https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/public/ recent bookmarks from matthewmcvickar 2023-01-28T05:58:08+00:00 https://slate.com/culture/2022/06/rrr-review-indian-blockbuster-netflix-hindu-nationalism.html matthewmcvickarLet’s start with the religious iconography. This is hardcore Hinduism through and through, an apt representation for a country that’s employed authoritarian tactics to empower violent Hindu nationalism and transition to a de facto ethnocratic state. [...] The Rama iconography later in the film, added to Bheem’s submissiveness, makes this narrative choice seem more pointed: Commemoration of the Ramayana has been one of the bloodiest flashpoints for Islamophobic violence in India, with Hindu nationalists having destroyed a Mughal-era mosque that was supposedly located at Rama’s birthplace. The Rama temple now constructed in its place is a symbol for the belief that India should be a holy land for Hindus; it’s even been put on billboards in Times Square. It’s likewise worth noting that the Vande Mataram custom flag that appears in essential scenes like the boy’s rescue—protecting Bheem from the train’s flames, for one—was in part designed by Veer Savarkar, the father of Hindu nationalism.]]> film india https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a9ee6284c4d1/ 2023-01-25T06:08:16+00:00 https://ez.substack.com/p/google-should-fire-sundar-pichai matthewmcvickarMost if not all of the people let go from these companies could be retained, but corporations - and in particular tech companies - have consciously colluded with each other to push a false narrative about how they are the victims of an economy that continues to enrich them. And that’s because their leadership isn’t judged by how well they treat their employees, but rather by how they protect the interests of their shareholders. And really that’s what’s happening. Everybody is laying people off, and thus it’s an easy time for huge corporations to justify doing so based on vague economic forces. This is a coordinated public relations campaign to trade human capital for working capital. It’s either that or these executives are utterly ignorant of the economic forces affecting their companies. This isn’t a bug, but rather a feature of modern market capitalism. Tech execs are playing from a rulebook that’s fundamentally devoid of empathy, compassion, and respect for human beings. By the standards of shareholders, they’re doing their job. But from any moral standpoint, they deserve to be kicked into the sun. --- Mr. Pichai appears to have plenty of money to have fun with - as all of these CEOs do, because they are being paid so much that they have entirely left the realm of human concerns. Even if it’s something far more craven - that profits are fine, and they are just using this as an excuse to cut “excess” - layoffs do not work. They make the company less profitable and the remaining employees less effective. Imagine if a single employee made this big of a screw-up. Would they be retained? Would they survive? No. They would be shitcanned in seconds and told that it was a “difficult decision.” Here’s an easy decision: fire Sundar Pichai, fire Satya Nadella, fire Doug Herrington, and fire any executive that has to lay off hundreds or thousands of people because they got too excited about making their shareholders money. ]]> tech business economy labor wealth https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:15a5531c2d00/ 2023-01-22T03:55:51+00:00 https://www.100people.org/statistics-100-people/ matthewmcvickar86 would be able to read and write; 14 would not 7 would have a college degree 40 would have an Internet connection 78 people would have a place to shelter them from the wind and the rain, but 22 would not 1 would be dying of starvation 11 would be undernourished 22 would be overweight 91 would have access to safe drinking water 9 people would have no clean, safe water to drink]]> world people https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:25a9ac44efd5/ 2023-01-18T21:44:45+00:00 http://livelaugh.blog/posts/how-to-grow-a-web-presence/ matthewmcvickarthe places we grew our careers and social circles on have all been damaged beyond repair by men who, despite having billions of dollars, look like they have the suds and the emotional intelligence of a paper straw 5 minutes after it has entered my iced latte. they're surrounded by yes-men with less-money who are about half as smart as the character i played in my early satire days. i truly hope they all find the immortality they seek, and also that they then get trapped in quicksand, respectfully.]]> internet technology business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:498937841c05/ 2023-01-10T23:34:06+00:00 https://sabrinas.space/ matthewmcvickarthis suggests that japan is relatively unique in its concentration of lighter coloured and/or denser web design. A companion site to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ep308goxQ]]> webdesign japan technology https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:84c965af619d/ 2022-11-21T17:11:20+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-workers-quit.html matthewmcvickarEmployees were also having difficulties figuring out who was still on staff, and what areas of infrastructure needed more support to keep things up and running. One worker who wanted to resign said she had spent two days looking for her manager, whose identity she no longer knew because so many people had quit in the days beforehand. After finally finding her direct supervisor, she tendered her resignation. The next day, her supervisor also quit. Others were spending hours trying to track down which teams they were on. Some said they were asked to oversee duties they had never handled before. The changes were occurring in a near total information vacuum internally, employees said. Twitter’s internal communications staff has been laid off or left, and workers said they were looking outward for information from media articles. Mr. Musk has increasingly downplayed the role of traditional media over the past few months, citing Twitter as one of the best platforms for the rise in “citizen journalism,” as he put it.]]> twitter business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:8d0df0b2ec79/ 2022-10-24T20:22:16+00:00 https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-heirs-and-their-hair-on-house-of-the-dragon/ matthewmcvickarI think the problem is that the show uses my feminism to try to make me root for Rhaenyra’s succession, instead of taking my feminism seriously enough to really write a show about why feminism matters. Misogyny drives the plot. But the show can’t really decide how much misogyny matters to being a person in this world.]]> gameofthrones tv https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:4e291ae6eac3/ 2022-10-24T06:33:05+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/opinion/minority-rule-majoritarian-democracy.html matthewmcvickarIf it were up to the national majority, American democracy would most likely be in a stronger place, not the least because Donald Trump might not have become president. Our folk beliefs about American government notwithstanding, the much-vaunted guardrails and endlessly invoked norms of our political system have not secured our democracy as much as they’ve facilitated the efforts of those who would degrade and undermine it. Majority rule is not perfect but rule by a narrow, reactionary minority — what we face in the absence of serious political reform — is far worse. And much of our fear of majorities, the legacy of a founding generation that sought to restrain the power of ordinary people, is unfounded. It is not just that rule of the majority is, as Abraham Lincoln said, “the only true sovereign of a free people”; it is also the only sovereign that has reliably worked to protect those people from the deprivations of hierarchy and exploitation. If majoritarian democracy, even at its most shackled, is a better safeguard against tyranny and abuse than our minoritarian institutions, then imagine how we might fare if we let majoritarian democracy actually take root in this country. The liberty of would-be masters