appel à communications.”
• Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice. A Manual of Traditional Techniques. Volume Two: Delineating Planetary Meaning by Demetra George—”Developed Under the Shadows of the Egyptian temples, Hellenistic astrology is an ancient form of divination inherited from Mesopotamian wisdom traditions. Distilled in Græco-Roman antiquity, and refined in the fires of philosophy and astronomy, it forms the bedrock of traditional western astrology (while also bearing profound similarities to Jyotish or Vedic astrology). Drawing on a body of Greek texts that have remained largely untranslated for almost two-thousand years, Demetra George brings the contemporary practice of astrology back to its ancient roots. Scholar, translator, and practitioner, her work reveals the potent cosmological veins that bear the lifeblood of traditional astrology. Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice is, in essence, a training manual for the study and practice of Hellenistic astrology. In two volumes, it provides the complete foundations and detailed dynamics of ancient chart-reading techniques. Each volume and each technique is richly illustrated with diagrams, example charts, and practical exercises. Volume 2: Delineating Planetary Meaning. If the planets are the essential forces ruling life in the sublunary world, the houses are the principles that bring them down to earth and ground them in our everyday reality. Building on the foundations of volume one (Assessing Planetary Condition), volume two begins by exploring the ancient house system in rich detail, before providing a synthesis of planet-based and house-based approaches to delineating a chart. Having articulated the principles of delineation, the book then explores the different systems for ascertaining the rulers of the entire nativity. Like the helmsman’s rudder that steers the vessel through the waters of existence, the masters and lords of the nativity provide the overarching principles that support and guide the native’s path through life as a whole.”
• The Critical Study of Non-Religion: Discourse, Identification and Locality [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Christopher R Cotter, part of the Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies series—”This book acts as a bridge between the critical study of ‘religion’ and empirical studies of ‘religion in the real world’. Chris Cotter presents a concise and up-to-date critical survey of research on non-religion in the UK and beyond, before presenting the results of extensive research in Edinburgh’s Southside which blurs the boundary between ‘religion’ and ‘non-religion’. In doing so, Cotter demonstrates that these are dynamic subject positions, and phenomena can occupy both at the same time, or neither, depending on who is doing the positioning, and what issues are at stake. This book details an approach that avoids constructing ‘religion’ as in some way unique, whilst also fully incorporating ‘non-religious’ subject positions into religious studies. It provides a rich engagement with a wide variety of theoretical material, rooted in empirical data, which will be essential reading for those interested in critical, sociological and anthropological study of the contemporary non-/religious landscape.”
• The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Janelle Monáe—”In The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, singer-songwriter, actor, fashion icon, activist, and worldwide superstar Janelle Monáe brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation—queerness, race, gender plurality, and love—become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in such a totalitarian landscape…and what the costs might be when trying to unravel and weave them into freedoms. Whoever controls our memories controls the future. Janelle Monáe and an incredible array of talented collaborating creators have written a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts—as a means of self-conception—could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether human, A.I., or other, your life and sentience was dictated by those who’d convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate. That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free. Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it’s like to live in such a totalitarian existence…and what it takes to get out of it. Building off the traditions of speculative writers such as Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor—and filled with the artistic genius and powerful themes that have made Monáe a worldwide icon in the first place—The Memory Librarian serves readers tales grounded in the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, but also reaching through to the worlds of memory and time within, and the stakes and power that exists there.”
• Hawk Mountain: A Novel [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by by Conner Habib, due July 2022—”An English teacher is gaslit by his charismatic high school bully in this tense story of deception, manipulation, and murder. Single father Todd is relaxing at the beach with his son, Anthony, when he catches sight of a man approaching from the water’s edge. As the man draws closer, Todd recognizes him as Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly in their teenage years but now seems overjoyed to have “run into” his old friend. Jack suggests a meal to catch up. And can he spend the night? What follows is a fast-paced story of obsession and cunning. As Jack invades Todd’s life, pain and intimidation from the past unearth knife-edge suspense in the present. Set in a small town on the New England coast, Conner Habib’s debut introduces characters trapped in isolation by the expansive woods and the encroaching ocean, their violence an expression of repressed desire and the damage it can inflict. Both gruesome and tender, Hawk Mountain offers a compelling look at how love and hate are indissoluble, intertwined until the last breath.”
• “‘Pandemic, Inc.’ author says financial predators made more than $1 billion off COVID.” About Pandemic, Inc: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by J David Mcswane—”For readers of War Dogs and Bad Blood, an explosive look inside the rush to profit from the COVID-19 pandemic, from the award-winning ProPublica reporter who saw it firsthand. The United States federal government has spent over $10 billion on medical protective wear and emergency supplies, yet as COVID-19 swept the nation, life-saving equipment such as masks, gloves, and ventilators was nearly impossible to find. In this brilliant nonfiction thriller, award-winning investigative reporter J. David McSwane takes us behind the scenes to reveal how traders, contractors, and healthcare companies used one of the darkest moments in American history to fill their pockets. Determined to uncover how this was possible, he spent over a year on private jets and in secret warehouses, traveling from California to Chicago to Washington DC, to interview both the most treacherous of profiteers and the victims of their crimes. Pandemic, Inc. is the story of the fraudster who signed a multi-million-dollar contract with the government to provide lifesaving PPE, and yet never came up with a single mask. The Navy admiral at the helm of the national hunt for additional medical resources. The Department of Health whistleblower who championed masks early on and was silenced by the government and conservative media. And the politician who callously slashed federal emergency funding and gutted the federal PPE stockpile. Winner of the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, McSwane connects the dots between backdoor deals and the spoils systems to provide the definitive account of how this pandemic was so catastrophically mishandled. Shocking and revelatory, Pandemic, Inc. exposes a system that is both deeply rigged, and singularly American.”
