Today is Tuxday, 04 of Broket 4118. [4118.11.04]
…assuming you follow the Common Calendar, of course, but I assume you probably do not. Or should. Ahem. Newsletter!
Entropy Arbitrage welcomed visitors from Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong SAR China, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay this month, which never fails to please me. Remember, all content is made available under the CC-BY-SA license, so if anybody needs to provide a translation, you don’t need my permission, provided that you comply with the terms of the license. However, feel free to ask for help or otherwise reach out, too.
February’s Idle Thoughts
Welcome to the sixty-eighth issue of the Entropy Arbitrage newsletter.
New Life, New Civilizations, and New Audiences
When I wrote the post for These Are the Voyages, I made a comment in a footnote about the struggle that most franchises have in maintaining and growing their audiences, framed in terms of Star Trek.
They keep trying to pitch the same show, but set in a different century or location, and maybe pick a captain that looks different, instead of rethinking the colonial/militarist focus.
I wanted to talk a bit about the range of options that could work in such a franchise, taking the same (variety of) universe, but genuinely offering a prospective new audience something more than slightly different cuts of the same spandex. Since I have no access to the Star Trek intellectual property, I think of them more as part of a “generic” science fiction franchise, and may work on some of them one day, but you could imagine any of them with a hypothetical Roddenberry credit, if it helps frame it. And even though I said that I might get to them, the newsletter’s license says that you can feel free to steal any of them with my blessing.
I should note that, when talking about other Star Trek shows, I have half-joked about imagined shows that I would rather have watched, including the Klingon lost on Earth in the sixteenth century who takes William Shakespeare’s identity and the time-traveling team that cleans up the messes made by other crews. I borrowed the (at least in my estimation) most powerful idea from that list, but you can consider these more serious proposals than that batch.
Borders of Silence: The Federation finds itself on the verge of war against almost all rival powers, with civil strife also threatening domestic affairs. A disfavored ambassador with a knack for languages, exiled to an unimportant world where the previous ambassador died by an assassin’s blade or other weapon, discovers that the universal translators provide the most aggressive and stereotypical interpretations of what people say. Not knowing who to trust, our ambassador needs to unravel the mystery that might have gotten their predecessor killed, before war breaks out. (Early hints could indicate Starfleet involvement, keeping the civilian protagonists away from official authority.)
Fairest Country under the Stars: Evidence from far away begins to pile up suggesting that another United Federation of Planets exists, with a similar history, appearance, and demeanor, but it lies behind “enemy lines.” Historians, meanwhile, believe that they have uncovered evidence of an ancient advanced human culture that left Earth with that rival power, raising the possibility that two Federations grew from similar seeds, or they might need to deal with an impostor. A team—not Starfleet, in case anything goes wrong—needs to cross the border, making social connections in hostile territory, to learn the truth in these rumors.
Merlin: In an economically depressed, forgotten corner of the Federation, Conn Maxwell and his team gather investors to fund a search for a nearby mythical supercomputer, claimed to have created a golden age in the region millennia ago. No such computer exists (or does it…?), and the team actually has a benevolent confidence scheme in mind, using their money to fund “Merlin’s” infrastructure projects and attract trade back to the area. (Heavily inspired by H. Beam Piper’s The Cosmic Computer/Graveyard of Dreams.)
No Justice, No Peace: I proposed this when groaning about Picard in August 2023, but the second- and third-generations of the franchise have provided us with extensive evidence that the Federation doesn’t treat people well. They have planned and attempted genocide against the Borg, the Changelings, and Synthetic life, plus a bunch of smaller groups that didn’t return. The 2009 film raises the possibility that they destroyed Romulus deliberately, and now treat former government officials as migrant laborers to exploit. Persecution and imprisonment of Augments goes back centuries, now. Lower Decks makes it clear that people treat the cultures who resemble propaganda against people with intellectually disabilities and Jewish folks as targets to mock. And characters don’t care unless it directly affects somebody in their core friend group, and stop caring when it doesn’t. As such, I still want the show where the underclass has decided that they’ve had enough, standing together to demand better treatment, and force the Federation to live up to its alleged principles.
A Thousand Ships: Ambassador Lwaxana Troi travels the galaxy with her silent valet. Apart from her official duties, she gets personally involved with the locals, pushing past accusations of meddling to push everybody to accept the community’s outcasts and take care of each other. (This feels like where the character’s appearances in the 1990s could have gone, and feels like the time for it, even if it’d need to recast the role.)
The Tribble with Harry: Long into retirement from his criminal career, with only a Tribble ranch on a distant planetoid to his name, Harry Mudd dies. The people closest to him don’t care much, because they didn’t care much for him, but they keep hiding the body so that the local Starfleet officers don’t find out and start investigating. Each episode starts with somebody moving the body to a new hiding spot and running into a character who tells the story of how they believe they killed Harry in some unique and ideally funny way, told in flashback. In reality, Harry died from a violent allergic reaction to Tribble fur, but nobody knows about that until/unless the series ends. (Borrows heavily from Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry, as I would hope that at least someone figured out based on the title…)
The Veil: On Earth, right now, in addition to our routine crises, new forces have started making themselves known, not quite cults, not quite social movements. One group dedicates itself to the suppression of emotion. Another demands capitalistic acquisition. Another insists on honor through violence. Transhumanists have started chattering about the futility of resistance. Many others have begun influencing society, though they try to stay in the shadows, despite their rivalries occasionally spilling into public. An informal group of amateurs and discredited officials—our protagonists—want to get to the bottom of this. (No hard evidence of extraterrestrials exists, here, but the references clue the audience into the likely sources. It also has room for new groups as red herrings or some groups that mostly coincidentally reflect our favorite non-humans. And most importantly, the problem comes from conflict, not the alien ideas, with most groups and rivalries having existed for decades. Think of it as the franchise’s version of The X-Files, but its Mulder refers to episodes such as Tomorrow Is Yesterday, Little Green Men, and Carbon Creek, blending them with real conspiracy theories.)
Granted, even most of those ideas probably don’t push far enough away from “a crew looks for resources to exploit and ends up in a lot of fights” template of the other shows, but I came up with those over a couple of hours without any chance of Paramount hiring me. One imagines that a professional taking their time could do better.
Even so, I think that every one of these ideas would expand the audience beyond aging Next Generation fans further than Strange New Worlds or Scouts does. But if not, you could also imagine weekly rescue operations, historians who keep stumbling into controversies, the politics of actually establishing the Federation, and more. If you’ll pardon my jumping between franchises, Star Trek should have had its Andor a long time ago, but Star Wars, the property about black-and-white morality, somehow got to it long before the property built around social satire.
And as I hinted, I think that most of these—probably not A Thousand Ships without previously establishing a new character inspired by Auntie Mame or similar—would work without the existing parent franchise, or appended to a different one, and I may consider some of them when I have the time. For at least one of them, I wrote myself a complete outline for a first season that weaves around public domain science fiction stories. Maybe I’ll add details in future issues of the newsletter. In fact, I may switch gears for the project previews to talk about a mostly abandoned project that would have provided the backbone for this sort of thing.
Only Watching for the Ads
Early in February, most of you probably know better than I do, American football had its Super Bowl. The weekend of the event reminded me of my least-favorite aspects of the whole thing.
No, not the owls. The joke has long outlived its usefulness, but it hasn’t gone on so long that I resent it.
No, I mean the “I hate football, so I only watch the commercials.” Yeah, that’ll show them. Watch the only part of the three hours that everybody uses to decide whether to keep airing the thing. Resent crass commercialism at Christmas, but celebrate it a few weeks later.
Plus, do you know how many insipid things that I’ve gone to in order to socialize with the other people? I didn’t need some smug excuse to both insult everybody else and insist that I found a clever “hack” to the whole thing.
If you like football, then admit that you like football. If you don’t, then admit that you don’t. And if you want company, then stop pretending that you have better things to do with your time…
I don’t think that I have anything else. I almost expanded on this as a full blog post, but I had another post that I wanted to go out that weekend, so you got it instead.
People-Search Antics, February 2026
No updates this time around. I may reduce the frequency of these, at least until I have a significant change in status that might trigger new documents floating around.
Project Previews
The renewed job search (alas) soaks up a lot of time that might have previously gone to side-projects, but I can still occasionally dig into weird ideas that might become something down the road…
As mentioned earlier, while I decide what to do with The Light’s Edge, rather than a “real” preview, I want to provide some retrospectives on projects that never really came together. This one ties to the idea of expanding a media franchise such as Star Trek for new audiences instead of the same aging audiences.