might suffer. The liberty of ordinary people, on the other hand, might flourish. ]]> america politics history https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:66efb5bcac51/ 2022-10-21T21:58:37+00:00 https://www.portlandmercury.com/Housing/2022/10/21/46147935/wheeler-ryan-unveil-unfunded-proposal-to-criminalize-homelessness matthewmcvickarMayor Wheeler announced a much-anticipated proposal to ban homeless camping in Portland at a Friday press conference. This idea, which has been hinted at in various forms for more than a year, follows a growing drumbeat of vitriol from upset Portland property owners, businesses, and other members of the public about the impact that visible homeless camping has on the community—and its reputation. “Simply put, we can no longer tolerate the intolerable,” said City Commissioner Dan Ryan, who co-sponsored the proposal outlined by Wheeler on Friday. “It's time to take some risks to get our city out of this ditch.” Yet, without the needed boost of significant funding, clear support from other government agencies, and interested contractors, the proposal appears little more than a plan to create an eventual plan. ]]> portland homelessness housing https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:2ce94b6a1b54/ 2022-10-18T16:07:54+00:00 https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/2018/10/11/23548160/hall-monitor-service-resistant matthewmcvickar“Calling people ‘service resistant’ helps distance us from responsibility,” says Marc Jolin, director of the county and city's Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS). “If someone says they’re not interested in services, it doesn’t mean they want to be homeless. It should make us ask, ‘Are we offering the right services?’”]]> homelessness portland https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:0fc5c8561541/ 2022-10-16T04:52:13+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/14/kanye-west-keeps-moving-further-and-further-to-the-right-why matthewmcvickarThe problem is, Kanye behaves as if the only real and brave truth tellers today are conservatives with money. He acts as if the rich right wing holds a monopoly on criticisms of the Democratic party or liberal activists. This ignores a host of progressives and radicals – people like Cornel West, Nick Estes, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Mariame Kaba, Aja Monet, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, and too many artists and grassroots organizers to name who criticise the liberal establishment more fiercely than the right and with commitments to end oppression. In fact, entire progressive and radical traditions exist where people of all races offer vigorous critiques of the status quo with surgical precision. We need fewer “free thinkers” and more critical thinkers who ask about these traditions and find their places within them. The question for me is whether billionaire Kanye can ever really know about these robust traditions. Not because he doesn’t already know or will never learn about them, but because to know them is to also learn their critiques of gross wealth accumulation, Black capitalism, desire for imperial leadership, and so much more of what Kanye currently represents. Supporting free thinkers with weak conservative analysis does not threaten his status, land, antisemitic views or bank account.]]> racism america wealth capitalism music https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:2b238a766eae/ 2022-10-11T17:15:58+00:00 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_gap matthewmcvickarIn linguistics an accidental gap, also known as a gap, paradigm gap, accidental lexical gap, lexical gap, lacuna, or hole in the pattern, is a potential word, word sense, morpheme, or other form that does not exist in some language despite being theoretically permissible by the grammatical rules of that language.]]> language https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:d20a627ce520/ 2022-08-07T15:39:16+00:00 https://www.stereogum.com/2122362/spencer-krug-solo-album-fading-graffiti/interviews/qa/ matthewmcvickarThe Wolf Parade member talks about his new solo album, parenting during COVID, and adjusting to livestreams.]]> musicindustry music interview https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:2f8b82252f0f/ 2022-07-15T16:58:34+00:00 https://death-to-ie11.com/ matthewmcvickarthis is a fun little app that counts down to the end of support of Internet Explorer 11 + a few more features like a list of articles/websites that tell you why you should stop supporting IE11 and a list of websites that already dropped support.]]> webdevelopment https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:f261b4862b5f/ 2022-07-15T15:30:09+00:00 https://www.globalantiscam.org/post/confessions-of-a-scambaiter-part-i matthewmcvickarScambaiting is the action of conversing with a scammer for a prolonged period of time so as to distract him/her from further scamming. --- I will admit that scambaiting began as a form of vengeance. A few weeks fresh from my scam discovery D-Day, the urge to seek some form of justice still raged through my veins. I began with language apps, then stemmed into Facebook and dating apps. In the beginning, the goal was only to waste the scammer’s time. After a while, it became a form of dark therapy, allowing me to relish over and over that I had “played” the “player” -- I was in on the charade before the scammer could even begin his charade. There was no sympathy for scammers, just a burning desire to know why they would scam sincere and kind people. I had heard that some scammers were human trafficked into their job, but I couldn’t believe it. It was to me another ploy from the scammer playbook -- engender sympathy from victims to maximize profits. My perspective has shifted since then to a better understanding of the industry, one in which things are not totally black and white. I’ve also gained a better perspective of what can be lied about and what can’t. The following tales highlight some of the most memorable moments since I started scambaiting last August. I hope to put a face behind the people involved in scamming and shed light on human trafficking. […] Luckily for Daddy, his workplace is kind. All employees receive a minimum wage base pay, plus a 16% bonus for successful scams. They live in a relatively clean dormitory, and no one is beaten or hurt. Workers may go out freely on certain days, being tourists at the Burj Khalifa, shopping for groceries, or visiting fresh fruit farms. The employees, most of whom have likely never before left their home country, overall appear to be enjoying their scam life. This can be juxtaposed next to the weekly influx of victims we receive in our victims group, many of whom are in tears or suicidal. Many of whom lost their life savings. […] Recently, Daddy showed off his $21k bonus from scamming an individual out of nearly $138k. He was so excited he could barely sleep for days.]]> security internet https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:f09d157c9564/ 2022-07-15T15:27:42+00:00 https://maxread.substack.com/p/whats-the-deal-with-all-those-weird matthewmcvickarThese texts are usually the lead-in to romance scams that usually end with fake crypto deposits, written so as to imply wealth and success on the part of the scammer, who is often an abused and captive worker operating multiple phones and attempting to con several people from a compound operated by shady gambling rings somewhere in Southeast Asia. […] Now what? It seems likely we can expect this species of pig-butchering scam to eventually fade into the background, thanks to victims getting wise and authorities cracking down. An interview with the subject of the GASO rescue mission suggests that the scam rings’ operations in Europe and North America, at least, are not as profitable as they’d hoped…]]> security internet https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:828a033fbbd1/ 2022-07-15T15:26:32+00:00 http://www.its-her-factory.com/2022/07/scotus-to-us-there-is-no-such-thing-as-civil-society/ matthewmcvickarCivil society was something that existed among white Europeans and which was supposedly lacking among