Hi, I’m Phil Nelson, a writer, developer, and audio-visual maker of stuff. I have been making stuff online for over 25 years. I run RetroStrange and Set Side B. Good to see you.
Blog Archives
>[So you want to potentially not use a laptop anymore, but you also want a computer that does all the same things as a laptop, in pretty much the same way. In which case, I think the computer you’re looking for _is a laptop_.][link]
Incredible burn on every tech journalist who has written this.
[link]: http://mattgemmell.com/laptop-replacement/ “Laptop Replacement”
A very modern situation: [Company does spin control without considering the ramifications, ends up screwing over the already victimized][link2]:
A German email provider has closed the account of a hacker behind the new ransomware outbreak, meaning victims can’t get decryption keys.
The exploit, unofficially named Petya, [uses the same vector as WannaCry][link].
[link2]: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/new8xw/hacker-behind-massive-ransomware-outbreak-cant-get-emails-from-victims-who-paid “Hacker Behind Massive Ransomware Outbreak Can’t Get Emails from Victims Who Paid – Motherboard”
[link]: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qv4gx5/a-ransomware-outbreak-is-infecting-computers-across-the-world-right-now “A Ransomware Outbreak Is Infecting Computers Across the World Right Now”
Like most web trends intended to increase “engagement” (nobody knows what this actually means), sticky bars are overused and poorly used. [Kill ’em all with this bookmarklet.][link]
[link]: https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/ “Kill sticky headers”
[Point at a spot on the globe, and hear their radio.][link]
[link]: http://radio.garden/ “Radio Garden – West End Radio”
[Dirge magazine][link]:
>What I Like About Dungeon Synth is, primarily, the music and the wide range of emotions it encompasses; the bombast and the subtlety, the melancholy and the fury, the epic and the transient. It blends genres that are dear to my heart, from medieval airs to black metal malevolence, into something that is neither new nor old but atemporal. By stepping out of time Dungeon Synth can use multiple, opposing streams of influences and styles, to create a single entity and, by doing this, it embodies something that is often deliberately avoided in more mainstream music; conflict.
[link]: http://www.dirgemag.com/dungeons-deep-forests-dark-a-beginners-guide-to-dungeon-synth/ “Dungeons Deep, Forests Dark – A beginner’s guide to Dungeon Synth | Dirge Magazine”
[An excellent review and historical contextualizing][link] of Netflix’s new Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling show, by Mairead Small Staid for the Ringer.
[link]: https://theringer.com/glow-show-netflix-past-future-womens-wrestling-818b1ebe41c6 “‘GLOW’ Is the Past and the Future of Women’s Wrestling”
Police drag away protesters, some in wheelchairs, outside of Sen. McConnell's office after draft of Senate health care bill is revealed pic.twitter.com/uWRR0uJniY
— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 22, 2017
Republicans: The party of cruelty.
[Vann Newkirk on the most famous American emancipation holiday][link], and why it must be celebrated:
>Juneteenth, rather, celebrates a belated liberation. Enslaved people in the Confederacy who didn’t manage to escape to Union lines or find themselves in occupied territory were not all made free by Lincoln’s proclamation, and had to await the end of the Civil War to take their first free breaths. In isolated Texas, word of the official end of fighting, the surrenders of generals Lee and Johnston, and the capture of President Davis through May of 1865 arrived late. Freedom finally came to Texas on June 19 of that year, after a proclamation by General Gordon Granger in Galveston solidified the emancipation of the quarter-million enslaved people in the state.
Make it a national holiday. It’s long overdue.
[link]: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/juneteenth-celebration-police-brutality-justice/530898/?utm_source=twb “The Quintessential Americanness of Juneteenth”
[An article about a cool thing with a goofy lede][link]:
>An algorithm has *usurped the traditional role of a designer* to generate millions of unique packaging designs for Nutella.
Emphasis mine. It’s goofy because nothing usurped anything. A designer created an algorithm to create variations. It’s just a different kind of design.
[link]: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/01/algorithm-seven-million-different-jars-nutella-packaging-design/ “Algorithm designs seven million different jars of Nutella”
[Traces I][link] is the sound of synthesizers wrapped in cheesecloth being broadcast from the last radio tower of a dying world… in the shape of a 5-track pay-what-you-can album on Bandcamp. I’m enjoying it a lot.
You can contribute to [the artist’s patreon][patreon], too.
[link]: https://rooksfeather.bandcamp.com/album/traces-i “Traces I”
[patreon]: https://www.patreon.com/rooksfeather “Rook on patreon”