Celestial Patrol
This came fairly close to a real release.
Technology
Somewhere around 2016, I developed a not-so-devious plan. I wanted to try out some television-style ideas and, no doubt because of my background, wanted a prototyping system that could give the sense of watching an episode of television without needing to hire a cast and production team. That work became Gen Audio, a set of scripts to go from a lightly annotated screenplay written using a slightly extended Fountain to a recorded audio track per act, with images representing each character.
You could—and I certainly did—imagine a next version where, rather than showing a static face, you could have early Filmation-style animation where a character’s “walk cycle” moves across a large background image while procedurally cropping each “frame” simulates a camera keeping the important characters in view, and using the close-ups more sparingly, all completely reproducible.
The scripts come really close to working, only failing because the piece to generate opening and closing credits somehow doesn’t result in a video file compatible with the videos per act, leading to timing problems when assembling the entire thing. I never could figure that out, and should still try to find somebody who understands ffmpeg well enough to recognize the problem.
Premise
A couple of years prior to this, I started thinking more heavily about the public domain, especially as it relates to what we might call “distressed” intellectual property, media franchises that Big Media own that they haven’t treated well. I had worked on similar ideas before, such as taking the public domain incarnations of characters used by DC or Marvel Comics, then used primarily as cannon fodder.
For example, DC probably should have made the Blue Beetles one of their core legacies, retroactively cramming one into the primary teams. And yet, until the last few years, only after Jaime Reyes proved popular on a Batman cartoon, they mostly kept every version of the character in the background, and still do except for Reyes. After some research, I realized that, if you took the characters that DC had acquired some rights to, but had fallen at least partly into the public domain, plus similar characters from public domain works, you could have an interesting world built around a skeleton of core legacies—the Marvel Family, Blue Beetle, Phantom Lady, Plastic Man, the Shield, and the Blackhawks—mixing them with surrogates for major DC characters to show how to better integrate them.
Anyway, on my list of such possible projects, I had…Star Trek. At the time, we didn’t know about Discovery and the reboot films had fallen apart. And depending on how you interpret the idea of “publishing” a television episode, about half the original series shouldn’t have copyrights, because they don’t have a copyright statement on them. If I wanted to test the studios’ “we rent copies to broadcasters, rather than offering them to the public” arguments, I would build a fictional universe around only those episodes.
I had the idea for a show that would stitch together the original show’s mysteries—under different names to avoid trademarks—into an episodic show that would quickly evolve into a serialized thriller as those mysteries became imminent dangers. Star Trek’s “big three” would serve as minor officers aboard a ship led by characters from public domain space opera tasked with investigating these issues. At some point, the lead characters would die on a pivotal mission, passing on the responsibility to the (lightly disguised) characters who we know.
Taking Things Seriously
I decided that this idea could work well as the test case for Gen Audio, especially since the more I worked on the idea, as I fit together public domain inspirations, the Star Trek characters, cultures, and institutions started falling away in favor of equivalents with no copyright entanglements, gesturing at a sprawling universe that pulled together major science fiction works.
Eventually, I imagined this world as created by a producer bringing together H. Beam Piper and E.E. Smith, with Gustav Holst as the primary composer, all longer-lived than in reality, rather than a replacement for a more popular franchise…
This became the (now mostly abandoned) Celestial Patrol, with a pilot script Armageddon that borrowed tropes from about half a dozen public domain science fiction stories that involve societies managed by musical computers, alongside Armageddon: 2419 A.D., in case the story needed Anthony “Don’t Call Me Buck” Rogers later. As a prequel to Star Trek, that story would provide a link in the chain from the computer-managed societies that Kirk encounters back to some origin posing a larger threat.
The second episode (This World Is Taboo) takes its name (and would have taken most of its story) from a story that you can find on Project Gutenberg which may come from a broader series with elements still covered by copyright. It would also introduce the idea that the government used these military-style patrols to carry different services to worlds with less infrastructure, and the officers in charge of those services could require the captain to follow their orders under some circumstances. A third or fourth episode would flash back to before the ship launched, to reveal the captain’s primary mission.
I had a few more full episode ideas and a rough arc of twenty-two episodes with blocks that interested collaborators could fill in. But turning them into “television” meant getting Gen Audio working—and Paramount launching Discovery obsoleted the “distressed property” conceit—so I hit the pause button, and have no idea whether I left behind a readable, let alone good, script. Likewise, Gen Audio could probably use an overhaul, maybe using modern AI voice cloning based on LibriVox narrators to produce a better variety of voices than traditional synthesis could.
Broader Franchise
While developing Celestial Patrol, and even having most of that “first season” mapped out, I had already started souring on the format that I described above. Even tempering it with the idea that some officers have second civilian duties (medicine, law enforcement, maintenance, intelligence, criminal justice, and so forth) giving them the authority in certain circumstances to take control of the ship if the captain doesn’t answer their mission needs in a timely fashion, it still reeked of a colonial military trying to pose as a utopian force in the galaxy.
I tried fixing the problem by removing the military trappings such as real-world ranks, but I couldn’t find or devise a credible substitute, and the fact that everybody lives inches from certain death does suggest that everybody needs to know who can legally boss them around. That, in turn reifies some problems even if I could put a new coat of paint on them.
Therefore, I turned to the idea of this “show” establishing the universe for spinoffs to play in. The spinoffs started strongly inspired by existing or mainstream ideas that didn’t take off, such as Assignment: Earth, a Stargate knock-off built from a public domain Pulp novella, a time-travel show chronicling alien interference in human history, an early version of Merlin (above) that tried to ape Firefly (back when most of us pretended not to notice Joss Whedon’s sexism and racism or that particular show’s glaring faults), and so forth. And even these, you’ll notice, strongly reek of xenophobia, using worries about foreign influence to motivate the plot.
Still, I have hung onto these ideas. If you squint, you can probably see my vision for Assignment: Earth influencing The Veil, for example, as it combined with other influences, such as a task force operating out of Area 51 for non-extraterrestrial reasons that I don’t recall.
Anyway, I might get deeper into this at some point, but especially talking about “re-homing” hypothetical spinoffs earlier, it seemed worth talking about what I (or you) could use as that new home, if anybody wanted to help recondition things. I still think that the story could work, especially if the presentation didn’t break down.
Media
In no particular order, I present a list of some things that I finished watching, listening to, or reading in February.
No, I don’t remember when I started them, unless they didn’t take long. You can probably estimate that I watched about an episode of any given “archived” television show per day, though, if that helps. If you’d like to know what I finish watching as I finish it—sometimes I catch something during the narrow window when people can watch it free—you might consider becoming a member at Buy Me a Coffee.
I didn’t really have the energy to invest in Love and Rockets, vol 2, which—I liked it, I think, but…—ends up as more an illustrated novella than a comic. Over the years, I have made fun of comics with walls of text so large that the characters would need to crouch to get any time in front of us, and this has many pages that come close. And I couldn’t really justify staring at a screen reading page after page of handwritten text, no matter how good snippets seemed.
Bitter has some good writing, but I feel like it focuses the story on the wrong aspects, giving us a cinematic revolt against injustice, but never really personalizing or fleshing out the problems, and waving off the (more important and more interesting) problem of rebuilding after destroying the city’s ruling class. It acknowledges that a better world will take more effort, then moves on, as if somebody else can solve it.
Akata Witch didn’t really capture my attention as much as Okorafor’s other books that I’ve read, but I would still call it well worth the time.
The End felt like it wanted to tell too many stories at once, never quite investing in any of them.
I had a lot of fun with The Haunting of Tram Car 015, though I might call it much too short.
Grantchester often almost feels written like a rejection of Father Brown. We have the similar setups of a kind member of the clergy—different denominations—who assists the local cops with their empathy and common sense, and it has a similar sense of humor. But here, the police solicit their help and enjoy the relationship. And the housekeeper learns over time to stuff her bigotry and outgrow it. Honestly, if they could’ve replaced the police side of things, I’d love a lot about this show; when the episode focuses on the characters, it does a wonderful job, and only gets bogged down when they need to do actual policing.
All about Love provides more bell hooks goodness. What more do I need to say…?
In the Upper Country comes to life better than I expected it to. I’d highly recommend it.
Spy City (on Kanopy, but somehow no longer shows up?) didn’t really grab my attention, feeling more like a leftover script from the 1960s than a modern script set in the 1960s, not really interested in commenting on anything that happens so much as wanting to cheer it on.
