Ridiculous Opinions #306
Every once in a while, I do a linkfest in my newsletter, so here’s what’s open in my tabs at the moment. Enjoy this little window into my world!
We’re all doomed…
Why? Because we’re all getting dumber and dumber. Read about how and why here.
Crappy Candy!
The Enshittification of the world continues and this article from the New York Times really kind of sums it up. Rather than forcing us to pay higher prices for cocoa in our chocolate bars, candy companies are now labeling their products as “chocolate candy” instead of “milk chocolate”. Read on to discover how crappy capitalism makes the world!
Train Trips in Vietnam!
We’re thinking of heading to Vietnam at Christmas. Because of this, I am aching to take a train through the country, because I love traveling on trains. And of course, there’s a website for all of this! We used this website to traverse the whole of Malaysia down to Singapore and back in 2015. I’m down to do it again in Vietnam.
The Catalog of Dark Patterns!
How are you being manipulated on the internet? This is how! Have a look through here to see how companies manage to keep you from doing what you want to do when it comes to unsubscribing, cancelling, and other nonsense. Capitalism making things crappy once again!
The Science of Smell!
Want to know how much smell influences the world around us? I certainly know that I short-circuit when my students walk into my room after showering in crappy-smelling cologne. Learn more about how smell affects our world!
The Case for a Canadian Wealth Tax
Let Cory Doctorow educate you about why we need a wealth tax in Canada (and the rest of the world, for that matter). Can you see a pattern in regard to my consumption and my loathing for capitalism? Here’s more on wealth taxes.
This is where I want to live…
Look, I just want to retire and live in a place that has a rental in it so that I can live off the money in that rental. And this is the place I want to live at the moment. I am a man of modest means…
I really, really want one of these…
I don’t need the Boox Palma 2 color e-reader, but it’s not really about what I need… And yes, I am well-aware of the contradiction of my anti-capitalist rants versus all of the crap I want…
“One Battle After Another” was really bad…
I wish I had the wordsmithing to be able to articulate a thought as well as this guy, but I don’t have that skill. But the truth is that everything that he’s written here is a perfect summation of my thoughts on this movie.
A quote from William Faulkner…
The above article led me to this speech that William Faulkner gave when he won the Nobel Prize for literature. There was one line in the beginning that struck me, and it is a great description of why I create. He said:
“…A life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before.”
So, very true.
To finish it off…
I really want these pants.
