forty-eight things tagged “sad”
On the Nature of Daylight
by Max Richter
Ain’t No Sunshine
by Bill Withers
Het Volk
by Pan American
This is the saddest piece of music I’ve listened to.
The Time We Lost Our Way
by Thievery Corporation
Spiegel im Spiegel
by Arvo Part
How can someone come up with something this beautiful?
Men of Value
by Robert Mitchell
I have never given Jeff Bezos a moment’s thought before this week. I am always interested in extraordinary achievement and often admire it. I am fascinated by what extraordinary achievers understand, and how evolved they are as people. Looking at him in his astronaut costume, and his cowboy hat, and…
My Awesome Downtown Pad
I feel very personally attacked by Mr. Lovenstein. And somehow glad I’m not the only person who, for instance, purchases a glorious WaterRower1 and proceeds to give it a thousand cumulative and approximate ‘pulls’ over three years. 🤦♀️ Because he saw it in House of Cards and thought it looked sic…
Disturbing fictionalization of a real-life tragedy (cached). Based on a book by Jon Krakauer. Andrew Garfield is simply excellent as a devout Mormon, dogged detective, and patriarch (“priesthood holder”) of his family. Features some quick lessons in the History of the LDS which was not very flatteri…
“I Fucking Hate Jira” is a collection of people sharing their feelings about one of the worst pieces of software I continue to use every day.
Jira is middle-management-ware, a term I made up for software that serves the needs of middle management, or, at least, the needs middle management thinks it has, which comes to the same thing as long as you’re selling to them. (link) Jira is a tire fire. It should be condemned and officially des…
“If you can’t be responsible of following some other simple rules in society to behave, why should you have a gun?”
That would be a Swiss gun instructor. His country has 2.3 million guns per 8.6 million people and has had exactly one mass shooting since 2001. They are able to do this despite being one of the most armed European countries because they have commonsense gun laws, actually fucking act to prevent sens…
“There’s an illusion with work that everything you give up now, all the stolen time commuting, working overtime, checking your email and Slack notifications after hours, will somehow earn you freedom and capital in your later years.”
Amil Niazi in a sobering article about ambition, COVID, women, mothers, and late-stage capitalism.…
My Undecided Thirties
Indecision has been a pretty huge problem in my life and this comment by /u/tomwaste hit home. I’m not sure if people have experienced the same but when I entered my 30s I became convinced I was rapidly running out of time. Rather than using that as motivation I let it paralyze me with indecision b…
The Democrats in 2022
Should be a lovely 2022 and 2024. By Jen Sorenson whose work I love.…
Norm MacDonald at Iowa
Battling cancer for 9 years without telling anyone is the most Norm Macdonald shit ever. Anthony Jeselnik I had no idea that he performed at the Hancher Auditorium at The University of Iowa in 1997 and mortified most of a crowd of 1,200 excited kids and their parents who’d come to see him, Darre…
Return to Monke
Not sure why this actually got to me.…
“Windows is more than just an operating system; it’s a fabric woven into our lives and in our work.”
No. It’s just a fucking operating system1. A giant program on a computer. What weird, disconnected, embarrassing bullshit ‘spiritual’ techbro nonsense. “We made a website full of memes you can search through, powered by Bitcoin and Machine-Learning (of course), and are changing the world.” No. Stop…
Two Messages for Father’s Day
Happy Father’s Day to the fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, and father figures who enrich our character, love us unconditionally, and give so much of themselves every day so we can live lives worthy of their dreams and sacrifices. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. And, this is real (as much as you…
Memorial Day Meat Fibers
I was rather dismayed to find out that there were no more episodes of “Grill Talk” with the leader of one of the worst companies on the planet1. I wonder if the PR team that thought it was a good idea to show the ‘casual and human’ side of their ethically bankrupt CEO are still with the company. Her…
American Polarization
One of the most disheartening charts I’ve seen about the current hyperpartisan political climate. We fear each other so much more. – Source I suppose all’s fine and dandy if you’re in news or social media and are spiritually obligated to deliver Value™ to stakeholders via those almighty engagement…
Two Short Stories about Capitalism by Steve Cutts
“Happiness” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk “MAN” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU…
“The Honorable, the Members of the Unites States Senate”
🇺🇸: We the Peope of the Unites States… 🏴: 🤣…
Living Wages for Essential Moochers
and By Jace Avery…
2021 Things
New Years resolutions for 2021 are gonna be like: travel to the other side of the room wear a different shirt cut screen time from 12 hours a day to 11 eat a vegetable bathe @alyssalimp…
A Conservative Plan
By Amii James (Instagram). Context was the Tories but applies to our fine people stateside as well. Tory ministers saying “we owe it to children to keep schools open” might want to explain to me why they closed my youth centre, cut mental health services, underfunded my secondary school, stripped…