indigeneous peoples across the rest of the globe. Because personhood and all the rights that go with that status were thought to exist only in civil society and not in the state of nature, it was then no violation to colonize land thought to be in the state of nature or to treat people thought to be in that state as property. Social contract theory used the idea of “civil society” to justify the colonial/racial project of excluding non-white people from personhood. […] By de-funding public education, rendering public space inherently more risky, and eliminating the right to privacy in one’s sexual and reproductive choices, these three decisions all eliminate the existence of a key element of classically liberal social ontology: the civil private sphere (i.e., the realm of civil privacy, the private sector, etc.). Put simply, they’re reworking the way the U.S. Constitution models the relation between public and private from the classically liberal model the framers used in the 18th century into a neoliberal one premised on the idea that, as Margaret Thatcher infamously put it, “there is no such thing as society.” In this neoliberal model, there is no civil society (e.g., public space, the realm of individual civil privacy, etc.) and the state only exists to enforce the boundaries of the patriarchal racial capitalist framing of the domestic private sphere.]]> america society https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:3c3f3529c538/ 2022-07-15T15:25:43+00:00 https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/three-cheers-socialism matthewmcvickarIn the late modern world something like socialism is the only possible way of embodying Christian love in concrete political practices. --- Americans are, of course, the most thoroughly and passively indoctrinated people on earth. They know next to nothing as a rule about their own history, or the histories of other nations, or the histories of the various social movements that have risen and fallen in the past, and they certainly know little or nothing of the complexities and contradictions comprised within words like “socialism” and “capitalism.” Chiefly, what they have been trained not to know or even suspect is that, in many ways, they enjoy far fewer freedoms, and suffer under a more intrusive centralized state, than do the citizens of countries with more vigorous social-democratic institutions. This is at once the most comic and most tragic aspect of the excitable alarm that talk of social democracy or democratic socialism can elicit on these shores. An enormous number of Americans have been persuaded to believe that they are freer in the abstract than, say, Germans or Danes precisely because they possess far fewer freedoms in the concrete. They are far more vulnerable to medical and financial crisis, far more likely to receive inadequate health coverage, far more prone to irreparable insolvency, far more unprotected against predatory creditors, far more subject to income inequality, and so forth, while effectively paying more in tax (when one figures in federal, state, local, and sales taxes, and then compounds those by all the expenditures that in this country, as almost nowhere else, their taxes do not cover). One might think that a people who once rebelled against the mightiest empire on earth on the principle of no taxation without representation would not meekly accept taxation without adequate government services. But we accept what we have become used to, I suppose. Even so, one has to ask, what state apparatus in the “free” world could be more powerful and tyrannical than the one that taxes its citizens while providing no substantial civic benefits in return, solely in order to enrich a piratically overinflated military-industrial complex and to ease the tax burdens of the immensely wealthy? […] …where health care in particular is concerned, Americans are slaves thrice-bound: wholly at the mercy of a government that despoils them for the sake of the rich, as well as of employers from whom they will receive only such benefits as the law absolutely requires, as well as of insurance companies that can rob them of the care for which they have paid. […] States depend upon capital for revenues, material goods, and political patronage. Without the support of an omnicompetent, vastly prosperous, orderly, and violent state, global corporate capitalism could not thrive. Without corporations, the modern state would lack the resources necessary to perpetuate its supremacy over every sphere of life.]]> capitalism christianity politics socialism america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a527bfed8ba5/ 2022-06-02T20:50:17+00:00 https://www.readthepresentage.com/p/johnny-depp-amber-heard?s=r matthewmcvickarAll of this — the bad-faith scrutiny, the obsession with minor discrepancies, the confidence that vast conspiracies can be discovered on Google — is instantly recognizable from previous explosions of internet-enabled misogynistic bullying. The “body language experts” that swarmed around Heard spent years applying the same junk science to Amanda Knox, Meghan Markle, and Carole Baskin. The gremlins who targeted Anita Sarkeesian during Gamergate pretended to be offended by the (extremely minor) technical errors in her videos rather than her presence in their boy’s-only treehouse. The best evidence for the motivations behind the anti-Heard campaign is that while her every slip-up has been dissected ad nauseum, Depp’s far more numerous and consequential discrepancies have been all but ignored. His testimony that he was too high on opioids to attack Heard during the airplane incident, for example, contradicts his own text messages (“angry, aggro injun in a fuckin blackout”) from the day after. His absurd denials of his drug problem belie his own contemporaneous communications and bolster Heard’s account. In the final week of the Virginia trial, he bafflingly claimed that he hadn’t sent text messages from his own phone — I guess someone hacked into it and sent texts that sound exactly like him? […] Heard is not a perfect victim and has never claimed to be. In her own testimony, she admitted to engaging in screaming matches, fighting back, and insulting Depp in the final year of the relationship. The judge in the UK trial said there was probably some truth in Depp’s accusation that Heard was condescending about his drug use, something that triggered his sense of internalized shame and, ultimately, his rage. The psychologist who saw them in 2015 said both partners had poor communication skills and weren’t able to de-escalate fights or have productive conflicts. This is all damning evidence against Heard and I see no reason not to believe it. But remember: The relationship at the heart of this case was one in which the smaller, less powerful partner has evidence of at least 10 serious incidents of violence. Black eyes, bloody lips, trashed homes, chunks of ripped-out hair on the carpet. WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT WHETHER SHE WAS ANNOYING SOMETIMES? […] If you entertain the possibility that Heard has not concocted an elaborate hoax but is in fact an actual domestic abuse victim, having an emotional reaction when her husband shows up and merrily announces that he has broken his promise to her — a broken promise which may put her safety at risk — her actions suddenly make more sense. […] There is almost no evidence that the op-ed had any effect on Depp’s career. Over the previous decade, Depp had released a string of high-profile bombs (The Rum Diary, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Transcendence, The Lone Ranger, Mortdecai, Dark Shadows — I haven’t even heard of most of these) and had been the subject of numerous articles documenting his dimming star power. For years, set leakers reported that he showed up late and drunk and needed an earpiece to remember his lines (Depp says he used it to listen to music). […] In hindsight, the verdict came down the minute the judge allowed the case to be televised. Jurors weren’t sequestered or sheltered from the internet in any way, meaning they were likely exposed to the same bad-faith memes and out-of-context clips as everyone else. Plus, this case has been swirling around the internet for years, making an impartial jury an impossibility in the first place. One man was allowed to stay in the jury pool after revealing a text from his wife that read, “Amber is psychotic.” I have no idea what happens next, but I do know that Depp’s unbelievably cynical strategy to discredit his ex-wife’s abuse claims (Jessica Winter called it “a high-budget, general-admission form of revenge porn”) was a resounding success. Heard is now one of the most hated figures in America. Even if she overturns the decision on appeal, she will likely never be cast in a major Hollywood role again — what studio wants to risk a hostile internet campaign before they even start shooting? Depp’s core claim — women advance their careers by accusing powerful men of abuse — doesn’t even hold up to the evidence of his own abuse accusation. Heard is ruined; Depp is in pre-production for his next role; other alleged abusers are already copying his legal strategy. And outside the courtroom, America’s march backward toward the 1950s continues apace.]]