Bookish has a lot of potential, but I have to admit that it felt like it kept doing the “we’re lovers; does that shock you, detective?” thing. I look forward to seeing if the next season can figure out how to work more cohesively, because I did enjoy many of the elements.
How Long ’til Black Future Month has the usual mixed bag of an anthology, but Jemisin hits it out of the park a lot more than she misses. That doesn’t surprise me. It does surprise me how many of her stories involve the city—implicitly or explicitly New York City—changing in some mysterious way, an idea that I’ve had a fondness for over the years, too…
The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos, Vol. 1 amused me. Parts of it felt a bit trite, and some characters too thin, but the sentiment works.
Good Grief feels amateurish. It has a few good moments, so I can’t say that I disliked it. But it comes in with the idea of two complete opposite sisters, but they both speak the same way and neither has any idea how to manage their lives. And then a bunch of other characters similarly seem similar…
Happiness completely delighted me. Does this have a soundtrack? Because I’d listen to “Trojan Horse, the Musical.” Also, I don’t know that we’ll ever get a better line than “it should focus on Cassandra, but Adrian said that nobody cares what she has to say.” Go throw some money at a PBS affiliate and watch it.
Africa Risen has a nice mix of stories, though they have such a wide variation that I can’t usefully say much more than that.
American Cherry seems…how can I put this? Have you ever wondered what it would look like to cram an ultra-serious prime time teen drama into a ninety-minute film, without the multiple seasons to build its characters and hit its writing stride? I have to imagine that it would look like this, but maybe with more appealing performers and fewer whispering monologues trying to recapture youth.
The Last Right has a decent story, but feels like a mess as it jumps between subplots and largely replaces all of them with a romance.
Phantom Love felt a bit too artsy for my tastes, such as establishing the character’s situation through lengthy repetition, but I’d call it solid overall.
Loner: An Alison Wonderland Graphic Novel has one good story, one that I’d call opaque, and some others, including a role-playing adventure that I admittedly didn’t bother to read.
I admittedly only skimmed Tower of Shadows, because 1970s mainstream horror comics all look pretty much the same to me, and generally only ever seem to hold historical interest, because the books commanded so little respect that many writers and pencillers got their start there. And while I enjoyed it, it didn’t really color outside those lines.
The Short History of the Long Road bored me senseless. They try to pass off the lead’s surliness as coming out of her recent trauma, but she started story rolling her eyes at everything.
The Second Age of Aquarius doesn’t really work, especially in its repeated mentions of sexism while mostly relegating the female lead to a half-dressed plot device who feeds the 3D avatar opportunities to make sexual comments.
Daredevil, Vol. 1: Know Fear comes so close to having a point—flirting with the idea that you can’t use violence to systemically stop violence, whether as law enforcement or as a vigilante—but somehow lands on that, when the bodies start piling up, violent people need to make room for the next generation. Ugh.
The League of Gentlemen felt promising, hence my getting most of the way through it, but it also kept falling into the same misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia and trying to pass it off as hilarious.
The Abagail Mysteries deserves better than sloppy “faith-based” nonsense. The premise of a true-crime podcaster obsessing over her neighbor’s heart attack and trying to build a conspiracy out of hidden Bible verses, resulting in a crackpot scavenger hunt, has a lot of potential. But the church focus off in the background and the prayer increasing over time over-sells the idea. And the writing gets so clunky, such as the male lead calling his meal “an everything pizza” analogous to an “everything bagel,” with no comprehension that everything pizzas exist, including on the menu hanging right behind him. Also, the podcast producer doesn’t want our lead wasting time on something shiny and entertaining, because true-crime podcasts definitely don’t care about attention and entertaining people, I guess? Oh, and they introduce us to “real-Theo” and guy “posing as fake-Theo.”
Afro Unicorn: The Land of Afronia, Vol. 1 seemed a bit…simplistic, I guess, not even childish, but more stripping ideas down past the point where they hold together. For the most blatant example, other than literally showing random animals with afros, I don’t understand the point of the naming conventions.
First Winter felt like a waste of time, ninety minutes with yoga- and tobacco-enthusiasts who seem incapable of fending for themselves.
Nightshade Anthology Book 1: Party Animals has some awful writing, frankly, but comes together as it approaches the midpoint and has some outright fun moments.
I couldn’t understand a word of A Few Cubic Meters of Love, but I love the leads’ enthusiasm, so I’ll take it…
Hacker’s Game felt woefully out of date and amateurish in almost every respect beyond maybe the drone photography.
Salam seemed interesting and painfully appropriate, given how February ended.
Blog Posts for February 2026
In case you missed one and don’t like RSS readers, here’s a round-up of the past month’s worth of posts.
Free Culture Book Club — Mundo Virtual - Sat Feb 28 2026
Toots 🦣 from 02/23 to 02/27 - Fri Feb 27 2026
Real Life in Star Trek, Emissary part 1 - Thu Feb 26 2026
Developer Diary, Meteņi - Mon Feb 23 2026
Disconnected Thoughts - Sun Feb 22 2026
Free Culture Book Club — Wikimedia Italia Plays (Banana) - Sat Feb 21 2026
Toots 🦣 from 02/16 to 02/20 - Fri Feb 20 2026
Real Life in Star Trek, Next Generation Final Summary - Thu Feb 19 2026
Developer Diary, Lunar New Year’s Eve - Mon Feb 16 2026
Carnival Jangle - Sun Feb 15 2026
Free Culture Book Club — Wikimedia Italia Plays (1) - Sat Feb 14 2026
Toots 🦣 from 02/09 to 02/13 - Fri Feb 13 2026
Real Life in Star Trek, Films etc., TNG - Thu Feb 12 2026
Developer Diary, Mintonette - Mon Feb 09 2026
The Negro in Our History (1922) - Sun Feb 08 2026
Free Culture Book Club — Vampire Corpse Feast - Sat Feb 07 2026
Toots 🦣 from 02/02 to 02/06 - Fri Feb 06 2026
Real Life in Star Trek, Star Trek 2009 - Thu Feb 05 2026
Developer Diary, Groundhog Day - Mon Feb 02 2026
Breaking the ICE - Sun Feb 01 2026
I also revisited and updated some older posts, for various reasons.