Idiots Out Walking Around - III
At the Iowa Statehouse. Via State Senator Joe Bolkcom. Installments One and Two (the latter features the verysame “Informed Choice” idiots.) More on this tantrum by The Register. /misc/i/iowa-idiots-facts-over-fear.mp4…
On Winters
Taken completely out of context, for the letter itself is a lot of bro-y “locker room talk.” My mind is dried up, exhausted. I’m disgusted to be back in this damned country where you see the sun in the sky about as often as a diamond in a pig’s asshole. Gustave Flaubert, Letter to Ernest Chevalie…
Conversion Table
by Prof. Kieran Healy
A B No one could have predicted this would happen Many people have been saying something like this would happen I never thought I’d live to see this day I have been asleep for the past five years Anarchists Trump Supporters This is not who we are This is exactly who we are Our 250 yea…
Decoding the flags and banners seen at the Capitol Hill insurrection
Confirmation that I did, indeed, see a “No, Georgia the country, idiot” flag. And then there’s this surprising tidbit: The flags of Canada, Cuba, Georgia, India, Israel, South Korea, and South Vietnam were spotted in the mob. It’s unclear why many of these flags appeared, though a number of the whi…
THIS is America
Lord of our lives and sovereign of our beloved nation, we deplore the desecration of the United States Capitol building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life, and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy. These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the po…
This Is America
During the four years of the Civil War, the confederates never got closer to Washington than Fort Stevens. Until today, when insurrectionist supporters of @realDonaldTrump paraded through the U.S. Capitol Building carrying the Confederate battle flag. @JordanOnRecord The ultimate in White…
On America Right Now
I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one r…
Goodbye Glaciers
Pictures taken 100 years apart. The image at the bottom is 18 years old. I’m sure we can solve this with privatization, deregulation, lowering taxes on the rich, and letting an unfettered Free Market “figure it out” ♥️…
“Nachkommen”
I haven’t seen anything that captures the times quite like this work by Willikin Wolf (Patreon, Instagram) Update as of January 6th, 2021 Source: ABC News…
The Conservative Refrain
Starring Ted Cruz. It cannot be anyone else. /misc/w/why-am-i-persecuted.mp4 And there’s the 10-hour version (of course) for when a batshit-crazy, cultist conservative whinges about freedom and liberty and censorship and free markets and privatization and regulation and “corporations are people” and…
2020 in a Nutshell
Via PLG.…
Idiots Out Walking Around - II
Informed Choice Iowa is a group that “unites Iowans seeking to preserve their medical freedoms.” They are “pro-science” folk that count “ex-vaxxers”, “selective vaxxers”, “non-vaxxers”, and “vaxxers” among their members. I’m guessing that this list doesn’t include a single practicing physician. And…
Raj on Hell’s Kitchen
Tapped this YouTube suggestion on a lazy Sunday. This man pushed my capacities for sympathy and empathy to their breaking points in this 20-minute highlight reel. I don’t know what to type here other than quote the very first sentence of his Fandom wiki page: Raj is widely regarded as one of the wo…
YouVotedForThis.com is a lovely collection of Brexit repercussions.
I created YVFT site after my Conservative voting aunt complained on Facebook that there weren’t enough police to deal with disruptive teenagers in her town. I wanted to scream, “But you voted for this!” without looking like a lunatic.…
Idiots Out Walking Around
Reynolds said election victories for Republicans in the state this week show Iowans support her approach. “It was a validation of our balanced response to COVID-19, one that is mindful of both public health and economic health,” Reynolds said. Because political victories, not cases or deaths, shou…
Interstate 35
I’ve lived in Iowa for a while and felt this in my soul.…
A Summary of Iowa’s Covid-19 Response
See also: The time-tested stratagem of going La La La La La. Here’s the entire conference.…
Every “safety plan” I’ve seen that would allow public schools to reopen requires that kids behave in ways that no child has ever behaved in the history of children.
Yep. And the tweet was in the context of school openings, but college towns like Ames and Iowa City, are no exceptions (like she continues.) I say we continue to doubt the science, exercise absolutely no discipline in the interest of the economy (because the Communist Kiwis maintain zero interest in…
How to Respond to a Pandemic
And don’t forget to vote to privatize and abolish the Fire Department by calling their experience and credentials into question! By @ShowerThoughtsComics…
Expedition to the floor of the Mariana Trench finds plastic bag and sweet wrappers
Look we just wanted to make sure The Ocean would remember our species for having delivered value at any cost.…
The Impact of International Students on the U.S. Economy
Ah, lovely. Absolutely lovely. Really lovely folks, let me tell you.…
A Frenchwoman in America
SM, reminiscing I was 15 when I first came to the United States. Detroit. There was nothing worth eating in Detroit. Except fudge. And White Castle. And Cheetos.…