> celebrity abuse law america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:94fb568c92fa/ 2022-05-29T00:02:29+00:00 https://github.com/rzashakeri/beautify-github-profile matthewmcvickarThis repository helps you to have a more beautiful and attractive github profile, and you can access a complete set of tools and guides for beautifying your github profile. 🪄 ⭐]]> internet webdevelopment https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:53bd1e5ea2e5/ 2022-05-26T03:57:14+00:00 https://www.todayintabs.com/p/what-can-we-do?s=r matthewmcvickarThe truth is, I don’t know what to do. I hugged my own third grader goodbye this morning and sent her off to school. The middle school she’ll attend in three years is remote today because they discovered “threats” in a bathroom. We live in a country where statistically, until age 19, she is most likely to die of a gunshot wound. So what am I willing to do? Anything. ]]> guns america politics https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:b023b60eaec5/ 2022-05-23T22:13:03+00:00 https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2022-05-20/ellen-degeneres-show-end-dakota-johnson-kevin-hart-george-w-bush matthewmcvickarEllen DeGeneres did not “betray” queer people. Such a claim presumes that she owes us, or speaks for us, and that impossible burden — one she has faced since she came out on “Ellen” — is part of what landed her in this mess in the first place. Still, I cannot help but feel exasperation at her defensive crouch when she’s questioned about Bush, or Hart, or her responsibility for the toxic work environment on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” I cannot help but roll my eyes at the self-pitying strain that runs through “Relatable,” her scrupulously unilluminating 2018 Netflix stand-up special, in which she professes, or performs, frustration at the indignities of the celebrity stratosphere. […] As in her interview with Hart, her segment on Bush, her farewell announcements on “Today” and with Oprah, the Dakota Johnson moment inadvertently expressed a central feature of modern American life, and of DeGeneres’ own post-aughts crises: that the very rich and the very famous, the odd Dolly Parton excepted, are in solidarity mostly with themselves. […] For DeGeneres, who built her career on playing versions of “Ellen,” by appearing, as a queer woman in a patriarchal society, not only “normal” but ordinary, this evolution couldn’t help but hold symbolic resonance. Because “progress” is not an achievement but an action, and to let up the fight is already to lose it. From “Don’t Say Gay”-style legislation in the U.S. and the prevalence of transphobia in U.K. media to the deadly threat to queers in Russia and its occupied territories, LGBTQ people are engaged in a tug of war on a tectonic scale, struggling ceaselessly just to keep our footing. It does not seem so outrageous to me, in this context, to expect the most prominent LGBTQ American to pull in the same direction, or at least to accept that the price of holding the vanishing center is becoming a little less beloved. It’s not as if DeGeneres has been driven into hiding. She simply forfeited her position as the queer celebrity everyone — me, my mother, George W. Bush — could agree on, because in a time and place of such terrifying revanchism, it is not enough to be agreeable. For those of us frightened by the change she once represented being so swiftly rolled back, DeGeneres’ fumbling attempt to keep her distance turns out to be the one choice we couldn’t forgive, and will not forget. When we lost Ellen, she lost us.]]> queer television celebrity fame politics https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:86c131ec3199/ 2022-05-23T17:02:09+00:00 https://howisfelix.today/? matthewmcvickar data https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:b85856893589/ 2022-05-09T18:35:15+00:00 https://last-donut-of-the-night.letterdrop.com/c/37-thoughts-on-yeah-yeah-yeahs-music-writing-animal-collective-indie-grizzly-bear-the-xx-and-how-things-change?fromEmail=true matthewmcvickar music musicwriting musicbusiness https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:e6d7076c6276/ 2022-04-21T17:03:02+00:00 https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/ matthewmcvickarThis is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline ☼ --- Low-tech Magazine refuses to assume that every problem has a high-tech solution. A simple, sensible, but nevertheless controversial message; high-tech has become the idol of our society.]]> energy internet webdevelopment https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:4c272e046014/ 2022-04-12T17:09:17+00:00 https://apnews.com/article/climate-united-nations-paris-europe-berlin-802ae4475c9047fb6d82ac88b37a690e matthewmcvickar“Projected global emissions from (national pledges) place limiting global warming to 1.5C beyond reach and make it harder after 2030 to limit warming to 2C,” the panel said. In other words, the report’s co-chair, James Skea of Imperial College London, told The Associated Press: “If we continue acting as we are now, we’re not even going to limit warming to 2 degrees, never mind 1.5 degrees.” Ongoing investments in fossil fuel infrastructure and clearing large swaths of forest for agricultu […] It’s more likely that the world will pass 1.5C and efforts will then need to be made to bring temperatures back down again, including by removing vast amounts of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — from the atmosphere. Many experts say this is unfeasible with current technologies, and even if it could be done it would be far costlier than preventing the emissions in the first place. The report, numbering thousands of pages, doesn’t single out individual countries for blame. But the figures show much of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere was released by rich countries that were the first to burn coal, oil and gas beginning with the industrial revolution. […] “We don’t actually have a remaining carbon budget to burn,” said King, who now chairs the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. “It’s just the reverse. We’ve already done too much in the way of putting greenhouse gases up there,” he said, arguing that the IPCC’s calculation omits new risks and potentially self-reinforcing effects already happening, such as the increased absorption of heat into the oceans from sea ice loss and the release of methane as permafrost melts. Such warnings were echoed by U.N. chief Guterres, citing scientists’ warnings that the planet is moving “perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate impacts.” “But high-emitting governments and corporations are not just turning a blind eye; they are adding fuel to the flames,” he said, calling for an end to further coal, oil and gas extraction. “Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.”]]