Real Life in Star Trek, Introduction from Thursday, 2020 January 02, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club from Saturday, 2020 May 02, 2 words
Free Culture Book Club - Orang-U from Saturday, 2020 May 09, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Jathia’s Wager from Saturday, 2020 May 16, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Seeds, Prologue to Chapter 3 from Saturday, 2020 May 23, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Seeds, Chapter 4 to Chapter 4.5 from Saturday, 2020 May 30, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Seeds, Chapter 5 to Chapter 6 from Saturday, 2020 June 06, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Stardrifter - Motherload from Saturday, 2020 June 13, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club - Elephants Dream from Saturday, 2020 June 20, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club - Won’t You Come In? from Saturday, 2020 June 27, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club - Forgotten from Saturday, 2020 July 04, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club - Magnificent Mechanical Man §1–12 from Saturday, 2020 July 11, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club - Magnificent Mechanical Man §13–24 from Saturday, 2020 July 18, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club - Magnificent Mechanical Man §25–36 from Saturday, 2020 July 25, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club - Magnificent Mechanical Man §37–49 from Saturday, 2020 August 01, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Morevna, Episode 3 from Saturday, 2020 August 08, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Prelude to Whitespace from Saturday, 2020 August 15, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Pentagon from Saturday, 2020 August 22, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Virtuoso Prologue from Saturday, 2020 August 29, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Endgame∶ Singularity from Saturday, 2020 September 05, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Book Dash Books, Part 1 from Saturday, 2020 September 12, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Book Dash Books, Part 2 from Saturday, 2020 September 19, 10 words
Free Culture Book Club — Where Are the Joneses? Part 1 from Saturday, 2020 September 26, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Where Are the Joneses? Part 2 from Saturday, 2020 October 03, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Where Are the Joneses? Part 3 from Saturday, 2020 October 10, 11 words
Free Culture Book Club — Where Are the Joneses? Part 4 from Saturday, 2020 October 17, 13 words
Free Culture Book Club — Drakes from Saturday, 2020 October 24, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — MTF Sigma-5 “Pumpkin Punchers” from Saturday, 2020 October 31, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Nothing to Hide from Saturday, 2020 November 07, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Elvie from Saturday, 2020 November 14, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — The Journey to Thelio from Saturday, 2020 November 21, 7 words
Free Culture Book Club — Pratham Books, Part 1 from Saturday, 2020 November 28, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Pratham Books, Part 2 from Saturday, 2020 December 05, 12 words
Free Culture Book Club — Monkaa from Saturday, 2020 December 12, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Pepper & Carrot, ep. 1–6 from Saturday, 2020 December 19, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Biodigital, ch 1–13 from Saturday, 2020 December 26, 7 words
Free Culture Book Club — Biodigital, ch 14–26 from Saturday, 2021 January 02, 7 words
Free Culture Book Club — Biodigital, ch 27–39 from Saturday, 2021 January 09, 7 words
Free Culture Book Club — Biodigital, ch 40–52 from Saturday, 2021 January 16, 7 words
Free Culture Book Club — Biodigital, ch 53–end from Saturday, 2021 January 23, 7 words
Free Culture Book Club — Continuity Drift from Saturday, 2021 January 30, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Uncle Nagy’s House from Saturday, 2021 February 06, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — The Wanderers’ Library from Saturday, 2021 February 13, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Phill from GCHQ from Saturday, 2021 February 20, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — The Spiraling Web, Part 1 from Saturday, 2021 February 27, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — The Spiraling Web, Part 2 from Saturday, 2021 March 06, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — The Spiraling Web, Part 3 from Saturday, 2021 March 13, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — The Spiraling Web, Part 4 from Saturday, 2021 March 20, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Valkaama from Saturday, 2021 March 27, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — A Dark Room from Saturday, 2021 April 03, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — The Fellowship of Heroes from Saturday, 2021 April 10, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Moses und Aron, ch 1-3 from Saturday, 2021 April 17, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Moses und Aron, ch 4-6 from Saturday, 2021 April 24, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Moses und Aron, ch 7-9 from Saturday, 2021 May 01, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Moses und Aron, ch 10-13 from Saturday, 2021 May 08, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — FSF Propaganda Videos from Saturday, 2021 May 15, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Ficly from Saturday, 2021 May 22, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Wilber & Co. from Saturday, 2021 May 29, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — The House from Saturday, 2021 June 05, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Boris Munchausen from Saturday, 2021 June 12, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Solitudes and Silence, ch 1-4 from Saturday, 2021 June 19, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Solitudes and Silence, ch 5-9 from Saturday, 2021 June 26, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Solitudes and Silence, ch 10-14 from Saturday, 2021 July 03, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — La Chute d’Une Plume from Saturday, 2021 July 10, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Headshot, part 1 from Saturday, 2021 July 17, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Headshot, part 2 from Saturday, 2021 July 24, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Eroticature from Saturday, 2021 July 31, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Typhoon, Part 1 from Saturday, 2021 August 07, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Typhoon, Part 2 from Saturday, 2021 August 14, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Typhoon, Part 3 from Saturday, 2021 August 21, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Typhoon, Part 4 from Saturday, 2021 August 28, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Cataclysm — Dark Days Ahead from Saturday, 2021 September 04, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Affair, Part 1 from Saturday, 2021 September 11, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Affair, Part 2 from Saturday, 2021 September 18, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Affair, Part 3 from Saturday, 2021 September 25, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Affair, Part 4 from Saturday, 2021 October 02, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Lightbringer, Part 1 from Saturday, 2021 October 09, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Lightbringer, Part 2 from Saturday, 2021 October 16, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Occupy This Novel!, Part 1 from Saturday, 2021 October 23, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Occupy This Novel!, Part 2 from Saturday, 2021 October 30, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Sita Sings the Blues from Saturday, 2021 November 06, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — if then else, part 1 from Saturday, 2021 November 13, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — if then else, part 2 from Saturday, 2021 November 20, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — if then else, part 3 from Saturday, 2021 November 27, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — if then else, part 4 from Saturday, 2021 December 04, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Space Company from Saturday, 2021 December 11, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Children of Wormwood, part 1 from Saturday, 2021 December 18, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Children of Wormwood, part 2 from Saturday, 2021 December 25, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Children of Wormwood, part 3 from Saturday, 2022 January 01, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Children of Wormwood, part 4 from Saturday, 2022 January 08, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Dead Ascend from Saturday, 2022 January 15, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — For the Fragile Muses… from Saturday, 2022 January 22, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Tex Montana Will Survive! from Saturday, 2022 January 29, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Homem-Grilo from Saturday, 2022 February 05, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Learn to Code RPG from Saturday, 2022 February 12, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Your Face Is a Saxophone from Saturday, 2022 February 19, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Level 13 from Saturday, 2022 February 26, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Dudley’s (New, Improved) Dungeon from Saturday, 2022 March 05, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Dünnes Eis, part 1 from Saturday, 2022 March 12, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Dünnes Eis, part 2 from Saturday, 2022 March 19, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Josh Woodward from Saturday, 2022 March 26, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Fiction by David Turner from Saturday, 2022 April 02, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — One Hour One Life from Saturday, 2022 April 09, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Collectivity from Saturday, 2022 April 16, 7 words
Free Culture Book Club — Moose Lake Cartoons from Saturday, 2022 April 23, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Lunatics from Saturday, 2022 April 30, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Virtual Danger, part 1 from Saturday, 2022 May 07, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Virtual Danger, part 2 from Saturday, 2022 May 14, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Virtual Danger, part 3 from Saturday, 2022 May 21, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Virtual Danger, part 4 from Saturday, 2022 May 28, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Counterfeit Monkey from Saturday, 2022 June 04, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Captain Quark, part 1 from Saturday, 2022 June 11, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Captain Quark, part 2 from Saturday, 2022 June 18, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Captain Quark, part 3 from Saturday, 2022 June 25, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Captain Quark, part 4 from Saturday, 2022 July 02, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Game Grab Bag from Saturday, 2022 July 09, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Banjo Players/Die, part 1 from Saturday, 2022 July 16, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Banjo Players/Die, part 2 from Saturday, 2022 July 23, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Banjo Players/Die, part 3 from Saturday, 2022 July 30, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Banjo Players/Die, part 4 from Saturday, 2022 August 06, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Tom Lehrer from Saturday, 2022 August 13, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Starborn from Saturday, 2022 August 20, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Ke’Aun Charles from Saturday, 2022 August 27, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Quand manigancent les haricots from Saturday, 2022 September 03, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Quand manigancent les haricots pt 2 from Saturday, 2022 September 10, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Quand manigancent les haricots pt 3 from Saturday, 2022 September 17, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Bulletproof Blues, part 1 from Saturday, 2022 September 24, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Bulletproof Blues, part 2 from Saturday, 2022 October 01, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — American Dream, part 1 from Saturday, 2022 October 08, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — American Dream, part 2 from Saturday, 2022 October 15, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — American Dream, part 3 from Saturday, 2022 October 22, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — American Dream, part 4 from Saturday, 2022 October 29, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — American Dream, part 5 from Saturday, 2022 November 05, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — The Command Line Murders from Saturday, 2022 November 12, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Redmine, part 1 from Saturday, 2022 November 19, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Redmine, part 2 from Saturday, 2022 November 26, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Superflu from Saturday, 2022 December 03, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Colossal Cave Adventure from Saturday, 2022 December 10, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — R. James Gavreau from Saturday, 2022 December 17, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Quantum Flux from Saturday, 2022 December 24, 7 words
