You Should Read - Nov 25
Just One Thing
Once again, Star Wars: Andor on Disney+, which just concluded its 12-episode Season One with a tour de force (pun intended) finale. Andor sets a new bar for Star Wars storytelling. I'm afraid most of what's on the current Disney slate is going to look silly and amateurish by comparison. So, now the long wait until Season Two in 2024 begins.
All links below contain spoilers for Season One.
The Guardian Andor: How a Star Wars Deep Cut Became One of the Best TV Shows of the Year: With no Jedi or Skywalkers to be seen, this politically charged, slow-burn thriller adds human stakes and a real sense of the fascism behind Star Wars’s endless civil war.
NPR Andor soared — it was about the force, not The Force, of the Star Wars universe
Gizmodo Andor's First Season Finale Made Star Wars Better: The best show of the year is about fighting fascists and it's on Disney+.
SlashFilm The Andor Season 1 Finale Features The Finest Use Of Diegetic Music In Star Wars History
StarWars.com Tony Gilroy Breaks Down Andor Season 1: In a wide-ranging conversation with starwars.com, the Andor creator reflects on bringing the series to life.
Vulture Diego Luna Shot Andor’s Prison Break on His Last Day of Filming: Series lead Diego Luna on charisma and leadership:
Yes, there are leaders, but revolutions are not made by leaders. They’re made by numbers, by conviction, by regular people thinking they can do something extraordinary. This is the story of one of those people that was never celebrated. Oh, this person is going to bring change, this person is different — no, not really. The strength of community, that’s what the show is about.
Collected Ephemera
Sorry, I keep beating the dead horses of Twitter and crypto. But they need to be beaten.
The Verge This Is the Twitter Account Elon Musk Should Be Worried Most About Losing. (Spoiler: It's Apple's Phil Schiller)
UX Collective The Twitter Migration: Flying Away From the Wizard: Feeling lost, sad, or angry after looking behind the Twitter curtain? Are you frustrated at the technical barriers around you? It’s not just you.
Financial Times Stephen Diehl: Crypto Is the ‘Commoditisation of Populist Anger, Gambling and Crime’: The software engineer has denounced crypto assets as vehicles for pure speculation. But his views have made him a target of harassment — including death threats
The New Republic Effective Altruism Is Bunk, Crypto Is Bad for the Planet, and Other Basic Truths of the FTX Crash: The overarching lesson of Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall is that the gauzy philosophical natterings of CEOs are just meant to distract us from their real goal: accumulating cash without interference.
Jacobin Against Charity: Rather than creating an individualized “culture of giving,” we should be challenging capitalism’s institutionalized taking.
O'Reilly Healthy Data: What does it mean to use data in a healthy way?
The bane of data science has been the HIPPO: the “highest paid person’s opinion.” When the HIPPO is in the room, data is used primarily to justify decisions that have already been made... Data can’t be the final word in any decision; we can’t underestimate the importance of instinct and a gut understanding of business dynamics. Data is always historical and, as such, is often better at maintaining a status quo than at helping to build a future–though when used well, data can shine light on the status quo, and help you question it. Data that’s used solely to justify the HIPPO isn’t healthy. Our survey doesn’t say much about the influence of the HIPPO. That’s something you’ll need to ponder when considering your company’s technical health.
Ars Technica Amazon Alexa Is a “Colossal Failure,” on Pace to Lose $10 Billion This Year: Layoffs reportedly hit the Alexa team hard as the company's biggest money loser.
To an outside observer, this may be surprising. But having worked on an "Alexa Inside" product, this isn't surprising at all.
Chico News & Review The Message on Tojo’s Teeth: Remembering a prank pulled on Japan’s most notorious war criminal
Politico Feds Likely to Challenge Microsoft’s $69 Billion Activision Takeover: A lawsuit would be the FTC’s biggest merger challenge to date under Chair Lina Khan.
The Wabbit Hole
A selection of my Wikipedia searches this week.
Exuma (musician) | Marshal Law (comics) | Kevin O'Neill (comics) | The Cloud of Unknowing (disambiguation) | Plastic Beach | apophatic theology | The Cloud of Unknowing | Chesty Puller | PayPal | The Drew Carey Show | Kraft Dinner ...