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April 13 · Issue #104 · View online
A newsletter of innumerable confusions and a profound feeling of despair collected and written by @poploser.
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I change tools a lot. I bounce between notebooks and apps, Iâve used three different email clients in 2018, I canât decide if I prefer my Kindle or my books. But there are two things Iâve always loved and probably always will: email and RSS. Iâve joked that RSS is the best technology with the worst PR ever, but itâs true. How it never took off I will never fully understand. Itâs the best way to internet. Google Reader shutting down was borderline traumatic, but Feedly has been a fine replacement. So Iâm happy Wired has declared that itâs time for RSS to make its triumphant comeback, because if youâre getting your links on Twitter and Facebook, I fear you might be doomed. No matter what your current disposition, though, in this age of algorithmic overreach thereâs something deeply satisfying about finding stories beyond what your loudest Twitter follows shared, or that Facebookâs News Feed optimized into your life.
Also: Internet Friend Rex wrote a book and itâs so fucking wonderful. Like really great. Thereâs a section on Kayfabe! Go buy it!Â
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Billy Mitchell, the âKing of Kongâ, Has Scores Thrown out by Twin Galaxies
A few weeks ago Billy Mitchellâs high scores were disqualified from Donkey Kong Forum. Now heâs been expunged entirely from Twin Galaxies. The King Of Kong needs a sequel. Twin Galaxies stopped short of concluding that MAME had produced the scores but still said âwe know for certain that an unmodified original [Donkey Kong] arcade [printed circuit board] did not output the display seen in the videotaped score performances. âFrom a Twin Galaxies viewpoint, the only important thing to know is whether or not the score performances are from an unmodified original DK arcade PCB as per the competitive rules,â the organization said. âWe now believe that they are not from an original unmodified DK arcade PCB, and so our investigation of the tape content ends with that conclusion and assertion.â
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Being a Teen on Social Media Is like Having a Full-Time Job
Being a teenager in 2018 sounds terrible. If it sounds like a full-time job, thatâs because it pretty much is â a gig theyâve aged into by virtue of becoming teenagers in the era of the smartphone. As the three friends laugh and chat with one another, their eyes are nearly always cast downward, glued to the devices held between their manicured fingers. The brands they are managing are their own. They post carefully curated updates and stylized pictures of themselves on various apps and platforms. They swipe left and right, opening and closing apps, gasping about the daily drama playing out on the glowing screen, and planning their next moves. They donât consider it work â itâs more of a necessary pastime thatâs become so routine, âitâs like breathing,â says Elina, who is 17. Often, they wonât even let sleep get in the way. Also: The kids are already bored with this whole âinternet in your pocketâ thing. To a parent or the casual observer, a phone-bored teen may appear engaged. After all, theyâre on their phone, which many people consider an inherently engaging activity. In reality, theyâre bored out of their mind.
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Why Mark Zuckerbergâs 14-Year Apology Tour Hasnât Fixed Facebook
There are very few other contexts in which a person would be be allowed to make a series of decisions that have obviously enriched them while eroding the privacy and well-being of billions of people; to make basically the same apology for those decisions countless times over the space of just 15 years; and then to profess innocence, idealism, and complete independence from the obvious structural incentives that have shaped the whole process. This should ordinarily cause all the other educated, literate, and smart people in the room to break into howls of protest or laughter. Or maybe tears.
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Silicon Valleyâs Sixty-Year Love Affair with the Word âToolâ
In the written remarks that Mark Zuckerberg, the C.E.O. of Facebook, submitted in advance of his testimony on Capitol Hill this week, he used the word âtoolâ eleven times. âAs Facebook has grown, people everywhere have gotten a powerful new tool to stay connected to the people they love, make their voices heard, and build communities and businesses,â Zuckerberg wrote. âWe have a responsibility to not just build tools, but to make sure those tools are used for good.â Later, he added, âI donât want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy.â In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on Tuesday, Zuckerberg referred to âthese tools,â âthose tools, âany tool,â âtechnical tools,â andâthirteen timesââA.I. tools.â On Wednesday, at a separate hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a congressman from Florida told Zuckerberg, âWork on those tools as soon as possible, please.â Whatâs in a tool?
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The End of Reality
Franklin Foer discovers deepfakes and is understandably troubled.Â
Vladimir Nabokov once wrote that reality is one of the few words that means nothing without quotation marks. He was sardonically making a basic point about relative perceptions: When you and I look at the same object, how do you really know that we see the same thing? Still, institutions (media, government, academia) have helped people coalesce around a consensusârooted in a faith in reason and empiricismâabout how to describe the world, albeit a fragile consensus that has been unraveling in recent years. Social media have helped bring on a new era, enabling individuated encounters with the news that confirm biases and sieve out contravening facts. The current president has further hastened the arrival of a world beyond truth, providing the imprimatur of the highest office to falsehood and conspiracy. But soon this may seem an age of innocence. Weâll shortly live in a world where our eyes routinely deceive us. Put differently, weâre not so far from the collapse of reality.
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How Platforms Alter History
Why do we default to deleting the online presence of people who do terrible things? Whatâs behind that impulse to delete? When it comes to acts of violence, taking down profiles may help stem the impulse to try and build a logical case for an act where logic played no role. Distancing a platform from a senseless act of violence may be a public relations move, or a matter of taste, or maybe meant to discourage a profile from becoming a shrine for copycats. But the act has rare precedence in less recent history, and even carries negative connotations with non-online examples â say, if no one were allowed to read the Unabomberâs letters.
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THE PHILHARMONIC TURNTABLE ORCHESTRA
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đ ESPN+ launches with all the 30 For 30 docs (and not much else of note). đ«Â Gmail redesign is (finally) coming. âïž The 100 best one-star reviews of Gatsby. (Did I already link to this?) đ§ A Tom Waits playlist of Tom Waits songs. đ Fifty-six questions for Young MC upon hearing âBust a Moveâ for the first time in twenty-two years.Â
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How and Why Has "Mr Brightside" Never Left the Uk Charts?
This is literally unbelievable. I have read it and still do not believe it. Looking at the UK chart history, you may be surprised to learn that there is actually not a single year since its release in which âMr Brightsideâ has not been in the Top 100. It has charted 166 times and counting. It spent a run of 35 CONSECUTIVE WEEKS (THIRTY-FIVE!!!) there between July 2016 and March 2017. This January, it reached number 49; its highest position in three years. âMR BRIGHTSIDEâ WAS LITERALLY A TOP 50 SINGLE in 2017. IT IS STILL IN THE CHARTS AT THIS VERY MOMENT. LET THAT SINK IN FOR A SECOND.
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Molly Ringwald Revisits âThe Breakfast Clubâ in the Age of #MeToo
The actress and author Molly Ringwald writes about revisiting the movies she made with the late director John Hughes, including âThe Breakfast Clubâ and âPretty in Pink,â in the age of #MeToo.
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Youâve Reached the Winter of Our Discontent
A half-assed elegy for the Cool-Loser Dream Boy of Gen-X cinema.
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A Reckoning with Reality [TV]
Lucas Mannâs love letter to his wifeâand the jacked up emotions of reality TV.
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âWrestleMania 34â Belonged to the Women
How Charlotte, Asuka, and Ronda Rousey paid off the promise of a long-gestating ârevolutionâ for WWEâs female performers.
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Mike D, In Conversation
Former Beastie Boy Mike D on his new life, New York City versus Los Angeles, and how rap has changed.
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What Will Become of Sports Illustrated?
The past, present, and perilous future of Americaâs iconic sports magazine hangs in the balance as its new owner pursues yet another sale.
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