> climatecrisis https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:e98d4de73a54/ 2022-04-06T19:37:59+00:00 https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/simple.html matthewmcvickarA common criticism of my arguments against crypto is that they assume too much knowledge or that my prose is too dense. So a friend challenged me to rewrite ‘The Case Against Crypto’ using mostly the 1500 Simple English words and short sentences version that perhaps a well-read twelve year old could read in a 6th grade history book from the future. About the financial disaster of the 2020s. --- The economics of bitcoin were also bad. When people use money they want to buy things with it quickly and they want to know that the price of the thing they want to buy won’t change drastically. Bitcoin is bad at both of these things. Bitcoin was bad at being stable money because the technology was not designed to do that, because it didn’t want to have a central bank. This was unfixable because the entire project was based on a bad idea. […] Crypto was a story about giving people new money, but instead it just stole people’s old money and destroyed their lives. Unfortunately the world figured out crypto was a bad idea far too late.]]> cryptocurrency money economy https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:df416285c75e/ 2022-04-02T21:12:20+00:00 https://slate.com/culture/2022/03/hey-arnold-gentrification-capitalism-millennial-nostalgia-podcasts.html matthewmcvickarArnold wasn’t just a football-headed fourth grader. He was an urban planning pioneer. --- The stories of a group of fourth graders coming of age in the big city at times mimicked the neoliberal objectives of Clinton-era policy: The bullies that Arnold and his friends faced might as well have been the state and private capital, which linked arms in the name of urban renewal while actually threatening the sanctity of working-class life. And although Hey Arnold! did not present itself as a manifesto for a generation that would grow up to cast doubt on the normalcy of capitalist logic, the cartoon did provide a cultural experience that remains salient, 25-plus years on—and one that fans tell me, surprisingly for a cartoon, broached these subjects more blatantly than many are willing to do today. […] Geographers have since explored the long-term deleterious effects of these 1990s schemes. In 2019, for instance, Samuel Stein published Capital City, where he explored how the $217 billion industry that is global real estate follows the movements of a “creative class,” whose members move to poorer neighborhoods after being priced out of more expensive places already overrun by high rent costs. Only then do urban planners see these neighborhoods as “livable”—as Stein puts it, “a euphemism for White people with disposable income”—before tearing down old buildings and erecting new ones that ultimately price out the creative class that made neighborhoods attractive to capital in the first place. […] It’s not so much that Hey Arnold! radicalized millennials in their youth, it seems, but that it infused their inchoate political and social consciousnesses with ways to respond to their material realities later on. A lot of the rhetoric of liberal capitalism—that it is driven by natural turns in the market—was flipped on its head in Hey Arnold. In the show, capitalism was nothing more than the destroyer of fun. It threatened not only the displacement of the city’s working class, but also the places in which young viewers played. And as millennials are now feeling many of the neoliberal structural changes of the 1990s, including being unable to buy homes or even rent in cities, it’s no surprise that the majority of young Americans now look unfavorably upon capitalism—just as their favorite cartoon characters did two decades ago.]]> television capitalism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:cfc530e2a1b4/ 2022-03-28T02:12:03+00:00 https://github.com/johnste/finicky matthewmcvickarFinicky is a macOS application that allows you to set up rules that decide which browser is opened for every link or url. With Finicky as your default browser, you can tell it to open Facebook or Reddit in one browser, and Trello or LinkedIn in another.]]> macos software https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:398740e2fdce/ 2022-03-16T15:39:00+00:00 https://github.com/rapka/wordle-list matthewmcvickarA handy compilation of games based on Josh Wardle's Wordle. Including Dordle, Quordle, Worldle, Heardle, and more.]]> games internet language https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:b472c3a029ed/ 2022-02-28T05:08:44+00:00 https://omnichord.jake.fun/ matthewmcvickarmusic sound https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:32e20dc246bc/ 2022-02-26T05:46:43+00:00 https://css-tricks.com/bem-101/ matthewmcvickarThe Block, Element, Modifier methodology (commonly referred to as BEM) is a popular naming convention for classes in HTML and CSS. Developed by the team at Yandex, its goal is to help developers better understand the relationship between the HTML and CSS in a given project. ]]> css webdevelopment https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:5a8ac73d9548/ 2022-02-05T01:42:49+00:00 https://formatchangearchive.com/ matthewmcvickarA site dedicated to format changes? Why not; what’s more historic than when something begins or ends? The Format Change Archive is your home for airchecks of the beginnings and endings of some of the most historic radio stations (and some you may never have heard).]]> radio sound music advertising https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:8002cc587d20/ 2022-02-05T01:41:53+00:00 http://www.jeremydlarson.com/blog/2022/1/11/favorite-albums-of-2021 matthewmcvickarAs life in the Anthropocene tips into a gradual decline brought on by the irreversible effects of climate crisis, the past becomes a highly valuable commodity in criticism because the future gets more volatile by the second. Those of us with a lot of time in the bank account sit comfortably on hundreds of thousands of pre-pandemic hours, while younger, more time-poor people wonder every day what kind of past they will actually inherit—what will their past be worth?]]> music writing covid19 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:af23ffbd3574/ 2022-02-05T00:24:16+00:00 https://vertex.im/?ref=sidebar matthewmcvickarHandcrafted 3D icons. Customize it online - change color, material and choose right angle. 100% free for commercial and personal use.]]> _free-images https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ca4981eabf17/ 2022-01-23T05:28:17+00:00 https://covidartmuseum.com/ matthewmcvickarThe world’s 1st museum for art born during Covid19 quarantine]]> museum covid19 art internet photography https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:e1c032a5a19d/ 2022-01-11T16:13:03+00:00 https://c82.net/mineralogy/# matthewmcvickarAll 2,242 illustrations from James Sowerby’s compendium of knowledge about mineralogy in Great Britain and beyond, drawn 1802–1817 and arranged by color.]]> art science nature https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:991ce02fbe7e/ 2022-01-03T16:39:10+00:00 https://variety.com/2021/artisans/news/trailers-using-new-versions-classic-songs-1235048795/ matthewmcvickar“It’s what I call the old-comfortable-shoe phenomenon,” says Jonathan McHugh, a music supervisor, director and founding member of the Guild of Music Supervisors. “You give people something familiar, like Destiny Child’s ‘Say My Name’ in the new ‘Candyman,’ and all of a sudden they’re more engaged in the content and predisposed to enjoy what they’re watching because they love the song.” Says Brian Monaco, president and global chief marketing officer at Sony Music Publishing: “It’s called ‘trailerizing’ a song. That means changing every aspect of the song but leaving the lyrics. People know the lyrics. The goal is to catch people’s attention. Maybe they’re not paying as much attention to the trailer, and they start to hear the chorus of the song, and they go, ‘Wait, I know this song.’ They start paying attention, and now they’re watching the trailer.” At Sony and in his four-times-a-year writing camps, Monaco has teams of writers working on reimagined versions of legendary artists’ catalogs. He has entirely reworked ELO’s discography, has redone a large portion of the Beatles’ songs and now is tackling Paul Simon’s newly acquired hefty songbook.]]