Funny, I enjoyed this series. Though, I admit, not at first. The prospect of an incoming alien species colonizing the Earth by frustrating any ability to continue our advance in technology, then figuring out a way to defeat them anyway was compelling.

Further, it helped me to think of it as my first novel told by a Chinese author. Cixin Liu's sci-fi voice is very different to what I am used to. All of the motivations and norms are different. So, I tried to keep an open mind.

Finally, I thought that the Dark Forest made the biggest difference in my understanding of the 2hole story. The reveal in that book stopped me in my tracks. It caught me as hard as the one in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. No spoilers.

Sorry, what was the book?

Do you recommend another in its place?

The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones by Clare Morell

The cloying moralizing didn't really become clear until chapter 10. I should've known back in chapter 2 that the strident, clutching-at-pearls, "won't anyone think of the children?" point of view was a tad hyperbolic.

She's right in one regard: the Internet is a casino in a strip club in a strip mall designed to keep you gaming for the next dopamine rush. Social media apps are the fentanyl to the heroin that is the Internet. Tiktok is carfentanyl. That doesn't mean we all must abstain from technology. That Purityrannical view is a different problem.

Instead, as she so briefly mentions, there is the original intent of creating a community of linked people, machines, and commerce: problem solving. People, because children are people too, can be trained to build new solutions. To be creators instead of consumers.

Were it not for the disposable, single use, capitalist version of morality she supports, she might see that the plethora of distractions and traps the current media environment offers is the obstacle — a characteristically American obstruction. Seeing beyond the bright lights, the flashy colours, and all the porn, there is an infinity of forms. The tech exit forecloses on that creative potential, relegating it to the same tech lords her preferred President serves.

This book is only moderately useful. Sure, I agree, delay smart phones and social media until your kids can smoke, drink, do drugs, and join the military. But that's a pamphlet that does the job of this book.

Go read Johnathan Haidt's "The Anxious Generation" instead.

Ok, I'll be the first to recommend it...

I really like Final Space. I like how much Olan Rogers fought for this show. I thought it was pretty trite until the end of S01. Though, one of the most gut-punch moments in the series comes at S01E06.

Mind you, that's one.

It's a show with heart, strong character arcs, appropriate stakes, wit, and a charm all its own.

Olan Rogers didnt get to finish this as show, but the graphic novel closer just dropped. Hopefully, I'll be able to pick one up used somewhere because I can't justify $175 for a book unless it's for an academic degree.

Her character doesn't show up until S02. She's a total badass.

Here is the full text of the letter that Obama left 45. I'd never thought to read it.

Dear Mr. President -

Congratulations on a remarkable run. Millions have placed their hopes in you, and allof us, regardless of party, should hope for expanded prosperity and security during your tenure.

This is a unique office, without a clear blueprint for success, so I don’t know that any advice from me will be particularly helpful. Still, let me offer a few reflections from the past 8 years.

First, we’ve both been blessed, in different ways, with great good fortune. Not everyone is so lucky. It’s up to us to do everything we can (to) build more ladders of success for every child and family that’s willing to work hard.

Second, American leadership in this world really is indispensable. It’s up to us, through action and example, to sustain the international order that’s expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend.

Third, we are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions – like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties – that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.

And finally, take time, in the rush of events and responsibilities, for friends and family. They’ll get you through the inevitable rough patches.

Michelle and I wish you and Melania the very best as you embark on this great adventure, and know that we stand ready to help in any ways which we can.

Good luck and Godspeed,

BO

A few notes:

Obama forecast 45s disregard for "rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties". He KNEW 45 would fuck that up.

The role all Presidents, since Reagan, have played in "sustain[ing] the international order that’s expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend" is a warning about fomenting or courting instability. It is also a tacit admission of the Military-Industrial complex and its attendant supports in entertainment, energy, and finance that projects American values and superiority worldwide. He KNEW 45 would fuck that up, too.

Finally, and from the start of the letter, "we’ve both been blessed... Not everyone is so lucky" is a reminder that the office is meant to support the less fortunate. We all KNEW 45 would fuck that up.

I have never ridden a horse.

He really captures the vapid, ho-hum, space cadet, business-as-usual, "this is fine" look in his eyes.

Pepper-spraying people isn't an "of course" event. It's an off-course event. This part of the world is broken — and anyone who takes blithe satisfaction and daily pay from it is a broken person.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. 

"One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.

"The other, of course, involves orcs."

