Even if my film education wasn’t thanks to the various free film series around the Nation’s Capital, my dad’s habitual diet of the wonkiest of political talk shows meant that political themes on screen were not a foreign concept (even for the foreign films shown at the East Gallery’s auditorium). And here we are at the even of yet another election, so what if you want to watch something while staying up too late for…
Okay, so let me explain. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 happened over the course of six days, starting on a Thursday. But that Thursday aka “Black Thursday” was October 24th, while when it ended, October 29th, was dubbed “Black Tuesday.” I was busy on the 24th, so here we are. Why am I thinking about this? No reason. No reason at all. But jokes aside, there has been talk of the AI bubble, a…
So we’re deep in spooky season and for those of you who want to take a break from all the spooky posts, but still remain somewhat seasonally adjacent, I give you Dr. Sanjay Juneja geeking out about all sorts of aspects of blood. As someone who has made a decent amount of fake blood and almost worked for Blood I found it very informative. Note: this is meant for humans and is not likely to…
Eric Bauza, man of innumerable voices, has died unexpectedly at the age of 46. You can read remembrances from multiple places, including: Besides all his work voicing Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and various Looney Tunes, you’ve heard him in all sorts of shows and films. I can’t help but think, were this an unpleasant twist mid-cartoon, Bugs would have something to quip. As Chester Riley might say, “What a revoltin’ development this is.” And it’s…
Continuing my series of posts about the current crop of AI and machine learning –especially the post a few Wednesdays ago about what we the people or we the government of the people might do about AI— here’s something quite topical: Data Centers! Amid the general backlash against AI, the very NIMBY backlash about data centers keeps popping up in news pieces… probably because of the overwhelming push tech titans are making to build new…
Okay, so I spent most of last week with posts about Banned Books Week which, based on site traffic, was well received (unlike some books in some quarters), but as we know, AI is being used for writing copy. Not always for school papers. Not always for blog posts. But in familiar patterns like the one I’m mocking right now. They also like using the em dash, to which I say: Yeah, I’m not going…
Hopefully you’ve had a fine Banned Books Week and now simply want to kick back with some mead and enjoy a stirring saga of a bunch of folks who the average 9th Century inhabitant of the British isles would like to ban. Yes, I’m talking about the Vikings and, seeing as it’s Leif Erikson Day, that extremely well-known holiday passed into law in 1964 for which we don’t get off work, I’m sure you’ve been…
What with it being Banned Books Week and me posting yesterday about how much people are reading for pleasure less, it’s altogether unusual that a bookstore chain is doing well… well enough to befuddle no end of retail analysts in the age of inveterate online shopping. Now, I posted about Barnes & Noble’s curious resurgence back in January 2025, but guess what? It’s still going strong as per this eight-minute video for Fortune: I have…
In looking for additional posts for Banned Books Week, I came across this article by Chrissie Gruebel for Barnes & Noble noting some of the petty and pretty ridiculous reasons people have sought to ban books. And if you’re wondering about the image above, yes: Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? was removed from a school curriculum in 2010… for Marxism! Some of the other reasons for book removal are similarly ill-informed and,…
I’m probably not the only person during Banned Books Week pondering how much reading people are doing during this age of algorithms trying to keep people online. You’ve probably heard news reports or anecdotal evidence about people reading less. Well, I went and found one of the actual studies that doubtless fueled some of those news reports. Basically, Americans have been “reading for pleasure” less and less over the past 20 years or so… as…