Free Culture Book Club — Life Blood, chapters 1 – 3 from Saturday, 2022 December 31, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Life Blood, chapters 4 – 5 from Saturday, 2023 January 07, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Life Blood, chapters 6 – 9 from Saturday, 2023 January 14, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Life Blood, chapters 10 – 13 from Saturday, 2023 January 21, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Life Blood, chapters 14 – 16 from Saturday, 2023 January 28, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Life Blood, chapters 17 – 19 from Saturday, 2023 February 04, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Life Blood, chapters 20 – 22 from Saturday, 2023 February 11, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Life Blood, chapters 23 – 25 from Saturday, 2023 February 18, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Life Blood, chapters 26 – 29 from Saturday, 2023 February 25, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Golem, part 1 from Saturday, 2023 March 04, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Golem, part 2 from Saturday, 2023 March 11, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Delilah H. Smith from Saturday, 2023 March 18, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Snowbound Blood part 1 from Saturday, 2023 March 25, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Snowbound Blood part 2 from Saturday, 2023 April 01, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Snowbound Blood part 3 from Saturday, 2023 April 08, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Snowbound Blood part 4 from Saturday, 2023 April 15, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Expedition Sasquatch, part 1 from Saturday, 2023 April 22, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Expedition Sasquatch, part 2 from Saturday, 2023 April 29, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Expedition Sasquatch, part 3 from Saturday, 2023 May 06, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Jectoons Random Vignettes from Saturday, 2023 May 13, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Death off the Cuff from Saturday, 2023 May 20, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Distress Beacon from Saturday, 2023 May 27, 8 words
Free Culture Book Club — Green Comet, part 1 from Saturday, 2023 June 03, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Green Comet, part 2 from Saturday, 2023 June 10, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Green Comet, part 3 from Saturday, 2023 June 17, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Let’s Move Forward from Saturday, 2023 June 24, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — kiki the nano bot from Saturday, 2023 July 01, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Someone Like You from Saturday, 2023 July 08, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Archive of Our Own, part 1 from Saturday, 2023 July 15, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Archive of Our Own, part 2 from Saturday, 2023 July 22, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Project Ballad, part 1 from Saturday, 2023 July 29, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Project Ballad, part 2 from Saturday, 2023 August 05, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Project Ballad, part 3 from Saturday, 2023 August 12, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Poles, part 1 from Saturday, 2023 August 19, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Poles, part 2 from Saturday, 2023 August 26, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Poles, part 3 from Saturday, 2023 September 02, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Poles, part 4 from Saturday, 2023 September 09, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Poles, part 5 from Saturday, 2023 September 16, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — C-Man from Saturday, 2023 September 23, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Full Bloom from Saturday, 2023 September 30, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — ½ from Saturday, 2023 October 07, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Sugar the Robot, part 1 from Saturday, 2023 October 14, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Sugar the Robot, part 2 from Saturday, 2023 October 21, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Duelyst from Saturday, 2023 October 28, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — A Vessel for Offering, part 1 from Saturday, 2023 November 25, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — A Vessel for Offering, part 2 from Saturday, 2023 December 02, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — A Vessel for Offering, part 3 from Saturday, 2023 December 09, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — A Vessel for Offering, part 4 from Saturday, 2023 December 16, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Only One from Saturday, 2023 December 23, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Admin from Saturday, 2023 December 30, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Ada & Zangemann from Saturday, 2024 January 06, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Space Rover, part 1 from Saturday, 2024 January 13, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Space Rover, part 2 from Saturday, 2024 January 20, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Gedichte from Saturday, 2024 January 27, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Pointy Chances from Saturday, 2024 February 03, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Moria’s Race from Saturday, 2024 February 10, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — WNV Universe — Woethief 1 from Saturday, 2024 February 17, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — WNV Universe — Woethief 2 from Saturday, 2024 February 24, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — WNV Universe — Woethief 3 from Saturday, 2024 March 02, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — WNV Universe — Other from Saturday, 2024 March 09, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Cauac Ox from Saturday, 2024 March 16, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Airlock Bound, part 1 from Saturday, 2024 March 23, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Airlock Bound, part 2 from Saturday, 2024 March 30, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — In Unexpected Places from Saturday, 2024 April 06, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Noir & Blanc, part 1 from Saturday, 2024 April 13, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Noir & Blanc, part 2 from Saturday, 2024 April 20, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Noir & Blanc, part 3 from Saturday, 2024 April 27, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — The Lost Universe from Saturday, 2024 May 04, 7 words
Free Culture Book Club — Cistemfailure from Saturday, 2024 May 11, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Catburglar from Saturday, 2024 May 18, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Unprintable from Saturday, 2024 May 25, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — There Is No Antimemetics Division from Saturday, 2024 June 01, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Nevada, part 1 from Saturday, 2024 June 08, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Nevada, part 2 from Saturday, 2024 June 15, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Nevada, part 3 from Saturday, 2024 June 22, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Nevada, part 4 from Saturday, 2024 June 29, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Nevada, part 5 from Saturday, 2024 July 06, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Raiders of the Unix Seas from Saturday, 2024 July 13, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Aether Age Codex - Helios, part 1 from Saturday, 2024 July 20, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Aether Age Codex - Helios, part 2 from Saturday, 2024 July 27, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Aether Age Codex - Helios, part 3 from Saturday, 2024 August 03, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Viaje a la Tierra del Quebracho from Saturday, 2024 August 10, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Antumbra, chapter 0 from Saturday, 2024 August 17, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Morrisa Jeanine from Saturday, 2024 August 24, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Geiko Eien Ni from Saturday, 2024 August 31, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Aumyr, part 1 from Saturday, 2024 September 07, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Aumyr, part 2 from Saturday, 2024 September 14, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Aumyr, part 3 from Saturday, 2024 September 21, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Aumyr, part 4 from Saturday, 2024 September 28, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Ancient Beast from Saturday, 2024 October 05, 6 words
Free Culture Book Club — Restoration Day, part 1 from Saturday, 2024 October 12, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Restoration Day, part 2 from Saturday, 2024 October 19, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Restoration Day, part 3 from Saturday, 2024 October 26, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Everybody Loves Eric Raymond from Saturday, 2024 November 02, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Route 66, An American (bad) Dream from Saturday, 2024 November 09, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Fully Automated! part 1 from Saturday, 2024 November 16, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Fully Automated! part 2 from Saturday, 2024 November 23, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Ancient Fire from Saturday, 2024 November 30, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — 2048, Enkidu, and Plastic from Saturday, 2024 December 07, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — floodlight up. liquid god from Saturday, 2024 December 14, 5 words
Free Culture Book Club — Speciare Lunar Research Facility from Saturday, 2024 December 21, 4 words
Free Culture Book Club — Trans Girl Project, part 1 from Saturday, 2024 December 28, 3 words
Free Culture Book Club — Norte, part 1 from Saturday, 2025 December 27, 1 word
Free Culture Book Club — Norte, part 2 from Saturday, 2026 January 03, 1 word
Bravado and Fear from Sunday, 2026 January 11, 5 words
Using (or Not) AI from Sunday, 2026 January 18, 567 words
Significant changes to the text come with clear and dated markings. Changing the wording or correcting a typo is more routine, but it indicates that I’ve at least been looking at the post. Longer changes probably have a brief write-up in this very newsletter.
The most popular posts on the blog have been Recutils — Small Technology Notes, Real Life in Star Trek, Introduction, Copyright Searches, and Real Life in Star Trek, The Paradise Syndrome for the month.
Articles I’ve Been Reading
You’ve seen some of these already in Friday posts, but here’s more from the sources in my RSS reader that I thought were worth reading.
Why Apple’s move to video could endanger podcasting’s greatest power from Anil Dash
‘Are refugees being traded?’ UN questions the UK-France asylum swap from Global Voices
Supermassive black holes can slow star growth in nearby galaxies from Futurity
Gut bacteria protect mice against post-flu pneumonia from Futurity
A Room of One’s Own in 2026 in 6 Parts: The Domain, the Material and the Immaterial from brennan.day
Conservatives really do not like each other from Daily Kos
Musical performance presented by Striped Light in Long Island City, New York showcases four performers from English Wikinews Atom feed.
