Bits

The norms and design elements of implicit feudalism are no longer a matter of technical necessity. But they became a business model. #technology #culture #web https://newpublic.substack.com/p/the-internet-was-supposed-to-be-democratic

#vinyl #music #records with “hidden” #code https://www.journaldulapin.com/2021/08/13/hidden-programs-in-vinyl-records/

Music & Sound

“Big Country — the Nashville-controlled, pop-folk music that commodifies rural American fantasies — is the cultural arm of white grievance politics.” https://archive.ph/eDj1a

A Dream Is All We Know – The Lemon Twigs https://thelemontwigs.bandcamp.com/album/a-dream-is-all-we-know

Film & Video

The clock, the sofa, the religious paintings on the walls — all the daily objects that Carrie explodes during her rampage — these are drawn from life, as is the everyday sadism of the high school kids that makes “Carrie” feel as frighteningly relevant as ever. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/books/review/stephen-king-carrie-50-anniversary.html?ugrp=m&unlocked_article_code=1.gU0.xNAo.c2hosCBdeZzv&smid=url-share

Humor

No worries if you’re feelin’ a little less adventurous today, man. I’ve also got twelve different flavored seltzers, three pale ales that all taste like IPAs, and a stout so strong that we’re legally obligated to watch you drink it. #beer https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-the-draft-list-at-this-brewery-and-no-you-cant-have-a-light-beer

Comics

https://thenib.com/im-a-luddite/

Politics & Economics

“the very fact that we don’t know what #debt is, the very flexibility of the concept, is the basis of its power. If history shows anything, it is that there’s no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt.” #strikedebt #studentdebt https://thewalrus.ca/were-more-in-debt-than-ever-what-now/

The British voted for Brexit, after all, even though its negative economic impacts were obvious at the time and continue to reverberate. But if we’re going to commit economic and environmental suicide, we should probably talk about it first. #canada #climatechange #cdnpoli https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/04/03/opinion/pierre-poilievre-climate-policy-joke

The paper cites oral testimony transmitted through Haudenosaunee knowledge keepers that as the Seneca were deliberating joining the confederacy, the sun went black for several minutes. #eclipse #solar #solareclipse https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/solar-eclipse-haudenosaunee-confederacy-1.7163865

“We build cities consciously. In Paris, that means subsidizing real estate for working people and small businesses that create interesting street scenes of street level cafés and the like. In Halifax, it means turning over all development to private corporations that bring dagger-like bank buildings to the main street, complete with street-level window views onto office desks.” #novascotia #canada https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/paris-shows-how-public-housing-can-save-the-soul-of-a-city/