Thanks for everything Patrick.
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This is fairly concise overview of how voting in the U.S. works that touches on the important parts of the process and briefly highlights the heterogeneous nature of election administration given our state driven system:
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This is a delightful little mini-documentary about the restoration of bookshelves that were part of the original state library housed in the Michigan Capitol. Makes me appreciate the serendipity that can constitute the best of historical preservation:
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I get that there is a lot of enthusiasm out there for Warhammer 40K (at least in my feeds) when it comes to games and animation, but Piranah Games is doing phenomenal work with Battletech and their Mechwarrior 5 tranches. Never been a better time to jump in on the IP’s lore. Go watch some Sven van der Plank videos and hop on in!
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Not sure I could stomach the sustained depravity but considering a Barbenheimer-esque double feature of Alex Gibney’s The Innovator followed by You Can See Everything.
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No Man’s Sky releasing yet another feature rich FREE update. Good god, will it ever end?
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It’s a damp and gloomy September Friday, and sometimes that calls for suburban/Warped Tour style emo music that’s so saccharine it could melt your teeth:
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Engrossing short-form video documentary on the Phoenix fire department’s efforts to implement new heat related life-saving interventions:
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I don’t know what else to say about this other than this video is basically just thumbing through my CD carrying case circa 2008.
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In a world where so much of the retail reviews genre are AI slop or optimized for algorithms you can rely on Brains Report to be a human driven resource for making good home related purchases (I also think its great that they are Lansing, MI based):
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A cherished college memory was blowing off exam prep and going to see Death Cab for Cutie live at The Rave in Milwaukee. They still got it.
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I can’t think of another piece of media or a tech related product that I’ve one-time purchased that has received as much substantive continued support and ongoing improvement as No Man’s Sky.
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🇱🇹 🇺🇦They’re featuring a Ukrainian dish here, but the Lithuanian half of me is excited to see that cabbage and root-based soups are having a moment. Now they just need some deep fried dark and dense rye bread smothered in cheese.
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A quick review of my feeds makes it apparent that a new Marvel Avengers trailer has dropped. Any time I see any hype around Doomsday it has me immediately thinking about Film Joy’s ‘Fall of the House of Marvel’ video from a while back:
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Here’s a delightful and calm video of a nonindustrial farmer walking you through the process of turning flax into linen going from seed to sewing if you will.
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Here's the Ghost in the Shell TV Series Openers
Okay FINE, here’s the new Ghost in the Shell TV show’s opener followed by GITS:SAC and 2nd GIG:
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I don’t want to speculate too much here based on a movie trailer, but if Denis Villeneuve found a way to play up Chani and Paul as quasi-adversaries I’d consider it an improvement to Dune Messiah (which was already one of my faves in Herbert’s).
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I haven’t seen a movie in theaters yet this year, but Coyote vs. ACME might get me there.
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Ghost in the Shell TV shows (I’ve seen the films, haven’t spent time with the Manga) remain one of my favorite artistic expressions of a creative studio trying to articulate the sociological implications of an information economy driven society. We’re about to get a new reinterpretation.
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Apple just settled a false marketing case involving Apple Intelligence and I don’t think there is a direct correlation, but I find it noteworthy that the two ads apple has recently released featuring a K-12 classroom and college students don’t have a single whiff of Generative AI in them.
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Look’s like Ghost in the Shell is getting another reboot, but frankly I still haven’t gotten over this sequence from 2nd GiG.
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I generally believe that the fewer tech devices in a classroom the better (except a raggedy desktop in the corner…preferably next to an old transparency projector, and a TV strapped to a wheeled stand)–but its notable that there is NO GENERATIVE AI in this promo.
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Per my last post, the Castlevania 2 ‘Bloody Tears’ theme goes harder than it has a right too.
Somehow was able to get classic video game soundtracks into the 5-year-olds music rotation (its a delicate inception, but worth the respite from the usual playlists) and every time Dire Dire Docks comes on I think of the Northernlion commentary.
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Somehow was able to get classic video game soundtracks into the 5-year-olds music rotation (its a delicate inception, but worth the respite from the usual playlists) and every time Dire Dire Docks comes on I think of the Northernlion commentary.
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The Artemis launch has me thinking about Mass Effect space exploration so here’s the links to each game’s galaxy map music:
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Do yourself a favor and make some time to watch this Animagraffs video on how early 20th century steamships work.
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Come here quick!! Falling Frontier just dropped another gameplay trailer!
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Nilay Patel on Ring cameras as objects of mass surveillance:
I have this theory about just what is happening in our politics right now–It was, I think about it a lot–Right now, we are convinced, culturally convinced, that our actions do not affect other people. You just see it everywhere.
You see it in the rise in measles cases. Why? Because we’ve decided our actions don’t affect other people, even though they very clearly do. Like all over the place.
And Ring cameras are an incredible example of this, where the cameras on my house are fine. They’re fine. And I can turn them on and off and whatever. But they are, to your point, taking video of you. And so my cameras can invade your rights, but me turning that on has no impact on me.
