Credit.Christopher Griffith/Trunk Archive
It was amazing how quickly it happened. For almost five years from Donald Trump’s rise in the 2016 Republican primaries to the Jan. 6 insurrection following his defeat the lurid spectacle of our national politics sucked up most of the country’s cultural energy. Almost every conversation I had during that time began with mutual expressions of outrage and incredulity about whatever was happening in the hourly news cycle.
And then it was over. Trump’s cultural power evanesced as quickly as his political power did. Now everyone except those running in Republican primaries can ignore him. National politics didn’t exactly become boring Joe Biden’s administration is proving transformative but it no longer demanded most people’s minute-by-minute attention. That left room for a new national obsession, especially once the vaccine rollout picked up and the end of America’s pandemic nightmare appeared in sight.
A wide-ranging discussion with Tressie McMillan Cottom, one of Americaâs sharpest contemporary cultural critics.
Tuesday, April 13th, 2021
Iâm Ezra Klein, and this is âThe Ezra Klein Show.â [MUSIC PLAYING]
So when I do these introductions, I try to have a particular thread Iâm following, something to set up the main argument or the main question of the show, but thatâs not possible today. It wouldnât do this justice. Thereâs too much in this show for me to wrap it into one idea. It is, as my guest might say, really thick, and it is great. Tressie McMillan Cottom is a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sheâs the author of the book âLower Edâ and then the wonderful essay collection, âThick,â which was a National Book Award finalist in 2019. She won a MacArthur âGeniusâ Grant. Sheâs co-host of the podcast âHear to Slay,â and sheâs just one of those people who yo
They May Be Warming the Planet, Too.
Making the digital artworks requires colossal amounts of computing power, and that means greenhouse gases.
When Chris Precht, an Austrian architect and artist, first learned about nonfungible tokens, the digital collectibles taking the art world by storm, he was so enthralled, he said, he “felt like a little kid again.”
So Mr. Precht, who is known for his work on ecological architecture, was devastated to learn that the artworks, known as NFTs, have an environmental footprint as mind-boggling as the gold-rush frenzy they’ve whipped up.
“The numbers are just crushing,” he said from his studio in Pfarrwerfen, Austria, announcing that he was canceling his plans, one of a growing number of artists who are swearing off NFTs, despite the sky-high sums some have fetched at auctions. “As much as it hurts financially and mentally, I can’t.”
Going Indie in the Midst of a Pandemic by Kasra Rahimi on 04/12/21 02:49:00 pm The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
It has been almost a year since we decided to quit our jobs and go full-time indie. I am writing this blog post to talk about our experience working on Republic of Jungle in the past year. We started our company, Gerdoo Games, in May 2020 at the height of the pandemic, and this past year has been a roller coaster ride. Our social deduction party game, Republic of Jungle, is set for release later this year, and it has a coming soon Steam page you can check out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1413250?utm source=blog
April 13, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ET
Anyone who joined a video call during the pandemic probably has a global volunteer organization called the Internet Engineering Task Force to thank for making the technology work.
The group, which helped create the technical foundations of the internet, designed the language that allows most video to run smoothly online. It made it possible for someone with a Gmail account to communicate with a friend who uses Yahoo, and for shoppers to safely enter their credit card information on e-commerce sites.
Now the organization is tackling an even thornier issue: getting rid of computer engineering terms that evoke racist history, like âmasterâ and âslaveâ and âwhitelistâ and âblacklist.â