Factual Dispatch: Best in Show 2024

You made it! Skidding into the holiday season at the end of the world. Lots of changes, including another one of these emails actually showcasing the writing I DID this year, vs. just another curated list below. That’ll be coming this week, so if you’ve got a long flight or will just be up all night waiting for Santa, I’ll have some pleasure reading to pass the time. Might even give you a new angle to talk about things at the Christmas table, while the crypto guy fucks up cutting the Ham/Lamb/Mapo Tofu.

On the frontlines of New York’s renegade rave scene (TheFace) The kids remain and probably will always be alright. Renegades in illegal spaces with map points and text chains, pushing back past the club days and into the classic rave style? Good on them. May they forever rage.

My Life As a Homeless Man in America (Esquire) This will win all sorts of awards for reminding us what has become a mathematical eventuality for an ever increasing percentage of the American citizenry.

Unhappiness is a choice (Andrew Connor) An infuriatingly good point that has stuck with me since I’ve read it. Can’t undercut it, so I try to use it to my advantage when I remember to. Supremely privileged ability to do so, but possible nonetheless.

The Life and Death of Hollywood (Harper’s) Who knew Cable, DVDs, and syndication were responsible for the Cambrian explosion of movies and cinema we had before streaming? Apparently everyone who ever tried to pay for and make a movie at the same time.

Scabs (On these Streets, In these Skies) The best unpublished fiction I read this year, it’s up there with Jon Frater’s Battle Ring Earth series. If Black Mirror ever comes back, this is going to be a script for an episode.

How Antidepressants Work (Psychiatry at the Margins) Someone wrote it up, in clinically exhaustive detail. If you’ve been on them, have a loved one on them, or are thinking about them as a mental health vector, this is better than reading in journal stacks for hours.

The People Who Fight At Dinner Parties (Paris Review) Wonderful reminder that pestering people doesn’t help. Being right can still sound wrong. And if it sounds wrong enough times to the listener, it might as well be.

People prefer AI art because people prefer bad art (Read Max) “Best” rarely means “most popular,” in the same way that “most liked on IG” doesn’t mean “best photograph.” This cuts both ways, with AI art, while spooky and goofy, is useful for a ton of people who don’t care about the things AI art creator critics lament. Same reason why Michael Bay couldn’t hear the film critics over the sound of his bank account exploding during Transformers 3.

The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt? (MIT Press Reader) Yes, but at what cost? What level of survival is our hubris prepared to accept?

Researchers Develop Taxonomy of Generative AI Misuse From Real World Data (Tech Policy Press) Genuinely useful for educators, policymakers, people who argue at bars, and members of Congress. That last group won’t read it of course. But who knows, if you’re particularly chummy with your state representation.

The Glomar Explorer: what we can confirm and deny about “vast government conspiracies” from Project Azorian. (Southern Fried Science) There’s no way to even bring this up in casual conversation without sounding like you’ve gone absolutely batshit.

2025 Color Trends (Sarah Constantin) Just a lovely use of AI and color design research. I have no mind for these things at all, so I delight when I see data-driven immersive work like this.

This website is hosted on Bluesky (Daniel Mangum) A smart hippie once reminded me that FB convinced everyone that it was a good trade for us to give them all of their data, and them to build us a crappy PHP website with almost-then-monetized RSS functionality and some IRC messaging capabilities. That’s all that most social networks are. Bluesky is different enough that someone actually went and built a fully featured site on Bsky, a first anywhere on any social network I believe.

The Sad Theatre Kids of Right-Wing Media (New Republic) The saddest part about Fox News is how many of the dipshits on TV think it’s all an act and they’re just playing a part. Apparently there is more than one failed theater kid in reactionary bloviation. It would be funnier if it wasn’t so utterly destructive to the world. You may not like A Chorus Line, but Broadway shows never got us into a trade war with ::checks notes:: everyone.

The Geometry of Mass Graves (Origins of Our Time) Utterly engrossing look at Blinken, his family, and America’s role in genocide.

From the Arsenal of Democracy to an Arsenal of Genocide (Tom’s Dispatch) How the weapons of good guys always end up in the hands of bad guys. No matter how you define bad guys, interestingly.

The Contingency Contingent (N+1) This takes the cake for best lazy read of the year, a deep look into Y2K prevention. The thing that didn’t happen, but also, showed just how little competence mattered when you had millions or billions to throw at a problem. Astute readers will smell the AI, NFT, and web 3.0 VR craze ozone while grazing on the narrative.

Baby talk (Aeon) Important for now and in the future. They do try to communicate, we just get mad they don’t speak our language.

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Sports gambling in the degenerate economy (Abnormal Returns) One of the topics I’m hoping to cover extensively in 2025, if you aren’t aware, sports betting apps are obliterating male finances under the age of 35. It’s really, really bad. Degeneracy exists with penny stocks, currency markets, or even meme crypto, but in sports betting it’s basically the only way to make money. If you get too good the apps cut you off, you know, because they’re bookmakers not a stock exchange.

Eight Famous Poems Rewritten by Your Asshole Cat (McSweeney’s) Cats are awesome and everyone not horribly allergic should live with one at some point in their lives. Living with an adorable asshole teaches a multitude of lessons humans should treasure.

Leaving you with something merry & bright. Hug your loved ones and try to find some warm rest in the coming days. See you in the Year of Our OverLord 2025.

Keep shining,
tnh