[a pleasurable headache] fetishizing the machinery of war without fetishizing the war machine
A 23-year-old Snapchat influencer used OpenAI’s technology to create an A.I. version of herself that will be your girlfriend for $1 per minute
Well, we had a good run, didn’t we?
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Mainstream Media Doesn’t Care That the CIA May Have Helped Cause 9/11
https://jacobin.com/2023/05/cia-fbi-911-hijackers-cover-up-bush-media/
“A “former senior FBI official” likewise told Canestraro that the CIA sat on the news that the hijackers had entered the United States in 2000. Why did the CIA so intensely gatekeep information on the future hijackers? That same official bluntly asserted that the agency was trying to recruit the two as intelligence sources. CS-12 recounted that he was frustrated in a conference call with FBI headquarters, in which they were ordered to “stand down” and stop looking for al-Mindhar, because the government was pursuing an intelligence gathering investigation on the suspect — something outside of the agent’s law enforcement remit.”
Some of this article is based on speculation, but a huge swathe of it comes from newly declassified documents.
The above information is not outside the realms of possibility given the agencies track record for losing control of existing assets or conducting bizarre actions in its efforts to recruit more.
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Redemption song
https://hitpoints.substack.com/p/196-redemption-song
A short piece on Red Dead Redemption 2 from Nathan Brown’s Hit Points newsletter. Here Brown compares the level of detail, craft and care (albeit carried out under highly suspect work practices) to several new releases that have bene beset by problems and game-breaking bugs.
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Anime Confronts a New Apocalypse
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/anime-confronts-a-new-apocalypse
Matt Alt at The New Yorker looks at the changing mood and tone of Anime, going from the hopeful post-war shows like Space Battleship Yamato to the more introspective and nihilistic creations such as Attack on Titan and Chainsaw Man.
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“We Were Always Playing An Entirely Different Game”: The Ultimate Oral History Of BuzzFeed News
https://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeednews/buzzfeed-news-oral-history-2012-2023
Buzzfeed News is no more as of May 5th. Here, in their own words, are the experiences of those who worked there. One question that dominates when reading it all - how did it last as long as it did?
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I’m off to touch grass, see you in two!