Is AI Coming for Our Jobs? from Jacobin
Revolution begins with care: Confronting the polycrisis from openDemocracy RSS
Pluralistic: California can stop Larry Ellison from buying Warners (28 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Trump’s Illegal War from emptywheel
Bill Clinton’s Epstein hearing proves 1 thing—Trump must testify too from Daily Kos
A Cookie for Dario? — Anthropic and selling death from Anil Dash
There are key differences in long-term impacts of COVID and flu from Futurity
Luxury jets for deportations: Kristi Noem’s biggest grift yet from Daily Kos
Stolen wealth: how Black depositors funded the nation’s capital from The Real News Network
Why does chronic pain last longer for women? from Futurity
The Epstein Files Are the Horror That Keeps on Giving from Jacobin
Your attention shifts multiple times every second from Futurity
Trump says things are great for the uber-rich—but what about us? What about the Epstein Survivors? from The Real News Network
‘I’m heartbroken’: Trans Kansans struggle with reality as driver’s licenses are invalidated from The 19th
It’s not solar that competes with farmland from The Earthbound Report
Epstein Files Debate Gets Pedophilia and Power Wrong from Rewire News Group
The Secret Pipeline: How the Far-Right is Radicalising Gen Z | With Jamie Vernaelde from openDemocracy RSS
Former Harvard president Summers’ soft landing after Epstein revelations is case study of economics’ trouble with misbehaving men from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Why AI’s flaws are hurting girls most from Fast Company
How Local Elected Officials Are Trying to Check ICE from Jacobin
Issue 101 – Bought and paid for from Citation Needed
How Minneapolis Fought ICE With Dildos from Rewire News Group
How high school students are organizing walkouts against ICE from Waging Nonviolence
Diego Rivera Was the Painter of the Mexican Revolution from Jacobin
Company Helps Men Scrub Negative Posts About Them from Tea App from 404 Media
Don’t Expect a Refund for Your Tariff-Inflated Expenses from Jacobin
Why is WebAssembly a second-class language on the web? from Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog
The Government Just Made it Harder to See What Spy Tech it Buys from 404 Media
Turns out ICE is just a bunch of scared widdle guys from Daily Kos
The rubble of empire from Africa Is a Country
Fewer new moms are dying in Colorado – naloxone might be one reason why from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Minneapolis united when federal immigration operations surged – reflecting a long tradition of mutual aid from The Conversation – Articles (US)
How to prevent elections from being stolen − lessons from around the world for the US from The Conversation – Articles (US)
It’s never too late to learn a language – adults and kids bring different strengths to the task from The Conversation – Articles (US)
How Todd Blanche Gave Ghislaine Maxwell Blackmail over Donald Trump from emptywheel
The people standing between students and ICE? Teachers. from The 19th
Seized Art, Eavesdropping Guards: Parents Describe a Clampdown at Dilley Detention Center as Kids Shared Their Stories from ProPublica
This hotline is letting fans congratulate the U.S. women’s hockey team after its gold medal win from Fast Company
on the matter of the acceptable target from birzeblog
Amazon Change Means Wishlists Might Expose Your Address from 404 Media
Beware of AI Swill from OtherWords
What Critics Still Get Wrong About Marijuana Legalization from OtherWords
Don’t End TPS for Our Immigrant Neighbors from OtherWords
How to Pick Your Password Manager from Deeplinks
Mainstream media sanewashes Trump’s racist, lying State of the Union from Daily Kos
A White House Staffer Appears to Run Massive Pro-Trump X Account from WIRED
MAGA Is Raging Over the Epstein Files. But They’re Not Mad at Donald Trump from WIRED
Stealing Students’ Dreams to Give Billionaires Tax Breaks from OtherWords
This Pill Treats Postpartum Depression. So Why Don’t More People Take It? from Rewire News Group
Detroit was once home to 18 Black-led hospitals – here’s how to understand their rise and fall from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Pittsburgh nurses are fighting for better staffing ratios — and the research backs them up from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Pluralistic: The whole economy pays the Amazon tax (25 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Trump gives his most unhinged State of the Union speech yet from Daily Kos
Federated End-to-End Encrypted Messaging is Coming Soon from We Distribute
The strange animals that control their body heat from Knowable Magazine
How to build emergency response systems for the long haul from Waging Nonviolence
The Capitalist Interests Behind Donald Trump from Jacobin
Funny teachers may help students stay more engaged from Futurity
“If we don’t speak, no one will know we were here”: Kenya’s forgotten Nubians pick up the microphone from Minority Africa
‘Rechargable sun battery’ outperforms lithium-ion batteries from Futurity
Exposure to bad health info online is concentrated among older adults from Futurity
3 popular password managers are less secure than promised from Futurity
House speaker protects skeevy GOP lawmaker to save his majority from Daily Kos
Palantir’s Move to Florida Is About Keeping Workers Trapped from Jacobin
Rare disease isn’t rare—it’s a healthcare blind spot from Fast Company
Lab-made algae gets microplastics out of water from Futurity
This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby from 404 Media
Why ICE’s body camera policies make the videos unlikely to improve accountability and transparency from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Honoring Colorado’s Black History requires taking the time to tell stories that make us think twice from The Conversation – Articles (US)
50 years ago, the Supreme Court broke campaign finance regulation from The Conversation – Articles (US)
When civil rights protesters are killed, some deaths – generally those of white people – resonate more from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Building your own blogging tools is a fun journey from AndreGarzia.com
How do you explain ICE to your child? Immigrant families are having ‘The Talk’ from The 19th
Taking action against AI harms from Anil Dash
A Billion Years Are Mysteriously Missing From Earth’s History. Now, We Know Why. from 404 Media
Americans are pissed at the state of Trump’s union from Daily Kos
Meta’s AI Patent to Simulate Dead People Shows the Dangers of ‘Spectral Labor’ from 404 Media
Meta Director of AI Safety Allows AI Agent to Accidentally Delete Her Inbox from 404 Media
How Democrats can leverage Trump’s economic disaster from Daily Kos
On Tariffs, Neil Gorsuch Is Hardly Apolitical from Jacobin
How Homeland Security’s subpoenas and databases of protesters threaten the ‘uninhibited, robust, and wide-open’ free speech protected by Supreme Court precedent from The Conversation – Articles (US)
As Trump pushes voting restrictions, states have a rarely used option to push back from Daily Kos
The Promise and Tragedy of the Popular Front from Jacobin
Who really wins from the US critical minerals drive? from openDemocracy RSS
The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM from The 19th
In central Viet Nam, a marine protected area listened to its residents. It worked. from Mekong Eye
The green panopticon: When saving rhinos means watching people from Oxpeckers | Namibia plans to become an energy powerhouse – but is it realistic？
An Open Letter to Cory Doctorow: Ollama is part of the enshittification! from brennan.day
Zohran Mamdani Wants to Reclaim Efficiency From the Right from Jacobin
How Gig Capitalism Came to Thrive in Nordic Labor Markets from Jacobin
U4C Election – Why It Needs You from Diff
Trump’s Tantrum Tariffs from emptywheel
My Malware Story Gets Stolen; Yet Another Argument for the IndieWeb from brennan.day
Supreme Court’s tariff ruling may have broken Trump from Daily Kos
Rev. Jesse Jackson’s deep commitment to peace from Waging Nonviolence
DHS Wants a Single Search Engine to Flag Faces and Fingerprints Across Agencies from WIRED
‘Deeply concerned’: Democrats launch probe of Musk’s sex abuse bot from Daily Kos
Metadata Exposes Authors of ICE’s ‘Mega’ Detention Center Plans from WIRED
The U.S. Military Is Reviving Microbes from 40,000-Year-Old Ice from 404 Media
Ultraprocessed foods have addictive qualities similar to tobacco from Futurity
‘He Gave Me My Wings’: Jesse Jackson Opened Doors for Black Women in Politics from Rewire News Group
Democrats don’t want you to forget the cost of Trump’s dumb tariffs from Daily Kos
‘They better take away duct tape’: Trans men say they’ll keep binding despite FDA crackdown from The 19th
The Power of Power Structure Research from Jacobin
Pluralistic: A perforated corporate veil (20 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
How Gender Discrimination Works at Work from JSTOR Daily
Enforcing Prohibition with a massive new federal force of poorly trained agents didn’t go so well in the 1920s from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Trump administration axed nutrition education program that saved more money than it cost, even as government encourages healthier eating from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Individual donors provide only a small slice of university research funding – but Jeffrey Epstein’s ties with academics show why screening matters from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Wall Street–Backed Lawmakers Want to Help Banks Gouge You from Jacobin
EFF’s Policy on LLM-Assisted Contributions to Our Open-Source Projects from Deeplinks
Republican defends SAVE Act by comparing women to used cars from Daily Kos
The curious case of low-protein diets from Knowable Magazine
Man Opposing Data Center Arrested for Speaking Slightly Too Long from 404 Media
Affordability Is a Vanishing Promise for the Middle Class from OtherWords
Keeping Our Promise To Veterans Includes Funding Transit from OtherWords
