Mead: The first thing Ridley said out of his mouth was, “This is not going to be Logan’s Run.” I thought, “Well, that gives me a clue.”
Jesus, I’m old. Blade Runner was set in November 2019, and we’re…there now. LAist (I hate that name) put together an oral history of the movie’s groundbreaking visual design.
Huh. Good thing I bought a second-hand Apple Watch, I guess: Alphabet is in talks to buy FitBit. Sounds a lot like Nest a few years ago. Time to download all my data and delete my account.
Our Velveeta Baby-in-Chief doesn’t like the coverage he’s getting in print journalism, so he instructs all federal agencies to cancel their subscriptions to the Washington Post and the New York Times. I don’t know whether to laugh or be gravely concerned for his mental health. I give him another 3 months before he’s holed up in a room pissing in jars and collecting his own fingernail clippings.
I’ve been playing Fallout 4 since I was recovering from cancer, off and on, and while I enjoyed it immensely, I’m pretty much finished with and bored of it. I haven’t seen any new single player campaign games that I’ve been interested in spending money on, and I refuse to subscribe to Xbox Live to play games online (this is why I haven’t moved to Fallout 76). But the folks behind Fallout: New Vegas have come up with a planetary exploration game called The Outer Worlds that borrows all the best elements from that series and puts it INNNNN SPAYYYYYCE. Ars Technica gave it a glowing review, so it’s at the top of my list of games to try next.
Vulture did a great interview with Rian Johnson about Brick, his 2006 debut that remains one of my favorites. In it, he explores seven ways he deconstructed the detective movie and leaned into each of the tropes. For example:
He’s not gathering clues or doing anything clever with a magnifying glass; it’s going around annoying people until one of them says something that leads him to the next person he can annoy. There’s really no plan.
Ha ha ha. An artist named Mitch McConnell (not that Mitch McConnell) crowdfunded a They Live-inspired billboard in Times Square, which is currently up for display. The best part is that the billboard says “Paid for by Mitch McConnell” at the bottom. If he gets more contributions, he’ll keep it up longer. I love this. (via)
This is a nice summation of what’s happening in politics from day to day: What the Fuck Just Happened Today?
Impeach the Motherfucker. Just what it says on the label.
Nation Perplexed By 16-Year-Old Who Doesn’t Want World To End.
“I know she’s from another country, but she’s still a teenager, right?” said 33-year-old Sophia Williams of Kenosha, WI, her confusion reportedly shared by millions of Americans who recalled that during their own adolescence they had hated the world and everyone in it and had felt the end couldn’t come fast enough.
“It was two camps of managers, the Boeing Boy Scouts and the ‘hunter killer assassins,’” remembered Cynthia Cole, a former Boeing engineer who led the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) during the 787 saga. “How do you merge those two management philosophies? The hunter killer assassins will destroy the Boy Scouts. That’s what happens.”
I’ve been quietly wondering what the hell is going on with the 737 Max program at Boeing. This New Republic article goes in to the backstory behind the mess, and how management culture sowed seeds of deadly consequence.