[John Rogers, Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]

• Expensive education

• Cities planned for cars

• 5-day work weeks

• Grey's Anatomy

• Nuclear weapons

• Racism

And I agree with the others who've said:

• Fossil fuels, particularly coal

• Private health insurance

The first time my cousins from FL visited Canada, it was July. They were surprised there was no snow. So, we took them over to the rec centre and they saw a small pile of snow out back. They were thrilled.

It was dumped out of a Zamboni.

Lilo and Stitch is the best Disney movie.

Many, many spoilers below. But, seriously, this movie is 21 years old. Get over yourselves.

Check it: a young girl adopts an illegal alien (killing machine from deep space) and protects him from the U.S. (and galactic) government (Military-Industrial complexes), while keeping her incredibly depressed sister (slices both ways) from giving up completely as they keep their Indigenous Hawaiian family together in their co-opted homeland. One sister works a series of dead-end tourism jobs; the other has anger issues. The hate each other and love each other fiercely, though they are about 12 years apart in age.

Oh, yeah, and their parents are dead.

Meanwhile, the alien is a political refugee and freedom fighter fleeing from his own people who want him dead for —get this— existing. A lab-grown, indestructible terrorist, he seeks asylum on an island — but he can't swim.

He does learn to surf.

The only downside to this film is that Disney produced it. And Elvis.

"Ohana means family. Nobody gets left behind or forgotten."

I got hacked on Facebook (2018), stopped using Instagram (2019), quit Reddit (2023) & Xitter (2025).

Now I have only books (lots of audiobooks), Google Keep (own thoughts and pics), Lemmy (random thoughts), and Bluesky (microblog).

My input and output are much healthier, the people I interact with (when actually people) are nicer, and I generally don't feel doomed.

Well, yes, I realize the world is fucked, fucked up, and fucking crazy. I've reduced by orders of magnitude how toxic it is to my headspace because I'm cutting out the worst of the dreck and engaging with more objectively real information. I'm not in screaming echo chambers populated in the millions. I'm happy if I get 10 responses to a post. Updoots are incidental.

Its like leaving L.A. to settle down in Schitt's Creek.

I'm still hoping he'll reprise his role as Dredd.

In his first outing, the worldbuild was good, his portrayal was spot-on. The story, sure, had its ups and downs. But, in the end, it's a pretty solid comic-book action flick. Better than a lot of the dreck we've seen.

If he's playing Johnny Cage at 53, he could still be Dredd at 60.

Welcome to the Internet. Hopefully, I read as a good person. I am not a bot.

I lived as a young adult through Bush II. 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Halliburton, Blackwater, and loads of corruption. It was tough to trust anything then. The goal was pure profit.

Apparently, Dubya was the warm-up presidency for this shit.

First, let me share a clip from Margin Call, 2011.

As long as the prevailing mode has been capital, there has been speculation. As long as there has been speculation, there have been lying liars who exploit the system.

The last few pump and dump bubbles he mentioned (1987, 1992, 1997, 2000, and 2008) are all market crashes I can remember. The market is a casino. Crashes since '08 include 2010 (Flash Crash), 2015 (sell-off), 2018 (cryptocrash), 2020 (Covid), 2022 (Ukraine War), and 2025 (tariffs).

These were once "once in a lifetime" events.

Second, everything in the world is designed to generate more:

• self-serving, self-centered, selfish

• short-term-focused

• extroverted, charismatic, vain

• action-oriented

• thoughtless

psychopaths and sociopaths. This ethos runs things because of profit motives, monopolies on the exercise of violence, and the development of contemporary morés rooted in exploitation, expropriation, and (deemed) externalities of colonialism. Identifying some humans as "the other" makes much more inhumanity possible.

So, I'm here to tell you, it's real alright. What you're feeling is real. What you're feeling against is real. We are immersed in it. Algorithms are doing their best to lock it in.

Finally, what to do and who to trust.

Establish your own moral center. Decide what matters to you. Find those who are telling the most truth, especially when tested. Demogogues fall apart under examination. Lies fall apart when questioned. The unchallenged authority is no authority at all. Get the receipts; find primary sources as often as possible. Seek those who share at great personal cost.

For me, it started with Star Trek. Then, hip-hop. Then, journalists I could trust. Even films that challenge prevailing narratives. I read a lot of books from many perspectives.

20 years later, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Henry A. Giroux, Amy Goodman, Arundhati Roy, and Noam Chomsky have never wavered. Films like The Insider, Erin Brockovich, and The Corporation light a fire in me. I'm rewatched David Simon and Barry Levinson's Homicide: Life on the Street and, hilariously, Murphy Brown.