Reassessing the People’s Hospital in the Bronx from Jacobin
Drought and Indigenous Migration in the American Midwest from JSTOR Daily
The greatest risk of AI in higher education isn’t cheating – it’s the erosion of learning itself from The Conversation – Articles (US)
A school for deaf children from Wellcome Collection stories
Todd Lyons Bragged of Investigations into Just 37 Use of Force Incidents Out of Hundreds from emptywheel
How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance from WIRED
The roots of our storytelling from Africa Is a Country
The New York Times is back on its Democrat-smearing bullsh-t from Daily Kos
Trump judge says the quiet part out loud from Daily Kos
The secret tool AI uses to seduce you: explained from The Real News Network
A $1B ‘therapeutic’ illusion: advocates fight Baltimore’s new jail from The Real News Network
The roots of our storytelling from Africa Is a Country
Palantir, Which Is Powering ICE, Says Immigration Crackdown May Hurt Hiring from 404 Media
A Vast Trove of Exposed Social Security Numbers May Put Millions at Risk of Identity Theft from WIRED
How did we end up threatening our kids’ lives with AI? from Anil Dash
The DOJ’s Top Antitrust Officer Has Left as Lobbying Surges from Jacobin
They won their strike fair and square. Now their rich bosses are closing up shop. from The Real News Network
John Roberts Wrote the Permission Slip for the Fulton County Fiasco from emptywheel
Big Tech Says Generative AI Will Save the Planet. It Doesn’t Offer Much Proof from WIRED
Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans to Expand ‘Search Party’ Surveillance Beyond Dogs from 404 Media
Trump’s Racism Carries No Consequences—And That’s Scary from Rewire News Group
How deregulation made electricity more expensive, not cheaper from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Your gut microbes can be anti-aging – scientists are uncovering how to keep your microbiome youthful from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Florida’s immigrant entrepreneurs are creating jobs and prosperity in their communities from The Conversation – Articles (US)
When ICE sweeps a community, public health pays a price – and recovery will likely take years from The Conversation – Articles (US)
The Prairieland 19 Case Is a Test for Criminalizing Dissent from Jacobin
Science academies failing to put women at the top from Global
The Epstein Class: They Are the Elites They Pretend to Hate from OtherWords
‘He gave me my wings’: Jesse Jackson opened doors for Black women in politics from The 19th
How Prisons Turn Traumatized Women Into Unpaid Crisis Workers from Scalawag
‘I am somebody’: Tributes pour in for civil rights icon Jesse Jackson from Daily Kos
Activists are racking up wins against a false climate solution from Waging Nonviolence
The Epstein Whistleblower Who Was Silenced from Jacobin
The Kessler Syndrome from DSHR’s Blog
What the COVID-19 Pandemic Revealed About Abortion Access—Research from Rewire News Group
Where have the Chapungu gone? from Africa Is a Country
Politics Is Everywhere, So Why Do People Feel So Powerless? from Jacobin
Revisiting the story of Clementine Barnabet, a Black woman blamed for serial murders in the Jim Crow South from The Conversation – Articles (US)
3 generations of Black Philadelphia students report persistent anti-Black attitudes in schools from The Conversation – Articles (US)
The 1% Rule: An Open Letter to Everyone Who Doesn’t Post Anything Online from brennan.day
Pluralistic: What’s a “gig work minimum wage” (17 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Why so few planets are suitable for life from Futurity
“token anxiety”; or, a slot machine by any other name from jae kaplan
Team pinpoints brain network responsible for Parkinson’s from Futurity
High doses of antioxidants linked to offspring birth defects from Futurity
Road salt is worse for freshwater life than expected from Futurity
Black Men Endured Sexual Exploitation Under Slavery. Their Story Is Rarely Told. from Rewire News Group
Pluralistic: The online community trilemma (16 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Voices from the Wikimedia Futures Lab from Diff
Why activists should take friendship seriously from Waging Nonviolence
Scientists Find Intense Psychological Differences in People Who Exercise from Futurism
Pam Bondi’s Rap Sheet from emptywheel
Ending the Surge in Minnesota Isn’t Enough from Jacobin
The Class War on White-Collar Workers Is Just More Capitalism from Jacobin
NO DEAL: Nurses at NY-Presbyterian overwhelmingly vote to stay on strike from The Real News Network
Campaign Urges Users to Quit ChatGPT Over OpenAI’s Support for Trump and ICE from Futurism
What Meetings Among Trump Lawyers Reveal About the FBI’s Seizure of Election Records in Georgia from ProPublica
Apes can imagine things like humans do from Futurity
Minnesota Demolishes Stephen Miller’s Theory of Force from emptywheel
The intensity and perfectionism that drive Olympic athletes also put them at high risk for eating disorders from The Conversation – Articles (US)
For Migrant Workers in Spain, Gender-Based Violence Is Rife from Jacobin
How The Wikipedia Library supports scientific research in decentralized regions of Argentina from Diff
“Not Ready for Prime Time.” A Federal Tool to Check Voter Citizenship Keeps Making Mistakes. from ProPublica
Pluralistic: Trump antitrust is dead (13 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Discord Voluntarily Pushes Mandatory Age Verification Despite Recent Data Breach from Deeplinks
Trump’s EPA decides climate change doesn’t endanger public health – the evidence says otherwise from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Mark Zuckerberg Wanted to Keep in Touch With Jeffrey Epstein from Jacobin
AI Is a Burnout Machine from Futurism
Database reveals how Americans use water from Futurity
The Working Class Can’t Be Bought Off Quite So Easily from Jacobin
How 3 local BDS campaigns won the divestment of millions in Israeli bonds from Waging Nonviolence
Trump Is Dismantling Civil Rights Oversight of ICE from Jacobin
Cops Are Buying ‘GeoSpy’, an AI That Geolocates Photos in Seconds from 404 Media
Citizenship voting requirement in SAVE America Act has no basis in the Constitution – and ignores precedent that only states decide who gets to vote from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Growing US Aggression Is a Symptom of Imperial Decline from Jacobin
Pam Bondi’s Gutter: Five Ways the Attorney General Confirmed She Is Engaged in an Epstein Cover Up from emptywheel
Salty, Oily Drinking Water Left Sores in Their Mouths. Oklahoma Refused to Find Out Why. from ProPublica
House passes elections overhaul bill that could make it harder for married women to vote from The 19th
Trump administration losing credibility with judges and grand juries – a former federal judge explains why this is ‘remarkable and unprecedented’ from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Tales of a very clever slime mold from Knowable Magazine
Trump’s SEC Is Moving to Silence Investor Whistleblowers from Jacobin
Announcing new policies related to the use of Wikimedia sites for advocacy purposes from Diff
Without school vaccine mandates, many kids may never see a doctor from The 19th
Meet the Hell Cats — a key to Democrats’ hopes of taking the House from The 19th
90% of student discrimination and harassment complaints were dismissed last year. Here’s why. from The 19th
Epstein tracked #MeToo fallout and advised accused men behind the scenes from The 19th
Utah lawmakers sweep their own study on care for trans kids under the rug as they push to ban it from The 19th
Government Loses Hard Drives It Was Supposed to Put ICE Detention Center Footage On from 404 Media
“Free” Surveillance Tech Still Comes at a High and Dangerous Cost from Deeplinks
Target Needs to Kick ICE Out of Its Stores from OtherWords
Socialist Co-Ops Against Silicon Valley Empires from Jacobin
A Mystery Inside Earth’s Core Has Finally Been Solved With a Mind-Boggling Discovery from 404 Media
Job Board for AI Agents Immediately Overrun With Humans Desperate for Work from Futurism
Green or not, US energy future depends on Native nations from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Martha Washington’s enslaved maid Ona Judge made a daring escape to freedom – but the National Park Service has erased her story from Philadelphia exhibit from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Distrust and disempowerment, not apathy, keep employees from supporting marginalized colleagues from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Sex Workers Fear Border Patrol’s New Social Media Requirements Could Make U.S. Travel Off Limits from Rewire News Group
Tenants Have More Economic Power Than They Think from Jacobin
Reading to young kids improves their social skills − and a new study shows it doesn’t matter whether parents stop to ask questions from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Women and young girls bear the brunt of Mali’s worsening security crisis from Global Voices
Why I’m Changing the License in Over 80 of My Code Repos After Talking to the Co-Creator of Fediverse from brennan.day
No, Moltbook is not the Singularity or AGI. Not even close. from brennan.day
Researchers Studied What Happens When Workplaces Seriously Embrace AI, and the Results May Make You Nervous from Futurism
Donald Trump Is Kneecapping Corporate Oversight from Jacobin
How young adults recall early adversity shifts based on relationships now from Futurity
Anxiety over aging may make women age faster from Futurity
Baltimore’s mass overdose protocol is a consequence of its failure to end the drug war from Scalawag
The fight to keep ICE from reopening a notorious prison from Waging Nonviolence
The Blueprint for a Nationwide Immigrant Strike from Jacobin
Shrews shrink their brains and bodies to get through winter from Futurity
Hair shows banning lead in gas worked from Futurity
Epstein Files: X Users Are Asking Grok to ‘Unblur’ Photos of Children from bellingcat
With Ring, American Consumers Built a Surveillance Dragnet from 404 Media
