I’ve seen parents pushing toddlers around strapped into a stroller with a tablet mounted on an arm right at the kid’s eye level. Even if the kid wanted to stop looking at the tablet, they’d have a hard time. They’re basically Ludovico Technique-ing their own kids.

Spring:

I bought a few sundae spoons at a thrift store on a lark and holy crap are they useful!

I remember the first four being good. I seem to recall liking Ender’s Shadow, but that may have been nostalgia for the original. Didn’t read any beyond that.

What’s crazy is that those first four are deeply about how important empathy is, even for thinking beings that are so drastically different from ourselves that that seem utterly alien. And then, yadda yadda yadda, you should only borrow them from the library or buy them from a used book store.

Relevant as ever:

Auralnauts are geniuses. Jedi Party is basically the only way I can bring myself to watch the prequels ever again.

“The enemy’s gate is down.”

I listened to an NPR story around Halloween about a young married couple in the early 1900s who moved into an old house.

Right away, the place is clearly haunted. Weird cold spots. Doors that are open that they know they had closed earlier. They hear footsteps sometimes in rooms they know are empty. They awake at night and are aware of malevolent human-shaped dark figures in their bedroom. It’s basically a laundry list of classic haunted house tropes.

They call in a priest, he says some prayers. Weird phenomena continue. House is still haunted.

They call in a gas guy. He fixes a leaky gas pipe. Symptoms go away. House is no longer haunted.

Yes…

…but also…

There’s like… one percent of one percent of advertising that has ever been created that actually had some kind of artistic or entertainment merit. Those insane Spongmonkies ads for Quiznos. The H&M ad Wes Anderson did. It’s so vanishingly rare as to not meaningfully count, but it does happen once in a blue moon.

The first time I ever paid for access to cheat codes was in 1990.

One, long fart, you say?

…it must be a lightsaber handle!

Is bear okay?! :<

Hell yeah, electric horses!

You’re comparing a guy who isn’t even in the Senate yet to the single most annoying Democratic senator, when you should be comparing him against his actual opponent, Susan Collins, who thought Trump had learned his lesson.

“Wanting to define the terms of the conflict” is not the same thing as “pinning hopes.”

I have no illusions that getting a Democratic majority in Congress will solve all of our problems. I know for a fact that a Republican majority will continue to make things worse at an ever-increasing pace until the situation becomes completely untenable. At least with Democrats, there’s a conversation to be had.

Yes, let us all unite to [checks notes] ensure that Republicans retain control of the Senate and therefore continue to rubber-stamp everything Trump does and further insulate him from consequences.

Break the Republican majority first. Feel free to turn on each other like starving dogs after.

It’s not a continuity error as such, but I’m a big fan of all the technologies that by rights should have completely upended galactic civilization but then just get forgotten.

The Genesis device should be an appalling superweapon that would change the face of war.

And then those missiles from Generations that can kill an entire solar system should, too.

And the time on TNG that they stumbled on a weird transporter trick that could make it so no one would ever need to die of old age ever again.

And the Tribble blood that cures death.

And so forth.