> music movies marketing https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:18dcb4e4d0b2/ 2021-12-17T20:28:53+00:00 https://chr15m.github.io/DoodleCSS/?ref=sidebar matthewmcvickarA simple hand drawn HTML/CSS theme.]]> webdesign webdevelopment design https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:5f174763687c/ 2021-12-14T19:44:49+00:00 https://www.weirdspot.fyi/ matthewmcvickarenter a sentence and get a playlist ⚡ Makes a Spotify playlist that spells out a sentence you provide.]]> spotify music funny https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:036bdeddf893/ 2021-12-14T19:42:10+00:00 https://typatone.com/ matthewmcvickarThe act of writing has always been an art. Now, it can also be an act of music. Each letter you type corresponds to a specific musical note putting a new spin to your composition. Make music while you write. ]]> writing music sound art https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:1ea15e6b97e4/ 2021-12-14T19:28:41+00:00 https://frogitivity2.tumblr.com/ matthewmcvickar art internet mentalhealth https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:b4f0146445ad/ 2021-12-06T21:03:16+00:00 https://toneindicators.carrd.co/ matthewmcvickarWhat they are, why you should use them, and how to use them.]]> communication internet https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:3675b7a517c3/ 2021-11-13T00:39:33+00:00 https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/something-must-change-after-astroworld/ matthewmcvickarScott has long asserted that his shows are a place where fans can let loose and rage through mosh pits, crowd-surfing, stage-diving, and general mayhem. He is far from the only rapper to borrow specific elements from the punk or hardcore underground, but the Astroworld tragedy underscores how important it is that chaos coexist with an ethos of community and accountability. A mosh pit is a collective, physical release of energy and there is the understanding—unspoken or otherwise—that if someone falls, you pick them back up. This is not to suggest that concertgoers at Astroworld did not try to help those who were fighting to stay upright: people crowd-surfed unconscious bodies to safety even while the crush made it extremely difficult for anyone to lift their arms, and at least one attendee testimonial describes pleading with event staff to stop the show. But footage from the festival also suggests a pervasive “every-man-for-himself” mentality, from the fans who pushed others to the ground to get inside, to those who danced atop an ambulance as it inched through the crowd to help people who were literally dying. It can never be said enough: one person’s good time should never come at the expense of another’s safety. These kinds of tragedies should lead to a re-evaluation of safety procedures—and in prominent examples, this has been the case. After the Who concert, Cincinnati banned general-admission concert seating for nearly 25 years. Following Roskilde, Pearl Jam took a six-year break from festivals and returned with strict, hands-on safety policies that included the right to “evaluate all operational and security policies in advance, such as design and configuration of barriers and security response procedures in relation to ensuring our fans’ safety,” as well as the ability to stop a show if needed. Roskilde itself implemented preventative crowd safety measures, including a barrier system that divides the audience into separate pens and more intensive training for security workers. This is the level of oversight we need *before* something horrific happens.]]> music livemusic safety health concert https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:62f44c869d91/ 2021-09-27T23:11:57+00:00 https://csswizardry.com/ct/ matthewmcvickarLet’s take a look inside your Your is the single biggest render-blocking part of your page—ensuring it is well-formed is critical. ct.css is a diagnostic CSS snippet that exposes potential performance issues in your page’s tags.]]> css html webdevelopment https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:f5879351fd25/ 2021-09-27T20:32:51+00:00 https://switchchargers.com/how-nintendo-switch-charging-works/ matthewmcvickarAny USB-C charger should allow any model Switch to charge and play at the same time. A USB-A charger will have mixed results. If forced to use one plug it into the Switch while the battery is still at 100% for best results. Given an ideal charger, all models of the Switch will charge from 0-100% in 3-3.5 hours. The larger models actually charge faster while playing than while sleeping. [...] There is no problem charging the Switch while you play. But when not in use, best to let it sleep while it recharges. The Switch dock has specific requirements. When not using the Switch AC adapter, you’ll need a 45W or 60W USB-C PD charger. Otherwise the dock won’t function, or even charge the Switch.]]> nintendo videogames howto https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:c245a4063681/ 2021-09-10T15:50:31+00:00 https://www.sheet-posting.me/ matthewmcvickarTurn a Google Sheets spreadsheet into a blog page and RSS feed]]> blogging webdevelopment https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:14b4b1aa9528/ 2021-08-08T05:04:16+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/21557375/bunny-the-dog-talks-researchers-animal-cognition-language-tiktok matthewmcvickarWhen Bunny presses “Settle, Sound, Ouch,” she might be using a novel string of known words to tell someone to quiet down, or she might be pressing a random series of buttons while confirmation bias on our part does the rest of the work. Even Devine says that she thinks Bunny’s “speech” is primarily operant conditioning, where Bunny has made an association between pressing a button and something happening. A true understanding of language goes beyond simple associations, and involves pulling unique combinations of words together into narratives.]]> internet dogs pets language https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:98b50dd7ff90/ 2021-08-08T05:02:39+00:00 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/08/06/talking-dogs-aac-devices-buttons/ matthewmcvickarPet owners and cognitive scientists are exploring if we can teach dogs to speak with buttons, called AAC devices. --- “I do have to say, ‘Okay, how much am I reading into this?’ How much of this is anthropomorphized and how much is like, I’ve already interpreted these buttons in this way, so I’m going to continue to interpret and it becomes its own sort of dialect?” she says. “I try and remain open to all of the possibilities.”]]> dogs pets language internet https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:353a199144e5/ 2021-08-05T16:02:25+00:00 https://kidpix.app/ matthewmcvickarJS Kid Pix / Kid Pix 1.0 was released in to the public domain and this is an HTML/JS reimplementation.]]> javascript art software macos https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:c69313ce05f7/ 2021-07-28T20:20:59+00:00 https://github.com/upptime/upptime matthewmcvickarGitHub-powered open-source uptime monitor and status page --- • GitHub Actions is used as an uptime monitor • Every 5 minutes, a workflow visits your website to make sure it's up • Response time is recorded every 6 hours and committed to git • Graphs of response time are generated every day GitHub Issues are used for incident reports • An issue is opened if an endpoint is down • People from your team are assigned to the issue • Incidents reports are posted as issue comments • Issues are locked so non-members cannot comment on them • Issues are closed automatically when your site comes back • Slack notifications are sent on updates • GitHub Pages are used for the status website • A simple, beautiful, and accessible PWA is generated • Built with Svelte and Sapper • Fetches data from this repository using the GitHub API]]> webdevelopment software https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:5151b0a037d9/ 2021-07-26T04:22:49+00:00 https://thebaffler.com/kate-takes/dont-let-people-enjoy-things-wagner matthewmcvickarAn issue common to all of our LPET posters is that they think criticism means forbidding people from enjoying media in general. First of all, people are just as allowed to *dislike* things as they are permitted to enjoy them—you can’t trick them into changing their minds with your authoritarian meme posting. Second, I introduce this radical idea: you can still enjoy things while being critical of them—it can even lead to a greater appreciation of societal and historical context, and it can make you usefully wary of the role the shit forces of the world play in the media we consume. It can also help us maintain our political and social integrity while watching or reading or listening to whatever is offered to us. For example, my peacenik, anticapitalist proclivities may make me critical of many mainstream blockbusters, but they also afford me a greater appreciation of movies like ‘Office Space’ and Dolly Parton’s classic ‘9 to 5.’ Finally, though our LPET posters think otherwise, it is indeed possible to *like some things about a piece of media and dislike things about that same piece of media all at once*.]]> criticism culture internet film politics https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ab7cdd79999e/ 2021-07-19T15:50:20+00:00 https://www.honolulumagazine.com/hawaiis-7-eleven-stores-offer-better-food-than-their-mainland-u-s-counterparts/ matthewmcvickarBut with aggressive expansion plans, 7-Elevens across the U.S. might soon look a little more like those here. --- Everyone has their favorite 7-Eleven food: For one friend, whose first job out of college was stocking cigars at 7-Eleven, it’s the shrimp pork hash that reminds her of her childhood manapua truck. For another, it’s the fried chicken musubi, his energy bar for a paddle run. A farmer’s guilty pleasure is the ingeniously cellophane-sheathed tuna sushi that you roll in the still-crisp nori. And of course, there’s the ever popular Spam musubi—7-Eleven Hawai‘i sells 14,000 every day, requiring a pallet’s worth (2,000 cans) of Spam. For me, it’s the lup cheong manapua, warm from the steam case, the Chinese salami wrapped up in the dough equivalent of a puffer jacket. 7-Eleven Hawai‘i feels like one of those brands in Hawai‘i, like McDonald’s and Longs Drugs, that gets us. You won’t find our level of affection for 7-Eleven on the Mainland, just as you won’t find lau lau and kālua pig, recently spotted at the Second Avenue location in Kaimukī (the first 7-Eleven in Hawai‘i when it opened in 1978) and others. […] Franchisees manage the majority of Mainland 7-Eleven stores. In Hawai‘i, all are owned by 7-Eleven Hawai‘i, which reports directly to Japan. But that doesn’t mean every store stocks the same items: Each outpost is responsible for its own daily ordering, to better adapt to its customers. Roadwork outside the Waipahu location meant the store manager there had to order larger bentos and more drinks to keep up with construction workers’ appetites. And when schools closed last March, 7-Elevens saw a drop in musubi sales as students stopped coming into the stores every morning.]]> hawaii food https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:e10982f5b6d5/ 2021-07-18T18:26:01+00:00 https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2021/07/17/mass-shooting-kills-18-year-old-woman-near-downtown-portland-food-carts/ matthewmcvickarA mass shooting in downtown Portland, shortly before last call on Saturday morning, killed an 18-year-old woman and injured six others near a line of food carts in what police described as “an extremely chaotic scene.” Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said the killing, along with another fatal shooting four hours later in the Parkrose neighborhood, in deep Northeast Portland, marked the city’s 50th and 51st homicides of the year. Portland saw 55 homicides in 2020, a 26-year record but one on pace to be broken by the end of July. […] As of July 6, the city had seen 579 shooting incidents in 2021—more than double the number at that time in 2020. For months, city leaders have bitterly debated whether to increase staffing for a police force that saw its budget trimmed amid racial justice protests last year and is dogged by repeated allegations of excessive force. […] It occurred three blocks south of Ankeny Alley, the center of an Old Town nightlife district where dance clubs are once again packed to capacity after pandemic shutdowns. That “entertainment district,” which was once fenced off and surrounded by police squad cars on weekend nights, now sees a sparse police presence, despite what club security services describe as a gang war occurring near the queues for their venues. […] Asked by WW why police presence in the Old Town entertainment district was scant, Lovell said those officers were reassigned after COVID shutdowns reduced nightlife, and implied that the bureau was still learning that the clubs were again drawing crowds.]]> guns portland police https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:db91382931c4/ 2021-07-12T15:46:35+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/magazine/lil-nas-x.html matthewmcvickarA peek into a hot boy summer filled with new highs, disappointment and growth.]]> music lgbtq https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:eabe3b6ec206/ 2021-06-30T23:09:28+00:00 https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-rumsfeld-killer-of-400000-people-dies-peacefully matthewmcvickarDo not mourn the defense secretary. Mourn his victims. There were nearly too many to tally, but his Pentagon refused to count anyway.]]> politics war history america iraq afghanistan obituary https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:bbfabbae59ca/ 2021-06-30T17:13:58+00:00 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/portland-heat-wave-2021-1190804/ matthewmcvickarA dispatch from under the heat dome that shattered temperature records in the Pacific Northwest --- In a city deadened by heat, the only hive of activity I spotted was at the public park that was the epicenter of Portland’s street protests and federal occupation last year. A half-dozen activists sat in folding chairs, camped under a canopy tent that read “Community Jail Support.” They were set up, as usual, to provide what leftists call “mutual aid,” to people exiting jail at the county Justice Center, as well as to a homeless encampment lining the nearby sidewalk. Tables and a shopping cart were stacked with water and Gatorade bottles dropped off by volunteers dedicated to serving these communities. Portland is not built for this heat. About a third of Portlanders have no air conditioning. That rises to well over half of residents in nearby Seattle. But I’m not sure any place is built for this heat. And that’s the problem. The emerging extremes of climate change are survivable with the right infrastructure. But our legacy infrastructure literally buckles and melts under this new reality.]]> climatecrisis portland https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:47841bdba42d/ 2021-06-27T21:43:02+00:00 https://bikeportland.org/2021/06/11/opinion-post-pandemic-traffic-is-weighing-on-me-333632 matthewmcvickarCould we have been more ambitious with temporary, pop-up road diets and bike lane networks? Did we miss a perfect political moment to fundamentally alter peoples’ perceptions of street potential? Did we fight off one virus, only to allow another — the congestion and catastrophic climate and community-destroying consequences of car abuse — to re-infect us?]]