December 2016

What’s Your Ideal Community? The Answer Is Political

It’s conceivable that people who live in cities come to value more active government. Or they’re more receptive to investing in welfare because they pass the homeless every day. Or they appreciate immigration because their cab rides and lunch depend on immigrants. This argument is partly about the people we’re exposed to in cities (the poor, foreigners), and partly about the logistics of living there.

The suburbs… See more →

2016 was what it was, but at least I was reunited with this beauty just before the finish line.

Saw this t-shirt today. A take-off on Metallica’s Kill ’Em All: “America: Free ’Em All” with “tour dates” listing all of our wars. Cute.

Web developers, when you feel the urge to abbreviate “performance” as “perf,” please consider instead ingesting a gallon of liquid mercury.

A roundup of 2016’s visual and interactive storytelling highlights at @propublica. I’m proud to be a part of it. propublica.org/article/2016-p…

“Under the old feudalism, the peasants were exploited; under the new arrangement, they’ll merely be superfluous.” newyorker.com/magazine/2016/…

No one knows what Trump will do, but from the available evidence, this matrix is a reasonable map of possibilities. nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opi…

This story of an American jihadi who joined ISIS is a microcosm of ISIS itself: pedantry taken to wild extremes. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

Pretty sure this speaks for most of my generation. RIP Carrie Fisher. twitter.com/Steven_Hyden/s…

“So if you still have friends
Raise a glass with them
Happy New Year
Prince can’t die again” macmccaughan.bandcamp.com/track/happy-ne…

How the dominos fell from Bill Clinton’s foolish tarmac meetup with Loretta Lynch to the nothingburger Comey letter. washingtonpost.com/world/national…

Dear humans,
This is how it’s done.
Love,
Rob
youtu.be/oYAR8RigqDA

Bless you, @FilmStruck.

BEGIN FLASHBACK:
INT. TOYOTA CAMRY – DAY
Chris, 12, theorizes on the semantics of “I Want Your Sex” at my mom as she drives us somewhere.

And there goes George Michael. 53 years old. Not three days ago I decided Faith was too far back in my rear-view. On it goes. RIP.

Such Christmas. Very family. Much Catholic.

“If you were born today
We’d kill you by age 8
Never have the chance to say
Joy to the world
And peace on the earth”
youtu.be/OYn-FK-5wow

Her eyes widened in recognition. “If only I had heeded Black Mirror’s warnings,” she whispered, as the Roomba plunged the knife deeper.

The Inaugural Committee couldn’t satisfy the part of Kiss’s rider stating Gene Simmons gets to be the biggest, loudest asshole at the show.

“You go to jail, you get killed. It’s either/or. For what?” nytimes.com/2016/12/22/us/…

Digging this @PinegroveBand album. In places, it feels to me kinda like an alt-countrified version of early @dcfc. pinegrove.bandcamp.com

Someone make a @FrinkiacApp for Home Movies.

A sharp read on Pantera’s penultimate album, though it sidesteps the fact that extreme angst was de rigueur in 1996. pitchfork.com/reviews/albums…

I miss Jon Stewart. vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016…

We just added a printable PDF version of our trading cards of Trump’s Cabinet picks. Last-minute stocking stuffers! propublica.org/article/the-ch…

“Roll With It” by Steve Winwood

“Don’t Worry Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin
“I Don’t Want to Live Without” by Foreigner

“Pink Cadillac” by Natalie Cole

“Make It Real” by The Jets
“We’ll Be Together” by Sting
“Desire” by U2

“I Want Her” by Keith Sweat

“Wishing Well” and “Sign Your Name” by Terence Trent D’Arby
“The Locomotion” by Kylie Minogue
“Perfect World” by Huey Lewis and the News

First, the songs I’ve already skipped:

I shall now begin updating you in real time which songs I skip as I shuffle this Billboard Top 100 of 1988 playlist. open.spotify.com/user/israel.ke…

On a 1–500 scale of delusion:
1: False memory
5: Collective false memory
500: False memory believed to be the result of a spacetime glitch twitter.com/NewStatesman/s…

Is there an especially good collection of scientific research on legibility/readability/etc? If not, let’s make one. Send me stuff.

It will be interesting to see what comes of Ivanka Trump’s seeming Stockholm syndrome. nytimes.com/2016/12/03/fas…

I had to delete Super Mario Run. The “do this thing over and over again until it’s perfect” school of game design never ends well for me. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

A handsome new work in progress from @jasonsantamaria and his team at @Slate: slate.com/blogs/the_work…

“[P]eople believe guns in their home make them safer […] epidemiological research suggests precisely the opposite.” thetrace.org/2016/09/harvar…

“I stopped watching The Fall.”
“I’m surprised. You love Gillian Anderson.”
“They talk too quietly on that show.”

I can’t wait to dig into the new book from @adactio, my favorite web philosopher. It’s called Resilient Web Design. resilientwebdesign.com

I’m pretty excited about @beep’s fancy new site and how it will give us all an opportunity to be smarter. ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/thread/

Stray thoughts:

• Going all in on CGI Peter Cushing was a bold move, but more than giving Rogue One a through line to A New Hope, it serves as another reminder that the uncanny valley isn’t paved over just yet.

• The introduction of moral ambiguity to the otherwise black and white Star Wars universe is not unwelcome per se, but Cassian isn’t interesting enough to give it any real weight. (Really, none of the characters… See more →

For the afternoon crowd: twitter.com/robweychert/st…

New work: @JessicaHuseman and I are making trading cards of Trump’s Cabinet picks, with a reading guide for each. propublica.org/article/the-ch…

Reminder: casinos are bloodsuckers. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

Sending my love to Aleppo.

Tonight I got to see Megadeth play in a room a little bigger than my apartment and it was very very great.

brb megadeth

“19 visual artists count down their 10 favorite albums of 2016 with reimagined cover art.” This is a delight. 10x16.com

Any advice on managing panic attacks? I want to be ready.

This city is an embarrassment of riches. twitter.com/magary/status/…

Color management has bewildered and enraged me for decades. No more! Blessed be @chockenberry and @abookapart. abookapart.com/products/makin…

“By attacking the very notion of shared reality, [Trump] is making normal democratic politics impossible.” thinkprogress.org/when-everythin…

Name your punk band The Faithless Electors.

Think of all the great things we could have accomplished in the coming years if we didn’t have to drop everything to beat back fascism.

Maybe I just desperately want to abandon the planet, but this space jazz freakout might be my #1 record of 2016. thecometiscoming.bandcamp.com/album/channel-…

Huh. Some of you still haven’t heard. I guess word gets around slowly. Anyway, here it is again: Don’t talk in the fucking movie theater.

Sending my love to Oakland.

Just noticed that iTunes finally supports metadata for works and movements in classical music, so there goes Sunday.

A thing I don’t get:
The closed-mouth sneeze.

A thing that bugs me:
TV characters habitually ending phone calls without saying goodbye.

Revisited most of The Cure’s discography this week. Apart from the utterly majestic Disintegration, I’m still mostly just about the hits.

George W Bush’s chief White House ethics lawyer makes clear the issues raised by Trump’s many conflicts of interest. nytimes.com/2016/12/01/opi…

This is easily the best postmortem on the 2016 election. vox.com/policy-and-pol…

designcensus.org