Challenge the prevailing narratives. You're not alone.

An indiscriminate attack on an unsuspecting population using planted explosives and does not differentiate between civilians and enemy combatants isn't a "terrorist attack."

What is it then? A "police action"? "Self-defense"?

From AP

A booby trap is defined as “any device designed or adapted to kill or injure, and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object,” according to Article 7 of a 1996 adaptation of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which Israel has adopted.

The protocol prohibits booby traps “or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.”

Now, as far as a legal distinction, the jury is still out. But, morally, this is indefensible to the point of being state-sanctioned terrorism.

Fiction

• Ursula K. LeGuin

• Octavia Butler

• Margaret Atwood

• Tui T. Sutherland (J Fic)

• Suzanne Collins (YA)

• Lois Lowry (YA)

Non-Fiction

• Naomi Klein

• Margaret Atwood (Massey Lecture)

• Angela Y. Davis

• Tanya Talaga

• bell hooks

• Robin Wall Kimmerer

According to Jake Horton & Nick Beake at BBC from 15 October:

• Israel - Hamas (not over as Israel repeatedly violates ceasefire and Palestinians continue to struggle for basic human needs, fend off settler attacks, and heal from de facto genocide while billionaires' mouths water over waterfront property)

"Hamas and other factions inside Gaza are rejecting the U.S.-backed U.N. plan to place Gaza under the control of a U.S.-led board and an international stabilization force." (Democracy Now, 20 November)

• Israel - Iran (12 days, ceasefire)

"There is no agreement on a permanent peace or on how to monitor Iran's nuclear programme going forward," argues Mr O'Hanlon. (BBC)

"So what we have is more of a de facto ceasefire than an end to war, but I'd give him some credit, as the weakening of Iran by Israel - with US help - has been strategically significant." (BBC)

• India - Pakistan (4 days, ceasefire, not him)

"The talks regarding cessation of military action were held directly between India and Pakistan under the existing channels established between both militaries," Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said. (BBC)

• Rwanda - DR Congo (1994 to present, not over)

"There's still fighting between Congo and Rwanda - so that ceasefire has never really held," says Margaret MacMillan (BBC)

• Thailand - Cambodia (less than a week, ceasefire)

On 7 August, Thailand and Cambodia reached an agreement aimed at reducing tensions along their shared border. (BBC)

• Armenia - Azerbaijan (nearly 40 years, actually them)

"The leaders of both countries said Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in securing a peace deal, announced at the White House on 8 August." (BBC)

• Egypt - Ethiopia (what war?)

There was no "war" here for the president to end, but there have long been tensions over a dam on the River Nile... No formal deal has been reached between Egypt and Ethiopia to resolve their differences. (BBC)

• Serbia - Kosovo (again, what?)

"Serbia and Kosovo haven't been fighting or firing at each other, so it's not a war to end," Prof MacMillan told us. (BBC)

Im glad you've said this. Before I saw The Death of Yugoslavia, I honestly believed that modern warfare was clean, clinical, and restricted to willing combatants. That the Geneva Conventions, various constitutional statements, and human honour and decency were a part of modern wars. At least since Vietnam.

No. I was disabused of that notion by this documentary. Yes, I agree, the BBC shouldn't have the last word on a war in Eastern Europe. The BBC probably shouldn't have the last word on anything. However, they did happen to have the first word — to me — on the importance of understanding how modern wars get started, how they progress, and chillingly, why they don't end. It's a sad, slow, solemn march into oblivion.

Heliocentric model.

Cosmic distance and time. Light speed as a limit.

The geological age of the Earth.

Dinosaurs.

Evolutionary theory.

Continental drift.

The periodic table of the elements.

Quantum theory, including wave-particle duality.

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Black holes.

this portrait of Frederick Douglass—an escaped slave who had become a lauded speaker, writer, and abolitionist agitator—is a striking exception. Northeastern Ohio was a center of abolitionism prior to the Civil War, and Douglass knew that this picture, one of an astonishing number that he commissioned or posed for, would be seen by ardent supporters of his campaign to end slavery. Douglass was an intelligent manager of his public image and likely guided Miller in projecting his intensity and sheer force of character. As a result, this portrait demonstrates that Douglass truly appeared “majestic in his wrath,” as the nineteenth-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton observed.

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/145681/frederick-douglass