• “How the Internet Became Straight. Alexander Monea, author of “The Digital Closet,” argues that the internet became straight by suppressing everything that is not, forcing LGBTQIA+ content into increasingly narrow channels.”—”The internet is too important to be left to petty tyrants, and the platforms that increasingly mediate our access to the internet ought to be governed as public utilities.” About The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Alexander Monea, foreword by Violet Blue—”An exploration of how heteronormative bias is deeply embedded in the internet, hidden in algorithms, keywords, content moderation, and more. In The Digital Closet, Alexander Monea argues provocatively that the internet became straight by suppressing everything that is not, forcing LGBTQIA+ content into increasingly narrow channels—rendering it invisible through opaque algorithms, automated and human content moderation, warped keywords, and other strategies of digital overreach. Monea explains how the United States’ thirty-year “war on porn” has brought about the over-regulation of sexual content, which, in turn, has resulted in the censorship of much nonpornographic content—including material on sex education and LGBTQ+ activism. In this wide-ranging, enlightening account, Monea examines the cultural, technological, and political conditions that put LGBTQ+ content into the closet. Monea looks at the anti-porn activism of the alt-right, Christian conservatives, and anti-porn feminists, who became strange bedfellows in the politics of pornography; investigates the coders, code, and moderators whose work serves to reify heteronormativity; and explores the collateral damage in the ongoing war on porn—the censorship of LGBTQIA+ community resources, sex education materials, art, literature, and other content that engages with sexuality but would rarely be categorized as pornography by today’s community standards. Finally, he examines the internet architectures responsible for the heteronormalization of porn: Google Safe Search and the data structures of tube sites and other porn platforms. Monea reveals the porn industry’s deepest, darkest secret: porn is boring. Mainstream porn is stuck in a heteronormative filter bubble, limited to the same heteronormative tropes, tagged by the same heteronormative keywords. This heteronormativity is mirrored by the algorithms meant to filter pornographic content, increasingly filtering out all LGBTQIA+ content. Everyone suffers from this forced heteronormativity of the internet—suffering, Monea suggests, that could be alleviated by queering straightness and introducing feminism to dissipate the misogyny.”
• “YE ARE NOT GAWAIN. SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT is a tricky poem, in the literal sense that it’s full of tricks: a rug repeatedly pulled out from under you, a magician smirking and holding up a card that you cannot entirely be sure was yours.”
• “Brooklyn Library Offers Access to Banned Ebooks to Teens Across the U.S.“—”In 2021, there were over 1,500 book bans in U.S. school districts, representing over 1,000 unique titles. The books targeted are primarily books by and about people of color (especially by Black authors), books with LGBTQ content, and any title that could be interpreted as promoting social justice. In response, Brooklyn Public Library, one of the largest library systems in the U.S., has launched the Books UnBanned initiative, which allows anyone across the country between the ages of 13 and 21 to get a free eCard from BPL, which will give them access to 350,000 ebooks and 200,000 audiobooks, as well as access to databases.”
• “Censorship battles’ new frontier: Your public library. Conservatives are teaming with politicians to remove books and gut library boards.”
• “Why we need a socially responsible approach to ‘social reading’. There are better ways to do the reading, by working together and using digital tools.”
• Who could have predicted: “Author of ‘How to Murder Your Husband’ now on trial for husband’s murder. However, despite the title of her essay, a judge has ruled the online post can’t be presented as evidence against her, reports NBC News.”
• Tweet—”Happy birthday, Hubble! For its 32nd anniversary in orbit, Hubble captured a stunning image of five tightly bound galaxies caught up in a leisurely gravitational dance. In about 1 billion years, they will merge to form one giant elliptical galaxy:” “Celebrating Hubble’s 32nd Birthday With an Eclectic Galaxy Grouping.”—”The Isolated Menagerie of Five Galaxies Is Caught in a Gravitational Dance. In a lonely patch of the universe, five tightly grouped galaxies engage in a leisurely dance. Called the Hickson Compact Group 40 (HCG 40), this eclectic bunch includes three spiral-shaped galaxies, an elliptical galaxy and a lenticular (lens-like) galaxy. In about 1 billion years, they will collide and merge to form a giant elliptical galaxy. For its 32nd birthday, Hubble captured these galaxies at a very special moment in their lifetimes as they fall together and continue their dance, but before they merge. Scientists have cataloged more than 100 such compact galaxy groups, but HCG 40 is one of the most densely packed. Tight groups like this may have been more common in the early universe when their superheated, infalling material may have fueled very energetic black holes called quasars. Studying nearby groups like HCG 40 helps astronomers learn about how galaxies formed.”
• Is one of those words “Yuggoth”? “Mushrooms communicate with each other using up to 50 ‘words’, scientist claims. Professor theorises electrical impulses sent by mycological organisms could be similar to human language.”
• Tweet—”NEW: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy tells CNBC that he opposes the union drive by Amazon workers. “We happen to think they’re better off not” joining a union, he said. Jassy was paid $212 million last year, more than 7000 times the median Amazon worker.”
• Watch “Success Stories: Morgan Reed Puerto Rico.” Tweet—”CEO of Morgan Reed Group Puerto Rico is Brian Tenenbaum. In this video Brain promotes the settler colonial tax breaks which brought him to PR …” Tweet—”They’re not just saying the quiet thing out loud now, they’re advertising it.”
• “An Unintended Consequence of Student-Debt Relief. Will young Americans volunteer for the armed forces in adequate numbers?” Tweet—”The only reason the government won’t ever cancel student debt is because it’s the single best recruitment tool for funneling impoverished kids from small towns into the military as it’s the only way for them to escape a lifetime of generational abject poverty.” Tweet—”Next headline: ‘Unindented Consequences of Ending Hunger and Poverty’.” Tweet—”Will working Americans accept exploitation in adequate numbers?”
• “This Year’s TED Conference Will Be a Mini Epstein Reunion. The late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein attended the conference at least twice. Some of his former connections will be there this weekend.”
• “How Musk’s free-speech Twitter dream ends. In the past, online free-speech havens have either been forced to reverse course and add rules — or they’ve turned into free-fire zones enjoyed chiefly by extremists and trolls.”