So, here’s this button in, in an app distributed by Amazon, on the hardware that Amazon owns, where you have a moral quandary: Should I affect someone else’s rights? And I would say that American culture in 2026 does not equip people to think about that well.
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I Keep Returning to King’s Mountaintop Speech
Civic holidays like the one that commemorates Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday provide an opportunity for me to reflect on what I think about the big stories we (U.S. citizens) tell about our nation, and how my views have changed as I’ve aged and the world has evolved. I find myself increasingly aggrieved by how significant portions of my faith community choose to interpret the significance of Dr. King’s legacy, and whether it does or doesn’t influence our mass voting behavior.
As a child of late 20th century U.S. schooling (both public and parochial), when taught about Dr. King and his legacy the artifact of choice was typically his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and the March on Washington it accompanied. The speech and event were framed as one additional wrung on the ladder of the U.S.’s inevitable ascent towards liberty.
As I got older Letter from a Birmingham Jail took a place of greater prominence. Having spent most of my life participating in predominately white, conservative Christian communities, it wasn’t until college that I was awakened to the many complications and half-truths found in the K-12 narrative I was taught about U.S. history. The letter’s pointed message towards white moderates (like myself) remains an important and bracing critique.
Now, I’ve entered a stage of life where my civic/public consciousness has me turning more frequently to King’s Mountaintop speech. The speech’s charismatic (pentacostal) prophetic edge, and dogged determination to hold the U.S. to our highest stated ideals feels particularly relevant in an era when Federal policy is defined by cruelty and antagonism towards the most vulnerable members of our social fabric. The speech spends time reflecting on the parable of the Good Samaritan, with a small excerpt here:
And so the first question that the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
That’s the question before you tonight.
I remain committed to practicing the faith (and still hold many of the doctrinal markers) engendered by my upbringing in evangelical Christianity. To our collective shame, many of my fellow white Evangelicals remain the bedrock supporters of a Federal administration that sees an increasing number of its citizens, other residents, and sojourners as threats to be neutralized rather than people who deserve to be treated with the equality demanded by our laws. I was told growing up that character is destiny when it comes to political leadership, and to see this principle abandoned for political expediency leaves a bitter aftertaste I can’t fully rinse out. I (perhaps naively) still believe the character axiom was basically correct.
May the parable of the Good Samaritan and the public witness of Believers like Dr. King–in partnership with the Holy Spirit–work like seeds sown into the hearts of my fellow evangelicals. I pray they not walk the same path as the Pharoahs in the book of Exodus and instead stop their hearts from hardening further.
Find a key excerpt of the Mountaintop speech here:
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Apropos for today, an excerpt from ‘The Darkling Thrush’ which I was introduced too through yesterday’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols:
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
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I somehow stumbled into the “space combat” genre of videos with my youtube recommendation algorithm. It’s an interesting stream. These folks take celestial navigation, and its speculative connection to naval interdiction seriously. An example.
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Chicago Transit Authority’s slow TV ‘Ride the Rails’ videos remind me why I love the Brown Line
My family has maintained a relationship to Chicago’s Brown Line.
For the years that we lived in central Illinois my parents would periodically take my sister and I to the city for a day or weekend excursion. Ostensibly we were there to visit my grandmother in Bridgeport (a Red Line stop) or my cousins in the suburbs, but we would also find an excuse to take the bikes down to the lakefront for a ride from the Adler Planetarium to the Lincoln Park zoo, or a jaunt up and down lake shore drive. We’d also ride the El. We’d take the Brown Line to Sedgwick and eat at the Old Jerusalem Restaurant.
When I lived in Wheaton I’d keep up the pattern and find excuses to take the Brown Line to Old Town or Lincoln Park. My future spouse lived not far from the Diversey stop for a time.
The CTA maintains a playlist of ‘Ride the Rails’ videos. The production values have improved incrementally over time. I find it comforting to pull one up and ride along for a couple stops. The familiar “doors closing” cadence and the click-clack of the tracks acts a bit like a breathe prayer. The Brown Line remains my favorite.
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Could we make CosmodromePunk a thing?
The artistic director of this film would go on to lead artistic direction for the first Ghost in the Shell film. I wouldn’t call it’s aesthetic vision cyberpunk though. I’d propose something else, like cassettepunk, or maybe CosmodromePunk. I think a lot of the videos this YT channel makes could fall into that aesthetic.
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Parents leave all sorts of small indelible marks on their children that last a lifetime, and from my mom I’ve held onto an affection for Bruce Hornsby & The Range.
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Lotta swirling commentary in all my social feeds about whether the better response to our political moment is to focus on short term power brokering or to stand in the principled light of truth and my mind just keeps drifting to my favorite fictional representation of the debate in Lincoln.
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Regarding the speeches delivered at Quantico yesterday my mind drifts to this scene from Battlestar Galactica.
But if the generals were paying attention during minute 44 of the president’s speech Tuesday, they would have heard the fleeting but unmistakable sound of something new. Something different.
It was at that moment that the president recounted a conversation with his defense secretary: “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, the president of the United States said.