Historically Black colleges and universities do more than offer Black youths a pathway to opportunity and success – I teach criminology, and my research suggests another benefit from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Mapping cemeteries for class – how students used phones and drones to help a city count its headstones from The Conversation – Articles (US)
RNA is key to the dark matter of the genome − scientists are sequencing it to illuminate human health and disease from The Conversation – Articles (US)
As Jeff Bezos dismantles The Washington Post, 5 regional papers chart a course for survival from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Trump Is Tearing Apart the North American Auto Industry from Jacobin
As EPA Weakens Air Pollution Regulations, Black Women Stand to Face the Greatest Health Risks from Rewire News Group
Why Christian clergy see risk as part of their moral calling from The Conversation – Articles (US)
The cataclysmic flood that wasn’t from Knowable Magazine
Held captive in their own country during World War II, Japanese Americans used nature to cope with their unjustified imprisonment from The Conversation – Articles (US)
The Screen Time Panic Sets Parents Up to Fail from 404 Media
A world reimagined in Black from Africa Is a Country
Dorothy Parker: Sharp-Witted Writer, Bitter Professor from JSTOR Daily
Valentine’s Day cards too sugary sweet for you? Return to the 19th-century custom of the spicy ‘vinegar valentine’ from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Fifteen years after Egypt’s uprising, how faith and politics reshaped a generation from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Sex Educators Are Self-Censoring Online to Avoid Content Bans. Does it Work? from Rewire News Group
Pluralistic: The Epstein class and collapse porn (09 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The Conservative Researcher Being Linked to the FBI’s Seizure of Election Records in Georgia from ProPublica
Indigenous firefighters protect Chiang Mai’s forests from Mekong Eye
Unions Are Going to Die Unless Something Big Changes Soon from Jacobin
Wiki Loves Folklore 2026 (Congo) – Celebrating Our Intangible Heritage from Diff
Charity Is No Substitute for Economic Rights from Jacobin
SpaceX Gives $1 Million Prize to Literal Nazi Who Has Bragged About His Profound Racism from Futurism
If MAGAt Political Culture Collapsed in the Woods and No Traditional Media Were There To See It… from emptywheel
Marco Rubio Will Let 2.5 Million Children Die so Sarah Rogers Can Fund Far Right Extremists in Europe from emptywheel
Healing beyond borders: Digital mental health support for refugees from openDemocracy RSS
A broken lifeline: Fixing humanitarian aid’s missing link from openDemocracy RSS
Fake visas and complex databases: Tech’s role in exploiting migrant workers from openDemocracy RSS
Why Nigeria may be missing silent mpox transmission from Global
US media rushes to defend police departments from liberal backlash against ICE from The Real News Network
Inspector General Investigating Whether ICE’s Surveillance Tech Breaks the Law from 404 Media
The UAW Volkswagen Contract Is a Win for Unions in the South from Jacobin
Grant Guidelines for Libraries and Museums Take “Chilling” Political Turn Under Trump from ProPublica
There’s a competition crisis in America’s state legislatures – and that’s bad for democracy from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Has globalization lessened the importance of physical distance? For economic shocks, new research suggests ‘yes’ from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Fertility Clinics See Explosive Growth in Private Equity Money: Study from Rewire News Group
Pluralistic: Luxury Kafka (06 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Credit Reporting Companies Want to Hide Consumer Complaints from Jacobin
The Green Transition and Environmental Injustice in the South from Scalawag
Vibe Coding Is Killing Open Source Software, Researchers Argue from 404 Media
This SpaceX Situation: Not Good! from 404 Media
Reading C. Wright Mills in the Age of Trump from Jacobin
Mind The GAAP Again from DSHR’s Blog
When Wikipedia Takes the Stage: A Slam to Celebrate 25 Years of Free Knowledge from Diff
The GOP’s Solution to Corruption: Just Legalize It from OtherWords
Securing Nigeria from Africa Is a Country
This Tool Searches the Epstein Files For Your LinkedIn Contacts from 404 Media
Trump and Vance Can’t Be ‘Pro-Life’ While Committing Violence Against Children from OtherWords
The Washington Post Is No Longer Useful to Jeff Bezos from 404 Media
The Nineteenth-Century Science of Fashion from JSTOR Daily
Wikivoyage: the free travel guide that aims to change how we plan our trips from Diff
Clarence ‘Taffy’ Abel: A pioneering US Olympic hockey star who hid his Indigenous identity to play in the NHL from The Conversation – Articles (US)
How women are reinterpreting the menstrual taboos in Chinese Buddhism from The Conversation – Articles (US)
The Minnesota Lawyer Backlog Arises from ICE Kidnappings from emptywheel
Pluralistic: All laws are local (05 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
“You’re Not Going to Investigate a Federal Officer” from ProPublica
The Emirates Didn’t Bribe Trump–They Purchased Him from emptywheel
Trump’s Assault on Immigrants Hurts U.S.-Born Workers, Too from OtherWords
‘Less lethal’ crowd-control weapons still cause harm – 2 physicians explain what they are and their health effects from The Conversation – Articles (US)
The Minneapolis Strategy for Fighting ICE Is Worth Studying from Jacobin
One Woman’s Refusal from OtherWords
Steadfast resistance under occupation from Minneapolis to Palestine from Waging Nonviolence
Light reflecting on leaves may help identify dying forests from Futurity
Risk of death due to pregnancy is vastly underestimated from Futurity
Scientists Keep Discovering Mysterious Ancient Tunnels Across Europe from 404 Media
Co-opting African literature from Africa Is a Country
The Real Story Behind the Midnight Immigration Raid on a Chicago Apartment Building from ProPublica
Celebrating Black History Month from JSTOR Daily
Women have been mapping the world for centuries – and now they’re speaking up for the people left out of those maps from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Philly theaters unite to stage 3 plays by Pulitzer-winning playwright James Ijames from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Medicare is experimenting with having AI review claims – a cost-saving measure that could risk denying needed care from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Reclaiming water from contaminated brine can increase water supply and reduce environmental harm from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Bills Cracking Down on Abortion Pills Advance in States That Already Ban Most Abortions from Rewire News Group
Anti-rape start-up’s kits endanger survivors and victims, experts warn from openDemocracy RSS
Corporate crime persists in the shadows from Knowable Magazine
A frigid Baltimore storm highlights the cold shoulder from those in power from Scalawag
Fifty Years Ago, the Supreme Court Said Money Is Speech from Jacobin
What New York Tenants Are Building Beyond the Courtroom from Jacobin
Elon Musk Under Investigation for Trafficking Child Sexual Abuse Material from emptywheel
Mass. Governor Proposes Eliminating Statute of Limitations for Rape When DNA Evidence Exists from ProPublica
Hackers and Trolls Target Wave of ICE Spotting Apps from 404 Media
Repression by other means from Africa Is a Country
Wedding Photo Booth Company Exposes Customers’ Drunken Photos from 404 Media
The Supreme Court may soon diminish Black political power, undoing generations of gains from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Federal power meets local resistance in Minneapolis – a case study in how federalism staves off authoritarianism from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Clergy protests against ICE turned to a classic – and powerful – American playlist from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Sign language stories from Wellcome Collection stories
Lead exposure as a kid tied to depression symptoms later from Futurity
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show is part of long play drawn up by NFL to score with Latin America from The Conversation – Articles (US)
How vines search for and attach to other plants from Futurity
Former IDF soldiers are challenging the normalization of the occupation from Waging Nonviolence
Whether it’s Valentine’s Day notes or emails to loved ones, using AI to write leaves people feeling crummy about themselves from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Trump Destroyed Leigh Wambsganss’ Brand Even More Quickly Than He Did the Kennedy Center’s from emptywheel
How to Organize a Real General Strike in the US from Jacobin
Stroke survivors can counterintuitively improve recovery by strengthening their stronger arm – new research from The Conversation – Articles (US)
DOJ Released Unredacted Nude Images in Epstein Files from 404 Media
Pluralistic: Stock swindles (02 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Desperate Times: Keeping ScOR #20 from Keeping ScOR
Denmark’s generous child care and parental leave policies erase 80% of the ‘motherhood penalty’ for working moms from The Conversation – Articles (US)
Privacy Telecom ‘Cape’ Introduces ‘Disappearing Call Logs’ That Delete Every 24 Hours from 404 Media
FDA Targets Gender-Affirming Garments, Warning Companies that Serve Trans Customers from Rewire News Group
Wikipedia 25th anniversary docuseries from Diff
Web Pages That Caught My Attention
These are pages I bookmarked, basically. They might be old articles, non-articles, fiction, or any number of other possibilities. You’ve seen the web. You know what it’s like out there. And you also know that half the titles are probably bogus, because people are terrible at setting their page titles to something useful.
That’s it for this month. Stop by the blog and leave comments or contact me however else you see fit.
—John