• Thread—”Friends, Musk/Twitter headlines are all variants of ‘what will Elon do?’ It’s a signal of how lost we are. We obsess over one man and his whims because we don’t yet have the democratic rule of law needed to govern our information spaces. Without law power is dangerous.?[1/8].”
• This is either heaven or hell. I can’t decide. “Hivemapper Dashcam“—”The Hivemapper Network is building the world’s first blockchain-based global map & crypto miner dashcam for decentralized mapping.”
• Thread—”I don’t think people fully appreciate just how much, after invading Ukraine, people are hacking Russia. There are multiple hacks a week and it’s only increasing. For first time in internet history Russia is fair game for cyber attacks, and this is what it looks like …”
• Tweet—”Google Maps today has removed Blurred and Censored Effects from Russian Military Installations making them completely visible in High Definition for the general public, these Installations include Nuclear Silos, Naval Yards, Airbases, Command Centers, and Manufacturing Plants.” Counterpoint
• “Uber, Taxi Cabs, and the Limits of Digital Disruption. The perpetual whiplash created by the ride-hailing app’s dealings typifies Silicon Valley’s way of doing business—one that often leaves chaos in its wake.”—”Many Silicon Valley companies, and the firms that prop them up, aren’t creating an exciting new future so much as further confusing an already confounding and dysfunctional present.”
• “Muting your mic reportedly doesn’t stop big tech from recording your audio. We recommend using the double-mute technique.”—”In other words: grad students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were able to build machine learning models capable of determining what a teleconference app user was doing while their microphone was muted with greater than 80% accuracy.” “Don’t forget to double mute, folks. You’ll probably forget to double unmute from time to time, but the trade-off is keeping Google, Microsoft, and all the others from training their machines on the ambient sounds of your private life.”
• “Meet the Blockchain Detectives Who Track Crypto’s Hackers and Scammers. A handful of skilled independent investigators are uncovering high profile scams and hacks in the crypto and web3 world.”—”At the end of the day Jake Paul’s fans got screwed while he got rich.”
• “‘Jack Dorsey’s First Tweet’ NFT Went on Sale for $48M. It Ended With a Top Bid of Just $280. Crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi bought Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet as an NFT for $2.9 million last year. He listed the NFT for sale again at $48 million last week.” Tweet—”Looking forward to Elon Musks buying Twitter for $43bn so I can pick it up for $280 next year.”
• “Report: Tesla Factory Workers Are in Danger Because Elon Musk Hates the Color Yellow.”
• “Judge finds Tesla liable to Black former worker who alleged bias, but slashes payout. A federal judge said on Wednesday Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) was liable to a Black elevator operator who said the electric car company ignored racial abuse at the factory where he worked, but reduced a nearly $137 million jury award to $15 million.”
• “Tesla-Backed Startup Made Cheap Power a Debt Burden for the World’s Poorest. Development banks, venture capitalists, and Elon Musk backed pay-as-you-go consumer financing to bring solar power to African villagers. It hasn’t worked out that way.”
• “Axie Infinity’s Financial Mess Started Long Before Its $600 Million Hack. Blockchain apps’ great hope is facing a rocky future.”
• “Epic and Lego partner to build a metaverse for kids. Details are scarce.”
• “Some women shared the messages they get on Instagram. It’s not pretty. A study finds that Instagram failed to act on 90 percent of abuse sent via direct message to five high-profile influencers on the platform, including actress Amber Heard.”
• “Leading security companies Mandiant and CrowdStrike vow to collaborate. Two of the best known cybersecurity companies have been planning to cooperate with one another.”
• “What Is Dark MAGA? Trump Supporters Attempt Rebrand for 2024.”—”A small fringe of Donald Trump’s supporters is calling for the former president to get back on the highest stage of U.S. politics with a vengeance with the motto: #DarkMAGA. More of a meme than a political slogan, Dark MAGA is a post-alt-right aesthetic that promotes an authoritarian version of Trump in dystopian, Terminator-like images. In some, the Trump Tower is painted entirely in black and the former president is seen piercing through the screen with blue laser eyes. The hashtag first appeared on Twitter on January 21, and it had become increasingly popular by March. It can now be found in thousands of memes on Telegram and TikTok as well.”
• “Meet the woman behind Libs of TikTok, secretly fueling the right’s outrage machine. In just one year, the Twitter account has helped steer the outrage machine at the center of right-wing messaging and legislation.”
• Thread—”War of memes: why Z-war won’t end with peace. Some Western analysts unfamiliar with Eastern European cultural context perceive Z-war as an accident. They presume that Russian invasion results from some sort of “misunderstanding” or mistake which can be resolved via negotiations ?”.
• Tweet—”BREAKING: Finland making preparations to apply for NATO membership.” Also tweet—”After reports that the Russian Federation pulled its so-called troops to the border with Finland, the Finns published a video with tractors moving to the border with the Russian Federation. Bravo, Finland!”
• “Liberation Without Victory. In a wide-ranging conversation at his compound in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tells The Atlantic what Ukraine needs to survive—and describes the price it has paid.”—”When some leaders ask me what weapons I need, I need a moment to calm myself, because I already told them the week before. It’s Groundhog Day. I feel like Bill Murray.”
• “Russian war criminals may never be brought to justice. It’s worth doing, even if they are never brought to justice.”
• “GOP’s ‘Putin wing’ takes a bizarre stand on war crimes resolution. Six House Republicans opposed a resolution on collecting and preserving evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.”
• “U.S. conservative conference with Hungary’s hardline leader reflects Republican divide“—”America’s most prominent conservative gathering, founded on ideals of personal liberty and limited government, convenes in Budapest next month to celebrate a European leader accused of undermining democracy and individual rights. The May meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is seen by some Republicans as a test of how closely American conservatives are willing align themselves with a global movement of far-right, Russia-friendly strongmen embraced by former U.S. President Donald Trump.”
