“How to resist the tech overlords” – Ian Dunt

Selflinks_read

“More and more, I find myself relieved by endings. When I put on a record on, it ends. When I turn the last page of a book, it’s over. When I finish a comic, it’s done. That can feel inconvenient, but it is actually a moment of empowerment. You will now decide whether you want to hear the album again, or listen to a different one, or do something else entirely. You are not just lost in this endless conveyor belt of content, which you long ago stopped considering with a critical eye”

https://iandunt.substack.com/p/how-to-resist-the-tech-overlords

“Shadow Government: The Consulting Firms Telling Ottawa What to Do” – Justin Ling (The Walrus)

Selflinks_read

“Despite Ottawa’s insistence that everything was above board, their own numbers revealed that, between 2011 and 2023, McKinsey was awarded ninety-seven contracts totalling more than $209 million—of them, 70 percent were non-competitive contracts. Even when contracts were, technically, competitive, the review found that the government sometimes tilted the process in McKinsey’s favour.

An independent procurement ombudsman reviewed those contracts in April 2024 and came to quite a different conclusion than that of the internal audits”

https://thewalrus.ca/shadow-government/

“‘When I die, I would like to come back as a rice ball’” – Florentyna Leow (Japan Times)

Selflinks_read

“According to the Onigiri Society, one major rice ball trend to watch out for in the future is the “reverse import.” An example of this phenomenon is the California roll becoming popular in Japan. Little was said on precisely what form the reverse-import rice ball might take. It’s hard to imagine it’ll be the British fish and chips onigiri, the Swiss cheese fondue onigiri or the Alpine macaroni onigiri. Available at the Onigiri Summit, all three were part of an “Onigiri of the World” series of rice balls developed by Nico Nico Nori in collaboration with the Osaka University of Arts and to be sold during Expo 2025”

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2024/09/08/food-drink/onigiri-summit-rice-ball-japan/

“Who are Britain’s new aristocrats?” – Nicholas Harris (New Statesman)

Selflinks_read

“More stunning is their iterative powers, some holding firm since the days of Palmerston’s first premiership: the percentage of entrants whose parents’ wealth at death was in the top 1 per cent of national wealth is the same now as the 1850s. And when Friedman and Reeves traced more than 100 random families from the first editions of Who’s Who to today, 57 per cent had descendants who had later made the cut. In other words, if you have a family member in the elite, you are 120 times more likely to get there too compared with everyone else”

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2024/09/who-are-britains-new-aristocrats

“Explaining the 2024 election’s exaggerated mandate vibes” – Julia Azari (Good politics/Bad politics)

Selflinks_read

“Perhaps more importantly, the Biden era rarely felt like winning for Democrats. The Dobbs decision undoubtedly contributed to this. But it’s also a feature of why Democratic politics seems to fall short in the “messaging” wars. Biden came to office with a lot of problems to solve, and addressing problems requires talking about what the problems are, who is affected, and why they came about. This produces a very psychologically unsatisfying discourse not well-suited to the current media environment. And solutions are often slow and riddled with tradeoffs. Even if they address the underlying problems, they don’t solve the messaging issues”

https://goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/explaining-the-2024-elections-exaggerated

“DOGE: Dangerous Oligarchs Grab Everything” – Don Moynihan (Can We Still Govern)

Selflinks_read

“Andreessen’s unwillingness to recognize that DOGE promises to be fundamentally different in its goals and structure relative to prior government reform commissions reiterates a recurring theme in his interview: I stayed normal as I became a billionaire; its the rest of the world that became radicalized”

https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/doge-dangerous-oligarchs-grab-everything

“The Katsuification of Britain” – Tim Anderson (Vittles)

Selflinks_read

“The katsu curry craze is a specifically British phenomenon; it isn’t derived from a larger international trend. American supermarket shelves are not laden with katsu curry products. Burger King never sold their Katsu Range in Canada or Australia, and McDonald’s didn’t release their katsu curry nuggets anywhere else either. The trend is also a recent one – the ubiquity of katsu curry feels sudden and unprecedented. Unlike chicken tikka masala, it does not derive from a major wave of immigration to the country; unlike burgers, it is not inspired by a country that wields global cultural hegemony. But while the trend seems to have come out of nowhere, perhaps it should come as no surprise. After all, katsu curry is British food. Or, at least, it was”

https://www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/the-katsuification-of-britain

“Judging a book by it’s back cover” – Ken Whyte (SHush)

Selflinks_read

“The fourth and most important reason blurb dependency is surprising is that the limited data available indicate they’re ineffective. The audience-research firm Codex Group tested variations of book covers, some with blurbs, some without, in surveys of several thousand readers. A very small number of participants found blurbs meaningful, and only when the person doing the blurbing mattered to them, and the blurb itself contributed to their understanding of the book. When it came to purchasing decisions, 2.5 percent of participants admitted to discovering a book through the recommendation of a favourite author, and 1 percent bought the book as a result”

https://shush.substack.com/p/judging-a-book-by-its-back-cover

“January 16, 2025” – Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American)

Selflinks_read

“At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance today, Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, billionaire Scott Bessent, said that extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts was “the single most important economic issue of the day.” But he said he did not support raising the federal minimum wage, which has been $7.25 since 2009 although 30 states and dozens of cities have raised the minimum wage in their jurisdictions”

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-16-2025