Category: Various and Sundry

Various and Sundry

Wait! Are We the Dystopian Future We Want to Avoid?

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Ray Bradbury once said he wasn’t trying to predict the future with some of his tales of a dystopian or apocalyptic future, he wanted scare people. Basically, warning society “If you don’t watch out, this is what could happen.” Well, apparently we didn’t get the memo, per Yuval Noah Harari, author of the excellent Sapiens. In his latest book, Nexus, he traces ‘information networks’ from pre-history to today… and he’s not entirely rosy about humans…

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Various and Sundry

A Moment of Closure, Star Trek Style

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

A new short film, using CGI technology that would make Forrest Gump blush, is making the rounds amongst the various Trek groups I frequent. It’s called 765874 – Unification. It packs in more references to more iterations of Star Trek than you might expect, involves a lot of old Trek hands, and is very emotional for a lot of Trekkers. Take 11 minutes on the biggest screen you can find and see what you think.

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Various and Sundry

Kurt Vonnegut has a Board Game?!?

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’ve posted about celebrated author Kurt Vonnegut a couple times this year, most recently relating to Banned Books Week, so perhaps the Internet algorithms were primed to show me this but, per Charlie Hall for Polygon, he dabbled in game design before his writing career took off and created an abstract wargame called GHQ. The article itself delves a bit more into the game, including images of the original rules and notes. You can also…

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Various and Sundry

Real World Scares: Escaping a Sinking Vehicle

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Now’s the time of year where many of us muse about what we’d do when entering a darkened room, basement, or forest, especially if there’s creepy background music playing. But what to do about the very real world, very freaky possibility of being in a vehicle that’s sinking into a body of water. Whether it’s been caused by a man wearing the face of Captain Kirk or not, if you find yourself in this situation,…

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Various and Sundry

The World’s Newest Purpose-Built Capital

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

It could be all the games of Civ and SimCity, but I find the real-life construction of dedicated national capitals to be fascinating, from Brasília to Canberra to, oh, yeah, Washington, DC in my neck of the woods. Well, there’s a new kid on the purpose-built capital block, and its name is Nusantara. After over 70 years of Jakarta being Indonesia’s de facto and then de jure capital, the government made its first concrete steps…

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Producing Various and Sundry

When the Video Toaster was Punk AF

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

There’s a meme going around that generations should now be divided by “Too old to know Homestar Runner/at the right age to know and love Homestar Runner/too young to know Homestar Runner.” Admittedly, this is rather prejudiced towards knowing Homestar Runner, but seeing as I do (and seriously Stwong Bad, he’s the bee’s knees!), I don’t find this a problem. In part, because I think anyone at any age can discover the sparkling majesty of…

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Various and Sundry

A Look Inside the Gateway Arch

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Not being from, or not having any occasion to pass through, St. Louis, I’ll admit I haven’t thought much about the Gateway Arch to the extent that I had no idea who designed it, who built it, and when (I mean, besides the reasonable premise that it was post-WWII and probably before Tom Hanks played Forrest Gump). So I found myself captivated by this roughly 15-minute animation by Jared Owen that explains how the Arch…

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Various and Sundry

Leif Erikson Day 2024

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

It’s October 9th, which means it’s Leif Erikson Day here in the United States, which you’ll be forgiven for not knowing exists, unless you, say, grew up in a household full of history buffs with Scandinavian heritage. Then, you bite your thumb, sir, at Columbus Day. It’s a Viking thing. But is it, really? Enter Cat Jarman to give us all some much needed Viking Support:

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Various and Sundry

John Oliver’s Evolution as a Non-Journalist

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’ve been a fan of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver pretty much since it’s inception, as my regular readers may have guessed. Last Week Tonight is funny, insightful, enraging, and understands that sight gags, especially those involving mascots, are comedy gold. Like Jon Stewart and The Daily Show before him, Oliver pushes back at the label of “journalist,” even as he delivers information that might otherwise be called news. (Considering Oliver started as a…

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