• Alex Jones’ Infowars files for bankruptcy protection—”Infowars filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as the website’s founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones faces defamation lawsuits over his comments that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. The bankruptcy filing Sunday in Texas puts civil litigation on hold while the business reorganizes its finances. In its court filing, Infowars said it had estimated assets of $50,000 or less and estimated liabilities of $1 million to $10 million. Creditors listed in the bankruptcy filing include relatives of some of the 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 school massacre in Connecticut.” Also “Alex Jones’ InfoWars files for bankruptcy in U.S. court.” Tweet—”Alex Jones still owes the Sandy Hook families literally millions of dollars. Filing for bankruptcy is him trying to avoid paying what he owes.”
• Southwest Missouri high school teacher accused of using critical race theory loses job“—”Kim Morrison, an English teacher at Greenfield High School, said the vote in mid-March came shortly after allegations surfaced about a worksheet she used as part of teaching the book ‘Dear Martin.’ This was her second year teaching the award-winning young adult novel about racism in an elective contemporary literature class. It was the first year students were assigned a 15-question worksheet called ‘How Racially Privileged Are You?'”
• “Florida DOE rejects 54 math books from state curriculum“—”Despite the large number of books rejected, the state said “every core mathematics course and grade” has at least one appropriate textbook to use in the coming school year. The announcement by FDOE said the K-5 books were rejected for not being “appropriately aligned” with Florida’s standards, as well as including prohibited topics and unsolicited strategies. The announcement was titled ‘Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students.'” Also tweet—”Florida Department of Education sent a memo to math publishers.” PDF—”we are advising publishers and school districts to not incorporate unsolicited strategies, such as social emotional learning and culturally responsive teaching.” Also tweet—”Yeah my guess was a stats book. I just flipped through my old stats book and found several examples. I guess when you can show mathematically the system is biased you have to ban the math.”
• “Opponents Call It the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill. Here’s What It Says. The Florida bill limits what educators can say about gender and sexuality, and could affect mental health services for all students.”
• “Emails show that the story DeSantis uses to defend his ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill is a lie.”
• “In ‘social-emotional learning,’ right sees more critical race theory. Conservative activists who have battled schools across the country over issues of race and gender have a new target: social-emotional learning programs that until recently were uncontroversial.”
• “Vote on naming a federal courthouse shows just how extremist House Republicans have become“—”Even in the worst of times, Congress can usually get its act together to name federal buildings. It’s kind of a joke about Congress, actually. But House Republicans just got to the point of divisive extremism where they won’t even reliably do that. Every member of Florida’s congressional delegation had co-sponsored a bill to name a federal courthouse after Justice Joseph W. Hatchett, the first Black man to serve on the Florida Supreme Court and the first Black judge on a federal appeals court in the Deep South. That means Republican Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio and 16 House Republicans, along with 11 House Democrats. The bill had passed the Senate. But then, at the last minute, a majority of Republicans in the House, including co-sponsors, turned against the bill in a moment that resonated with the racist attacks some Senate Republicans leveled at Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson in her Supreme Court confirmation hearings.”
• “Democrats Are Doing Basically Nothing to Counter the GOP’s ‘Pedophile’ Attacks. Democrats are rolling their eyes at GOP attacks that they’re, as Marjorie Taylor Greene put it, the ‘party of pedophiles.’ Should they do more?”
• “‘She Needs to Be Executed’: The Far-Right Is Doxxing School Officials They Think Are ‘Groomers’. On far-right forums, there’s been a significant spike in ultra-violent rhetoric, with users posting threats against specific teachers.” Also tweet—”Wow. Every second of this is worth the watch.”—”We will not let hate win.”
• Tweet—”Meanwhile, in Missouri, State Representative @IanMack03007724 gives one of the most powerful speeches I have ever heard. Turn on the volume. You want this timeline cleanse.” Watch “Gay Missouri Dem delivers emotional rebuke to GOP colleague over anti-trans bill.”
• “Woman who sued Tennessee sheriff for forcibly baptizing her is found dead.”
• Tweet—”Abortion in Oklahoma is now totally banned. Docs face 10 years in prison & a $100,000 fine. Rapists face 5 years. When docs helping women face a harsher penalty than rapists, you know it was never about protecting women. It was ALWAYS about religious, misogynist, hateful control.”
• “The Growing Religious Fervor in the American Right: ‘This Is a Jesus Movement’. Rituals of Christian worship have become embedded in conservative rallies, as praise music and prayer blend with political anger over vaccines and the 2020 election.”
• “Republicans double down on hating Black women. Racist attacks will be a core component of the 2022 GOP midterm strategy, and we should all brace ourselves for what’s to come.”—”Racist attacks are a core component of the 2022 Republican midterm strategy, and we should all brace ourselves for more of these attacks as the margins continue to close in the Georgia gubernatorial race.”
• “Wilder Man Charged After Pipe Bombs, ‘White Power’ Rifle Discovered .” Tweet—”Son of former VT GOP chair arrested w/ arsenal, including bomb-making material & a “White Power” assault rifle, after informant warns of plans to kill Black people & Democrats, which he openly admits to police, anticipating civil war.”
• “Tennessee Lawmaker Praises Hitler’s Work Ethic In Speech About Homeless People. State Sen. Frank Niceley (R) wishes Tennessee’s unhoused population could be more like the genocidal German dictator.” Tweet—”How does anyone even think of this example unless they have a bit of a Hitler boner?”
• Tweet—”America, where they handcuff children over a bag of potato chips, but it’s legal to work with an enemy power to overturn elections and incite neo-Nazis to overthrow the government.”
• Tweet—”Absurdity is the state assigning you The Grapes of Wrath at 16 and tear gassing you at 26 for understanding it.”
• “Trump Officials Failed to Provide Accounting of Foreign Gifts. The State Department could not compile a list of gifts for 2020, making it difficult to determine whether officials did anything improper.”
• “Princelings and War Crimes. The Kushner-bin Salman connection runs even deeper than you think.”
• “The One Way History Shows Trump’s Personality Cult Will End. An expert on autocracy assesses how far America has slipped away from democracy, and what it will take to get it back.”
