READ RECEIPTS ARE THE WORST THINGS ON THE INTERNET, this list seems pretty correct to me
Here’s the deal, team: I have always, and always will, use the Caps Lock button rather than the Shift key in order to type even a single upper-case letter. It seems convenient-er to simply hit an on/off switch than to have to hold down a separate key with my left pinkie while attempting to continue typing normally. Am I entirely mad? Does anyone else do this?
Rebecca Carroll in The Guardian about calling out individual acts of racism at the expense of acknowledging white supremacy:
And yet, this country continues to mobilize around incidents of racist behavior and not against systemic racism, pushing public statements filled with shock and lip service to “diversity”, individual expulsions and university-wide disassociation. But naming, shaming and shunning individual racists – if it has any deterrent effect on other would-be racists at all, which seems increasingly doubtful in 2015 – doesn’t solve the systemic racism faced by black people in employment, in housing, in university admissions, in interactions with the judicial system and for the love of God, in the value of life.
“After less than a minute, the genetic algorithm reached a near-perfect solution that makes a complete trip around the U.S. in only 13,699 miles (22,046 km) of driving. I’ve mapped that route below.
Note: There’s an extra stop in Cleveland to force the route between Vermont and Michigan to stay in the U.S. rather than go through Canada. If you’re able to drive through Canada without issue, then take the direct route through Canada instead.”
LET’S GO ON A PERFECTLY OPTIMIZED ROAD TRIP
100% of art should just be this:
JIA NO
JIA YESSS
Mat Johnson! Oh, do I like you, Mat Johnson.
What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever put into words?
This whole damn book I just wrote, Loving Day. I spent the first decades of my life overcompensating for my whitish appearance within the black community, rejecting mixed identity as an escape plan for self-hating blacks of mixed descent. Then as an adult, I slowly began seeing the merits of self-identifying as biracial, and eventually the need for it, despite larger ambivalence to it in the larger black community. So I was petrified to actually talk about this directly in my new novel. I know some old allies are not going to be happy. But art shouldn’t be about making people happy, or confirming their existing ideas. I had to say this, my truth. This book is my coming out as a mulatto.
What is the responsibility of the writer?
To speak her or his moral truth. That’s about it. Spreading ideas, notions of society and identity, that the author knows to be false, that is a failure of responsibility on the part of the author. Besides that, it’s wide open.
While the notion of the public intellectual has fallen out of fashion, do you believe writers have a collective purpose?
Do all writers share a collective purpose? I’d like to say, Yes, to speak their truth. But that would be naive. I think it would be more accurate to say that a majority of writers share one purpose: to share their own vision of truth to the world.
“Since his birth 33 years ago, Jonathan Keleher has been living without a cerebellum, a structure that usually contains about half the brain’s neurons.” This is pretty interesting, I think! There is a bit of a “isn’t it remarkable” tone that sometimes accompanies pieces about people living with unusual neurology that isn’t necessary, but I think it’s remarkable the things we’re learning about NEURAL PLASTICITY and also there is a pretty great Rodney Dangerfield joke in there.
Here is a video of a platypus getting petted that my mom sent me, it is very good.