> portland traffic bicycle https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:4c77880fdde8/ 2021-06-27T21:41:23+00:00 http://avidly.lareviewofbooks.org/2021/06/10/mares-hair/ matthewmcvickarIn this regard the answer to the question of “is this copaganda?” is yes, because an idealized symbiosis of white femininity and carceral power is basically the happy ending that American mass culture wants all of us to hope for. (That the chief of police is one of several framing Black characters only adds to the white carceral feminist fantasy, in that the show aggressively separates the police from white masculinity’s dangers.) But that “yes” comes with ambivalence, because this show is inside of white femininity deep enough to recognize white femininity, much like a police station, as a grim and dangerous place. But in a world where whiteness and carcerality have a lock on power — which, just saying, is not the only world we could imagine — that grim danger might feel, to the lucky some, the safest place available. […] What all this has to do with copaganda is that, by casting Kate, Mare of Easttown is making a particular offer to viewers like me: white women who have matured (Kate Winslet is exactly my age) watching Kate Winslet navigate the disciplining power of the American beauty economy. It is a particular offer about our abilities, ourselves, to seize police power to do our bidding. Kate Winslet is not Cameron Diaz, just like I am not. So maybe I could be her, no matter the status of my disciplinary body shit. Maybe I could be beautiful, maybe I could be worth saving. Maybe I could be the special version of copaganda this show offers, which is where the gap in power between police and white women collapses, and one woman, Mare, or me, holds the weapons of both. Maybe, just as Kate is, I could be the one who could keep the other white women safe. […] Mare of Easttown seems, at its end, to be heading into its own attic. Its ambivalent relationship to the story of police and white femininity it tells manifests in how it offers up the future — as a choice between two kinds of storytelling. There’s the male one Ryan will produce, one connected to Richard’s novel, apparently called May’s Landing, which looks to me a lot like the kind of prestige women-suffering fiction that Mare of Easttown also is. Against that, it offers the one Siobhan will produce, somewhere off-stage. When Siobhan drives away, this is one white woman, the show wants us to believe, who has truly been protected by her mother, the police. She’s been guided into a different story, to learn how to tell a different story.]]> tv police https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:8c9cbd5634ad/ 2021-06-27T21:26:37+00:00 https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2021/06/with-a-heat-dome-poised-to-shatter-oregon-records-what-role-does-climate-change-play.html matthewmcvickar"Climate change isn't your grandchildren's problem, it’s yours.” --- “There are wide disparities in who is being exposed to the heat,” she said. “For the privileged, it’s an inconvenience. Other individuals don’t have a choice.” Among those most affected are those who have no readily available shelter, people experiencing homelessness and people who work in agriculture or construction. […] Researchers at Portland State University found that areas historically subject to racist housing discrimination policies such as red-lining are home to “urban heat islands” where temperatures can sometimes be as much as 13 degrees hotter than other parts of the city. These areas have historically been denied investments in greenspace and tree cover that act as cooling mechanisms in more affluent parts of Portland.]]> climatecrisis weather portland https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:486ba544199b/ 2021-06-24T16:12:29+00:00 https://leahsottile.substack.com/p/11-marry-me-baby matthewmcvickarSo, I’ve got a great idea: What might be a better, more accurate, advertisement would be to run a photograph of my favorite public toilet in The New York Times, and alongside it, there can be a commitment by Portland leaders to ensure this is a place where we will not retch at the sight of poverty, where we hold police accountable, where we will not sweep away our most vulnerable people until everyone here has a place to live. What would actually be creative — groundbreaking, even — would be for Portland to see poor people as neighbors, not adversaries. Actual living, breathing humans just like themselves, whose circumstances — not moral failures — led to their situation. Portland needs to make sure everyone has a seat at our table first before we invite the world over to eat.]]> tourism portland homelessness https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:6e00e4b9319e/ 2021-06-21T20:36:11+00:00 https://ryanmcgreer.myportfolio.com/work matthewmcvickarGraphic Designer from Portland, OR]]> design friend https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a79444b21b4c/ 2021-06-21T15:35:02+00:00 http://lalo.li/ddd/ matthewmcvickarGet the moving dot into the black end dot using dots you make with your fingers! Dot Dot Dot - it's fun, addicting! How far will you get?]]> game https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:14b981dc9dbb/ 2021-06-18T15:13:43+00:00 https://www.visualcapitalist.com/map-true-size-of-africa/ matthewmcvickarThe reason for this is that the familiar Mercator map projection tends to distort our geographical view of the world in a crucial way — one that often leads to misconceptions about the relative sizes of both countries and continents. […] The African continent has a land area of 30.37 million sq km (11.7 million sq mi) — enough to fit in the U.S., China, India, Japan, Mexico, and many European nations, combined.]]> maps world geography politics design https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:cb2991a55ea1/ 2021-06-17T17:51:22+00:00 https://laughingsquid.com/steve-miller-band-the-joker-wolf-whistle/ matthewmcvickarWeb developer Matthew McVickar has quite amusingly remixed the classic Steve Miller Band song “The Joker” so that the iconic “wolf whistle” that takes place after the line “Some people call me Maurice” occurs after every line in the song itself. This little edit appears to make the song a bit more provocative than it already is.]]> self music comedy https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:f7670496fe82/ 2021-06-14T05:24:40+00:00 https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-earbuds/ matthewmcvickarThe Jabra Elite 65t is the current entry-level model, offering 5 hours of battery life (or up to 15 with the charging case), Bluetooth 5.0, wind noise reduction on calls, and three sizes of molded tips; it’s also rated IP55 waterproof. “I’ve used the Jabra Elite 65t daily for a few years,” says Portland, Oregon, web developer Matthew McVickar. “They’re considerably cheaper than AirPods and sound great, but the essential difference for me is that you can control volume, track skipping, and the hear-through—which amplifies the outside sound for better environmental awareness—with the on-earbud buttons.”]]> audio self music https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:10bbb2ace17e/ 2021-06-14T04:47:54+00:00 https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ matthewmcvickar economics inequality money https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:094744af7368/ 2021-06-08T22:58:14+00:00 https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-wired-headphones/ matthewmcvickarPortland, Oregon, web developer Matthew McVickar says, “I have yet to find a pair of over-ear headphones that don't feel uncomfortable with glasses after more than half an hour or so, but I love the Sony MDR 7506.”]]> self headphones music sound audio https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:1166b97d92f1/ 2021-06-03T19:58:10+00:00 https://www.csaimages.com/free.asp matthewmcvickarTo thank all of our loyal customers for decades of support in helping us create the CSA Images collection, we've decided to give away Free CSA Design Elements (with a daily download limit). Our hope is that this free collection will become a useful and constantly expanding design resource for many years to come. -Charles S. Anderson]]> _free-images design https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:361cefab41cf/ 2021-05-28T16:33:50+00:00 https://everydayexperiments.com/invisible-roommates matthewmcvickarInvisible Roommates is an augmented reality (AR) application that would make visible how the devices in your home interact with one another. The application would make use of existing technology to portray the different devices connected to your network as little living characters, playfully illustrating how these pieces of technology communicate while making it easier for you to understand what is happening in your home.]]> iot internet privacy augmentedreality https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:6a2a8063ae01/