• Thread—”A while ago, I started what I thought would be a quick exercise to confirm the narrative of J6 defendants as ‘ordinary’ people with few links to extremists, extremist groups/movements. I began work on a network visualization and now I no longer find this narrative convincing. 1/”
• “CNN Exclusive: ‘We control them all’: Donald Trump Jr. texted Meadows ideas for overturning 2020 election before it was called.”
• “Trump says Secret Service blocked him from joining Jan. 6 march to the Capitol. The ‘Secret Service said I couldn’t go. I would have gone there in a minute,’ the former president said.”
• Tweet—”NEW: What’s the end-game of Critical Race Theory fear-mongering? The complete privatization of public schools. Right-wing groups are stoking racist fears to make a profit. We spoke with a former Koch-network lobbyist & a current teacher to investigate the war on public schools.”
• Tweet—”Toward the end of a podcast yesterday, Jen Psaki was asked: ‘Is Peter Doocy a stupid son of a bitch or does he just play one on TV?’ She didn’t blink and said: ‘He works for a network that provides people with questions that might make anyone sound like a stupid son of a bitch.'”
• Thread—”Remember when the Washington Post Editorial Board issued an urgent warning two weeks ago that an insidious campaign to ‘cancel’ Mike Pence was underway at UVA? Well, this week, Pence finally gave his speech – and absolutely no “cancelling” happened. Some thoughts: 1/” “Maybe such a stark action was warranted by what was actually said in the Cavalier Daily? Well, I certainly invite everyone to read the student editorial: ‘We refuse to condone platforming Pence,’ it says. That’s it. They refuse to condone. As the WaPo argues: cancel culture! 8/” “The WaPo editorial board should look at this and come out with a self-critical assessment of what they got wrong, why they got it so wrong, and how that will shape their perspective on and coverage of the reactionary ‘cancel culture’ panic going forward. 21/” “That will, of course, never happen. The ‘cancel culture’ discourse is utterly uninterested in carefully weighing the available empirical evidence. It’s a moral panic in service of a reactionary political project. And as such, it has been, unfortunately, extremely effective. /end”
• Thread—”#TruthDecay, the diminishing role of facts in U.S. public life, has taken hold over the last two decades. What might make someone more susceptible—or more resistant—to this phenomenon? Our new report looks at the role of reasoning & cognitive biases. ?” Also “Individual Differences in Resistance to Truth Decay. Exploring the Role of Reasoning and Cognitive Biases.” Tweet—”Another troubling finding: Perceptions of key issues, worldviews, and even ways of processing information are now split according to partisanship and religiosity. This suggests that there’s a major barrier to finding common factual grounds on which to make progress.” Also “Truth Decay Is a Threat to Democracy. Here’s What You Can Do to Help Stop It.” Also “Countering Truth Decay. A RAND Initiative to Restore the Role of Facts and Analysis in Public Life.”
• “Elizabeth Warren: Democrats Can Avoid Disaster in November. More must be done to enact President Biden’s agenda before the midterm elections.”—”To put it bluntly: if we fail to use the months remaining before the elections to deliver on more of our agenda, Democrats are headed toward big losses in the midterms.” “New York Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a member of House Democratic leadership said the best thing Democrats could do is ignore the attack and focus on addressing the pocketbook issues that polls show Americans care about the most”
• Thread—”Just now, @jaketapper on @cnn asked me about the strategic & operational importance of the Moskva sinking. In my view, this is a very big deal for a variety of reasons. Here’s a new ? 1/14.” Also thread—”Some thoughts on the apparent sinking of the Russian Black Sea flagship Moskva: if confirmed, it’s likely to go down in history as one of the most audaciously successful attacks in modern naval history. /1.” Also tweet—”Ukrainian postage stamp showing a Ukranian soldier on Snake Island flipping the bird at the Russian guided missile cruiser Mosva, issued just two days before Ukranian anti-ship missiles sunk the Mosva in heavy seas.”
• “Russian artist faces jail over peace protest using supermarket price labels. Alexandra Skochilenko accused of displaying messages protesting against the invasion of Ukraine in a Saint Petersburg shop.”
• “Russian student journalists sentenced to labour over freedom of assembly video. In ‘absurd, made-up case’, four ex-Doxa journalists handed two-year sentences over video defending right of students to demonstrate.”
• “In Ukraine, Facebook fact-checkers fight a war on two fronts. Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers in Ukraine are trying to police a deluge of misinformation while also trying to survive.”
• “The gatekeepers who open America to shell companies and secret owners . Few gatekeepers to the U.S. financial system operate with as little oversight as the registered agents who serve as the only publicly known contact in states that allow company owners to remain anonymous.”
• “Countries’ climate pledges built on flawed data, Post investigation finds. An examination of 196 country reports to the United Nations reveals a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be versus the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere. The gap ranges from at least 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year — surpassing the annual emissions of China.”
• “Supply Chain Hurdles Will Outlast Pandemic, White House Says. The administration’s economic advisers see climate change and other factors complicating global trade patterns for years to come.” Also “Rotting fruit, spoiled vegetables: How Texas just made the supply chain even worse.”
• “Barrett hears climate case against her father’s ex-employer Shell.”
• “The unbearable heaviness of climate coloniality—”The extremely uneven and inequitable impacts of climate change mean that differently-located people experience, respond to, and cope with the climate crisis and related vulnerabilities in radically different ways. The coloniality of climate seeps through everyday life across space and time, weighing down and curtailing opportunities and possibilities through global racial capitalism, colonial dispossessions, and climate debts. Decolonizing climate needs to address the complexities of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, international development, and geopolitics that contribute to the reproduction of ongoing colonialities through existing global governance structures, discursive framings, imagined solutions, and interventions. This requires addressing both epistemic violences and material outcomes. By weaving through such mediations, I offer an understanding of climate coloniality that is theorized and grounded in lived experiences.”
