botwerks

movies save yourselves - far more entertaining than initially expected. this made 2021 the year of the poufe. shirley - elizabeth moss plays menace with glee. not fun, tough to pull away from as well. the assistant - i can’t recall the last time that you loathed a character that you never actually saw on screen so much. oh, and seriously? boner injections are a thing? women in blue (PBS) - predates the murder of george floyd....

reading: termination shock termination shock author: neal stephenson ISBN: 0063028050 personal rating: 4/5 misc. notes i burned through this about as quickly as a grown-ass man with other responsibilities is able to. it’s a pretty solid and fun stephenson ride. as far as fiction goes, i enjoyed it immensely. there’s quite a bit to dig into. but frustratingly, for me, it falls a bit short on the range of impacts and options out there....

meta location: Minneapolis, MN weather: 28.4°F and Partly Cloudy links, etc Here’s Why Rapid COVID Tests Are So Expensive and Hard to Find — ProPublica a particularly irritating read with our recent need to scrounge up some tests over the past couple of days given an unexpected exposure. when we were in iceland last month, it was interesting to see that they have endcaps full of at-home test kits....

meta location: Minneapolis, MN weather: 15.8°F and Clear links, etc Wildfire Is Transforming Alaska and Amplifying Climate Change - Scientific American given everything that’s at stake this is particularly bad news. also, a delicious data visualization that lines up alaskan seasonal temps with fire seasons and first/last snows over the past 100-ish years. the trend against acreage burned is particularly interesting.

meta location: Minneapolis, MN weather: 26.6°F and Clear links, etc How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation | MIT Technology Review oof.

meta location: Minneapolis, MN weather: 19.4°F and Mostly Cloudy links, etc Creating dangerous viruses in the lab is a bad way to guard against future pandemics - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists apparently, we’ll fund the wildest shit.

meta location: Minneapolis, MN weather: 35.6°F and Partly Cloudy links, etc Not to Be | by Audrey Wollen | The New York Review of Books dignified death. Q&A: Ghost Robotics CEO on Armed Robots for the U.S. Military - IEEE Spectrum yeah, wallow in that nightmare fuel.

meta location: Lanesboro, MN weather: 28.4°F and Cloudy links, etc The Future Is Electric | by Bill McKibben | The New York Review of Books Bugs in Our Pockets: The Risks of Client-Side Scanning - Lawfare companion paper both are worth hunkering down with.