On an almost daily basis, thousands of words pour forth from the president’s mouth. Sometimes, he tucks in a wild insight about the direction he is taking the country.
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Taking a Python Intro course this summer and turns out if you need to code late into the evening Olde Pine is a great companion:
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Carla Hayden’s firing this week hits especially hard for me because my spouse and I just finished watching a fantastic PBS distributed documentary on the history of libraries in the U.S. Hayden’s featured briefly near the end.
It’s a great watch, neither of us could keep a dry eye at different moments.
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I took Amazon immolating $700 million dollars to distill a pure moment that evokes Tolkein at his best–as I remember him when read to me in my childhood–so good job I guess?
It really is best viewed on a big screen with a good sound system:
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I find the reaction videos from actual ER doctors more enthralling than The Pitt itself.
The Pitt is the first TV show where the reaction videos are more intriguing to me than the drama of the show itself. Maybe its just the anti-science cultural moment we seem to be living through right now, but there is something mesmerizing about watching what I presume to be subject matter experts break down the difference between drama and reality featured in the show.
I’m sure some of the reaction videos are just algorithm chasing, but for now I’ll lean into them and hope we haven’t become socially isolated by our media echo chambers that we can no longer accept expertise as a valuable resource for policymaking.
Side-note: television programming rarely makes me cry, but a particular scene from the show where the main protagonist starts having PTSD related flashbacks to COVID era ER memories momentarily broke me. Our understanding of what happened that first year of COVID has become so obscured by our partisan bickering over public health policy that I feel like we completely forgot the absolute hell our medical providers were subjected to not only by the wave of deaths, but the politicized backlash they received for their efforts to flatten the curve.
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There’s very specific vibes video that features 80s and 90s anime that exudes what I’d call a #vhspunk aesthetic–before the iPhone with its black mirror imposed a glass sheen on tech products. The video style is typified by Hanahaki Blank’s youtube channel. Its the perfect delta of the beauty of hand drawn animation, late 20th century nostaligia, and technophilia.
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Meritocracy is SO BACK baby!!!!
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“Top Trump officials accidentally texted U.S. war plans to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg:”
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Here’s a reminder for why you should be excited for Season 2 of Andor:
The Andor series dropped a season 2 trailer announcing an April 22 release date.
Instead of posting the new trailer, I’m just gonna post one of the many moments of writing that made this show a revelation:
I fear for you.
We’ve been sleeping.
We’ve had each other and Ferrix, our work, our days.
We had each other, and they left us alone.
We kept the trade lanes open, and they left us alone.
We took their money and ignored them. We kept their engines turning and the moment they pulled away we forgot them.
Because we had each other.
We had Ferrix.
But we were sleeping. I’ve been sleeping. I’ve been turning away from a truth I’ve wanted not to face.
There is a wound that won’t heal at the center of the galaxy.
There is a darkness like rust, reaching into everything around us.
We let it grow and now it’s here. It’s here and it’s not visiting anymore.
It want’s to stay.
The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness. It is never more alive than when we sleep…
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Practicing the Way captures some of the old Nooma magic
Having grown up in evangelical/quasi-fundamentalist spaces I have always been a bit of a sucker for high production value efforts to articulate the Gospel or Christian life. This particular stream of the Way of Jesus may be presumed to be like Ned Flanders in their affect, but generally, are quite sophisticated in their use of media for broadcasting their message (for every cringey God’s-Not-Dead movie there’s also the legacy of pre-bankruptcy Veggietales).
Growing up, Mars Hill’s Nooma video series left a long lasting impression on me. Those short form films combined genuinely creative storytelling, filmmaking, and Biblical teaching. For a 12 year old kid who’d spent his life immersed in Bible stories told with a steady (and stale) cadence they were a revelation. I think they left such an impression because they really tried to honor and work within the medium of film’s strengths and limitations for articulating Christian claims.
All of the above is background to say that I think Practicing The Way’s trailers for their online courses recaptures the old Nooma magic a little bit. I’m glad they’re out there and I hope the teachings they are meant to spark interest for find fertile soil.
The series so far:
Sabbath
”…it’s a rhythm that God the creator built into the fabric of the human body and creation itself.”
Prayer
”…to pray is to commune with the God who is closer to us than we are to ourselves.”
Fasting (my favorite vid so far)
”…it’s an ancient practice whose time has come.”
Solitude (the production values jump from here onward)
”…solitude is the furnace of transformation.”
Generosity
”…little by little He makes our souls incandescent.”
Scripture
”…our part is to remember.”
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I keep returning to King's Mountaintop homily for comfort and conviction.
For at least the past decade, whenever I reflect on the life, legacy, or oratory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I repeatedly find myself returning to his final speech. Its most famous for the closing soliloquy about the Mountaintop, but in our times the whole speech is worth contending with. Those final prophetic words build on the other 40 minutes of reflection King offers on the state of the Prophetic/nonviolent wing of the Civil Rights movement.
Here’s the portion most folks have encountered (starting at 41:48):
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the Mountaintop.
And I don’t mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the Mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
And so I’m happy, tonight.
I’m not worried about anything.
I’m not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!
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