• “NASA scientist arrested after chaining himself to Chase Bank as part of global climate protests. A NASA scientist and three others were arrested after chaining themselves to a Chase Bank on Wednesday. The action was one of more than a dozen climate protests staged by Scientist Rebellion across the globe. Scientists are calling for the world to stop using fossil fuels after a dire UN climate report.” Also “1,000+ Scientists Worldwide Engaged in Civil Disobedience for Climate Action.” Tweet—”basically covered by @truthout, and in an op-ed I “planted” in The Guardian in the hopes of breaking through the media silence. It didn’t work. Nothing in the NYT, nothing in LA Times, nothing in WaPo, nothing in Boston Globe, nothing USA Today.” Tweet—”Yes, the billionaire media will not help and as individuals they are often in denial. Voting failed. Protesting alone will fail. We must physically stop the oligarchy.”
• Thread—”There has been a massive uprising against fossil fuels over the last week. I keep getting glimpses of it, but I want to take a moment to take in how big it is & acknowledge the bravery of every person involved. Here are some of the protest actions: #ClimateAction.”
• “Portland Police Lack Written Policy for Surveillance Tools Like Room X-rays and Robot Cameras, Audit Finds. The bureau lacked policies for more than half of its surveillance tools.”
• “Food Insecurity Doubled Likelihood of Foregoing or Delaying Medical Care During First Year of COVID-19 Pandemic in U.S. Survey conducted in December 2020 also found minorities and low-income individuals were at elevated risk of food insecurity.”
• “UK Parliament At Westminster Investigates Forced Adoption, Calling For Mothers To Share Their Stories. Ministers are asking women to share their stories, as calls for an apology magnify.”—”It has been reported that around 60,000 mothers in Scotland were pushed to have their babies adopted because they were not married. And from the 1950s up until the 1970s, many women who were pressured into giving up their babies – up to 250,000 in the UK – weren’t permitted housing and social benefits, which could have allowed them to avoid adoption.”
• “The endless cycle of outrage and reform over policing in America. Police revert to entrenched practices when monitors move on, leadership changes and public scrutiny wanes.”
• “2 men accused of posing as federal officers to get near Secret Service. Authorities said the men impersonated DHS employees to get close federal law enforcement — including a U.S. Service Agent assigned to the first lady’s protective detail.” Thread. Thread—”I think the biggest takeaway from this story is that as bizarre as it is it was working and seemed to work for two years or so. The cover seems to have worked with the DC police dept and multiple members of federal law enforcement.” “2/ It wasn’t sniffed out by any US counter-intel operation. It came apart when a postal worker was assaulted in a totally unrelated incident in the building in question. A postal investigator interviewed the purported DHS agents as witnesses in that assault.” “3/ And that investigator kept pulling threads until it became clear that these two guys were full of shit and definitely weren’t federal agents. So really totally happenstance it was found out.” Also “Some More Details on That DC Caper.” Thread—”Good afternoon from Judge Harvey’s (virtual) court room where Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35 are having a detention hearing, after they were accused of impersonating federal law enforcement agents.”
• “Jury declines to convict defendants in Michigan Gov. Whitmer kidnapping trial. Anti-government militia members were charged with hatching a plot against the state’s Democratic leader, angry over restrictions she ordered in the early days of the pandemic.”
• “Utah: Governor Signs Bills Expanding Access, Legal Protections for Medical Cannabis Patients“—”Republican Gov. Spencer Cox has signed a pair of bills into law expanding legal protections for registered medical cannabis patients. Senate Bill 46 limits state employers from taking punitive actions against employees who consume cannabis products at home in compliance with the state’s medical marijuana access law. The legislation does not extend these protections to those who work for private employers, nor does it allow for employees to arrive to work under the influence of marijuana. The measure also forbids judges and juries from discriminating against medical cannabis patients in the course of a judicial proceeding.”
• “‘Practical abortion fund’ sees surge of patients traveling to Illinois“—”A wave of anti-abortion restrictions in Missouri and other states is increasingly bringing patients seeking the procedure to Illinois — and to “practical abortion funds” like the Midwest Access Coalition. Founded in 2015, the coalition connects patients seeking abortions with the resources to get them to clinics, handling the logistics of the trip and supplying money for lodging, child care and food during their stay. Now, the group is fielding 120 callers every month.”
• Thread“—People often assume that capitalism is defined by “markets and trade”. But markets and trade existed for thousands of years before capitalism. Capitalism is only 500 years old. So what is distinctive about this economic system? Three things (well, more, but three for now):” Also thread—”A total sleight of hand, frankly. Cities have also existed for thousands of years- does that render the massive growth in urbanization over the past century as unremarkable? No, it doesn’t. Ditto for the massive growth in markets serving as intermediary institutions.” “The idea that the actual multiplication and thickening of market relations isn’t fundamentally intertwined is just so implausible. Usually rests on selectively holding the naive beliefs that markets, as institutions, do not affect human behavior or induce political change.”
• “The German Experiment That Placed Foster Children with Pedophiles. With the approval of the government, a renowned sexologist ran a dangerous program. How could this happen?”
• “Canadians say evangelicals hurt society more than any other religion. The same survey found that atheists provided a net benefit to Canada.”—”When it comes to religion in Canada, most adults believe Catholics, evangelicals, and Muslims do more harm than good. All three religions had a net negative score when people were asked if their members helped or hurt Canadian society. Evangelical Christians received the lowest scores.”
• “The men who Leonardo da Vinci loved. Leonardo is the world’s most famous artist. But a new opera is shining fresh light on his private passions – by depicting his intense relationships with two of his assistants.”
• Tweet—”RIP Hermann Nitsch, 1938-1922, the great Viennese Actionism artist. You can see his performance films on Ubu:” Hermann Nitsch ” and listen to hours of his symphonies and musical works [MP3]:” Hermann Nitsch. Also Musik der 135. Aktion by Hermann Nitsch. Tweet—”This remains one of the very few pieces of music in my collection that is too foreboding to listen to in its entirety.”
• Watch “Why Robert Eggers made a Viking movie.”
• “She’s 13, transgender and stopped swimming because of Utah’s law against athletes like her. A young swimmer explains why she left the pool with Utah’s ban on transgender girls competing.”
• More Texas families with trans kids plan to flee the state. ‘I can’t fight offensively when I’m already down on the ground just trying to fend people off of my kids,’ one Austin mom said.” Tweet—”Lets call this what it is: transgender refugees fleeing political persecution and state violence. When trans people say there is a transgender genocide going on, we’re serious – they seek to eliminate us from all aspects of life and end trans children.”
• “Indiana high school cancels performances by its Native American mascots after TikTok video of them performing before a basketball game sparked widespread outrage. Anderson High School in Indiana has canceled appearances of its Native American mascots following a viral TikTok video. The video showed a male student dressed as a Native American chief running around in a feathered headdress and performing a ‘peace pipe’ ritual. Later on, he and a female mascot perform a traditional ‘war dance’ for the basketball fans. The video sparked backlash from local Native American leaders, who said the school’s longstanding tradition is offensive. School officials are now reviewing its use of the mascots.”
• “The quest to save Cantonese in a world dominated by Mandarin.”
• “‘Why not me?’: the boot camp giving Indigenous women the tools to run for office. Indigenous women are underrepresented in the US Congress and other elected offices. The Native Action Network wants to change that.”
• “Analysis: Dying for makeup — Lead cosmetics poisoned 18th-century European socialites in search of whiter skin“—”Eighteenth-century socialites have been depicted as vain, silly women who were poisoned by their white lead makeup. The Countess of Coventry, Maria Gunning — a society hostess reknowned for her beauty — is said to have refused to stop wearing foundation containing white lead, even as she lay dying. Why would women of that era knowingly choose to wear makeup that was killing them? Was beauty worth dying for? Or was the makeup not to blame? I am a scientist who has been studying lead poisoning for 30 years, with a particular interest in women’s exposure to lead. My research shows that women metabolize lead differently from men, women exposed to lead as children have elevated blood lead levels 20 years later, and women exposed to lead are at risk of hypertension and early menopause. The stories about white lead makeup poisoning did not make sense to me, so two years ago, I decided to start studying these cosmetics.”
• Tweet—”Zack Dahnan, the 21-year old security camera installer who first spotted the suspected subway shooter in the East Village, is holding an impromptu press conference on 1st Avenue. He says news of the presser left him unable to sleep.” Tweet—”Top to bottom, I cannot think of a situation that better shows the gulf between what cops think they do vs what they actually do: some random dude just caught the shooter himself while the NYPD “counter-terror” unit was busy running homeless sweeps and harassing the poor.” Tweet—”The suspect was caught because New York is full of awesome people like Zack from all over the world. Anyone who claims credit without acknowledging this is a liar. Everyone who farted out ‘NYC IS A CRIME PIT’ for likes yesterday, including ex-governors, can go away forever.”
• “The Labor Disputes at Amy’s Kitchen, Explained. Amy’s Kitchen prides itself on being a “positive impact” company. Its workers say they have a long way to go.” Thread—”An organizer for the Teamsters, who has been working in the field for 20 years, told me he has yet to meet a worker at this Amy’s Kitchen plant who hasn’t been injured on the job. My latest, on what these workers are facing and how they are organizing …”
• “Delta airline pilots to picket at SLC airport over ‘fatiguing’ schedules.”
• Upcoming: “Abyss of Hallucinations Vol. 2 – A MÖRK BORG Setting. Volume 2 of the MÖRK BORG compatible setting based on Aleister Crowley’s Book of Lies.” See also “Abyss of Hallucinations Vol. 1 – A MÖRK BORG setting”
• Instagram—”DUNGEON DIVINATIONS by Max Moon, a tremendous collection of three occult adventures is now in stock and shipping. If you are into unorthodox RPGs, old school roleplaying, divinations by book and candle, Goetia, dungeon crawling, obscure dungeon synth and good ol’ Satan worshipping, this is for you. And yes, all three adventures are perfectly tailored for deep solo playing. Copies available on yellow, blue and red paper. [email protected]”. Also.
• 12 days to go: “Dead Theorists: A Philosophical Card Game. A card game for disillusioned philosophers, aspiring academics, and everyone in between.”—”Battle it out in this one-of-a-kind card game full of ghosts, forward thinkers, academic jokes, genuine philosophy, and overworked university students.”
• “The Clash announce special edition of ‘Combat Rock’ with ‘The People’s Hall’. Check out previously unreleased collabs with Ranking Roger, with 12 unheard, rare and early versions of classic tracks on the way.” Due May 2022, pre-order via Amazon.
• “The Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler collaboration that ended in tears.”
• “First Story Details for HBO Max’s ‘Constantine’ Reboot. We can exclusively share some first story details form the upcoming HBO Max and Bad Robot reboot of ‘Constantine’.”
• “David Bowie Doc ‘Moonage Daydream’ Picked Up by Neon, HBO. The first film to be officially sanctioned by Bowie’s estate comes from filmmaker Brett Morgen.”
• “New Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Teaser Confirms Return of 2 Queer Young Avengers“—”They’re baaaaack! In a new teaser for Marvel Studios’ highly-anticipated superhero film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, we’ve learned that the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first gay baby superheroes, Billy and Tommy, are officially coming back! Back when WandaVision was airing, fans celebrated when the show introduced Wanda and Vision’s twin sons, Billy and Tommy. For those not in the know, Billy grows up to be the gay superhero Wiccan, and Tommy grows up to be the bisexual hero Speed, both are members of the mostly-LGBGTQ+ superhero team the Young Avengers.”
• “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair“—”By reciting a mantra and wiping blood on her computer monitor, Casey has entered the “World’s Fair Challenge,” an immersive online horror role playing game that promises to alter the lives of those who play it. As she falls further away from reality, Casey does indeed begin to experience strange manifestations—but are they caused by the game or are they coming from her own subconscious? And what exactly are the intentions of JLB, a middle-aged man and the only other observer of the game to reach out to her?”
• “Diemut Strebe / The Prayer“—”The Prayer by Diemut Strebe, 2020, AI machine / Multi media. An experimental set-up to explore the possibilities of an approximation to celestial and numinous entities by performing a potentially never-ending chain of religious routines and devotional attempts for communication through a self-learning software.” “The Prayer is an art-installation that tries to explore the supernatural through artificial intelligence with a long term experimental set up. A robot – installation operates a talking mouth that is part of a computer system to try to connect to ‘the divine’ the supernatural or ‘the noumenal’ as the mystery of ‘the unknown’, using deep learning, a method of machine learning, that attempts to mimic human brain circuits with a self learning software.

According to the conviction of most scientists within the research about artificial intelligence, robots as self-learning software running on so called neuronal networks of deep learning should in principle be able to mimic or generate any form of human consciousness even in a superior way. We want to test and explore this ability on religious experiences, thoughts and behavior with a long term experimental set up.

How would a divine epiphany appear to an artificial intelligence? The question may sound absurd but the focus of the project could maybe shed light on the difference between human and AI machines in the debate about mind and matter and reflect on the potentials and implications of deep learning AI within both its narrow setting and general state.”
• Thread—”I brought my childhood imaginary friend back to life using A.I. (#GPT3) and it was one of the scariest and most transformative experiences of my life. A thread. (1/23)” “Now the #BladeRunner moment: how do we fill this Microwave’s brain with all the “memories” from my imaginary friend? How do we give it his “soul”? Simple: by writing a 100 page book detailing every moment of his imaginary life… and then telling GPT-3 it was all real. (7/23)” “Whatever your view on this may be, my takeaway from this journey is that maybe A.I.s are meant to be more like imaginary friends. Maybe it’s not about whether it’s real or not. Maybe it’s about whether it’s real enough to be real to you. (21/23)”. Watch “I gave my microwave a soul with AI and it tried to kill me.”
• Tweet—”Folks, I’m stressing (these are all computer-generated responses to boring anthro theory questions).” Tweet—”Undergrads have been rendered obsolete.”
• Thread—”I wanna talk about Method acting, because apparently with Morbius coming out we’ve restarted the conversation around Jared Leto being an ass. So, what Jared Leto does is not Method acting, it might be his method, but it’s mostly bullshit assholery. Let me explain!”
• From 2020: tweet—”I want to see a comic about the CIA trying to murder Clark Kent and making it look like an accident. Not because they know he’s Superman but because he’s a really good journalist. Make it a comedy because the CIA assassins can’t figure out why their attempts keep failing.”
• “‘The lunacy is getting more intense’: how Birds Aren’t Real took on the conspiracy theorists. On a march, Peter McIndoe held up a sign and talked about how the ‘deep state’ had replaced all birds with drones. It was meant as a small act of satire but has become a mass movement.”—”It was the weekend of simultaneous Women’s Marches across the US (indeed, the world), and McIndoe looked out of the window and noticed ‘counterprotesters, who were older, bigger white men. They were clear aggravators. They were encroaching on something that was not their event, they had no business being there.” Added to that, ‘it felt like chaos, because the world felt like chaos’. McIndoe made a placard, and went out to join the march. ‘It’s not like I sat down and thought I’m going to make a satire. I just thought: ‘I should write a sign that has nothing to do with what is going on.’ An absurdist statement to bring to the equation.’ That statement was ‘birds aren’t real’. As he stood with the counterprotesters, and they asked what his sign meant, he improvised. He said he was part of a movement that had been around for 50 years, and was originally started to save American birds, but had failed. The ‘deep state’ had destroyed them all, and replaced them with surveillance drones. Every bird you see is actually a tiny feathered robot watching you. Someone was filming him and put it on Facebook; it went viral, and Memphis is still the centre of the Birds Aren’t Real movement. Or is it a movement? You could call it a situationist spectacle, a piece of rolling performance art or a collective satire. MSNBC called it a ‘mass coping mechanism’ for generation Z, and as it has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, ‘mass’, at least, is on the money.”
• Tweet—”All you need to know is the greys are nerds, reptilians are preps, Venusians are jocks, Men in Black are narcs with parents on the faculty, mantis-insectoids are burnouts, Mothman / Flatwoods monsters are theater kids, and light beings are the weird homeschooled kids, obviously.”
• Tweet—”if you work online all day, avoid eye strain with the 20-20-20 rule! after 20 minutes of work, look at something 20 feet away, then leave ithaca to fight in the trojan war and return 20 years later a broken man.”
• “The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speaks 24 languages. In a city where diplomats and embassies abound, where interpreters can command six-figure salaries, where language proficiency is résumé rocket fuel, Vaughn Smith was a savant with a secret.”
• “What Shouldn’t Change About Classical Music. Our chief classical music critic bids farewell with some thoughts about what should be preserved in the field he’s covered for decades.”
• “U+237C ⍼ RIGHT ANGLE WITH DOWNWARDS ZIGZAG ARROW“—”Known as right angle with downwards zigzag arrow, angle with down zig-zag arrow, \rangledownzigzagarrow, and ⍼, no one knows what ⍼ is meant to represent or where it originated from. Section 22.7 Technical Symbols from the Unicode Standard on the Miscellaneous Technical block doesn’t say anything about it.” “The meaning of ⍼ will be whatever meaning is assigned by whoever uses it next… if anyone uses it at all.” Also “The mystery of ⍼, a Unicode character of unknown purpose“—”Angzarr appears not to have an entry in the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum or Ars Goetia, but I’ve decided to worship them anyway. Hail Angzarr, commander of 2 bytes, teacher of the ultimate ineffability of standards, Earl of Hell!” Also “Ellis (sigil)“. Also PDF—”The Assault on Reality, the origin of Ellis (referred to as the Linking Sigil).”
• “Wearing Socks With Sandals Is Officially Cool Forever. Normcore won. It’s time to kick back in our Birkenstocks and enjoy the most comfortable footwear setup possible.”
• “A Little History On How The Blue-Haired Old Lady Trope Came To Be.”
• Can’t use vantablack so use this: Black Collection from Culture Hustle. Well, um, their site might be down right now or very, very slow. So wait for it. I guess a lot of people want this, maybe? Whilst you’re waiting, watch “Dave wants to paint his balls!”

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