Weekend Reads (November 16): Bluesky, Tony Todd (RIP), 2025 Grammys, Godzilla
Recommended weekend reading material for November 16, 2024.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
If you’re looking for a good X/Twitter alternative, Bluesky has seen a recent surge in popularity.
Short-form posting platform Bluesky crossed the 15 million user mark today amid a recent surge of user signups in the wake of the US presidential election. That’s according to a stat-tracking site put together by Bluesky developer Jaz, using the Bluesky API.
The platform, which rests on the decentralized AT Protocol, added about a million new users in the last week. Bluesky COO Rose Wang recently told The Verge that the “majority” of new users flocking to the platform have been from the US. The Bluesky app is currently at number one in the iOS app store, followed by Threads, ChatGPT, and the Google app.
Threads is still far more popular than Bluesky with 275 million users, but Bluesky is much more similar to X/Twitter in form and function. While I’ve had more engagement on Threads, I actually prefer Bluesky’s look, feel, and vibe.
Related: If you’ve recently joined Bluesky and don’t know who to follow, there are thousands of “starter packs” that can help you find interesting accounts across a wide range of topics (e.g., birding, chess, Doctor Who, tabletop wargaming). You can also follow me on Bluesky.
Also related: Brands and corporate accounts might have a hard time gaining traction of Bluesky due to its highly customizable news feeds. “Unlike corporate social media companies, Bluesky has robust filtering capabilities — users can design all of their own feeds, and create their own to share with others. In other words, brands don’t have to be part of the user experience.”
Also also related: Instead of becoming reliant on ad revenue, Bluesky has announced plans to develop “a subscription model for features like higher quality video uploads or profile customizations like colors and avatar frames,” though paid subscribers won’t be upranked. It would be delightful if Bluesky succeeded with subscriptions where X/Twitter failed.
Actor Tony Todd, best-known for his work in the Candyman horror movie franchise, died last week at the age of 69.
Born December 4, 1954, Todd made his acting debut with the 1986 films Platoon and Sleepwalk. From there, he had a healthy career in both mediums, and much of his storied resume consisted of genre fare. On TV, you’d see him on Star Trek (Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager), MacGyver, or Smallville; then he’d be on the big screen in films such as Night of the Living Dead, The Crow, and Wishmaster. Horror was particularly kind to him: as Ben in the Night of the Living Dead remake, Todd achieved stardom, which led to him becoming a much bigger name as the titular killer in the Candyman series, which he reprised in Nia DaCosta’s 2021 sequel.
He also had a long career as a voice actor, lending his talents to titles in the Spider-Man, Transformers, Half-Life, and Star Trek franchises (to name a few). Whatever he was in, Todd had an undeniable and unmistakable presence.
The 2025 Grammy nominations have been announced; here are some takeaways.
It’s been a massive year for women in pop. Remember back in 2018, when Neil Portnow, then head of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, said that women needed to “step up” after that year’s Grammys were overwhelmingly won by men? Yeah, he sucked. This year, women dominate the major categories: In record of the year, song of the year and album of the year, six of the eight nominees are headlined by women, though several share billing with male counterparts. And, while the best new artist field is split 50-50, the overwhelming frontrunners (Roan and Carpenter) are both women.
Forget about the “deep state.” Jill Lepore argues that we ought to be concerned about the “artificial state” in which more and more of our lives — and our politics — are given over to machines and automation.
The artificial state is not a shadow government. It’s not a conspiracy. There’s nothing secret about it. The artificial state is a digital-communications infrastructure used by political strategists and private corporations to organize and automate political discourse. It is the reduction of politics to the digital manipulation of attention-mining algorithms, the trussing of government by corporate-owned digital architecture, the diminishment of citizenship to minutely message-tested online engagement. An entire generation of Americans can no longer imagine any other system and, wisely, have very little faith in this one… Within the artificial state, nearly every element of American democratic life — civil society, representative government, a free press, free expression, and faith in elections — is vulnerable to subversion. In lieu of decision-making by democratic deliberation, the artificial state offers prediction by calculation, the capture of the public sphere by data-driven commerce, and the replacement of humans with machines — drones in the place of the demos.
Via The Dispatch.
Related: Back in October, I wrote about the risk AI poses to our collective ability to comprehend truth. “AI’s ultimate legacy may not be environmental waste and out-of-work artists but rather, the damage that it does to our individual and collective abilities to understand, determine, and agree upon what is real.”
A couple of gamers have sued Ubisoft — one of the world’s biggest video game studios — after the company shut down The Crew racing game, further highlighting the differences between buying and licensing games.
Ubisoft released The Crew in December 2014 and shut down its servers after a decade due to “server infrastructure and licensing constraints.” After the servers shut down, the game became totally unplayable due to its lack of a single-player, offline mode. When the shutdown was announced on Dec. 14, 2023, Ubisoft did offer refunds to people who “recently” purchased The Crew, but given the age of the game, a lot of players were unable to participate in the offer.
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The lawsuit says players were duped in two ways: First, by allegedly misleading players into thinking they were buying a game when they were merely licensing it — even if a player bought a physical disk. Second, that Ubisoft “falsely represented” that The Crew’s files were on its physical disks to access freely, and that the disks weren’t simply a key for the game. Ubisoft is violating California consumer protection laws, the lawsuit alleges.
There’s no denying that digital copies are more convenient, if only because it means less crap lying around the house. If all you have is a digital copy, though, you don’t really own it, and don’t be surprised if your access disappears one day.
Related: When it launched, Disney+ promised that its library would be permanent. Last year, however, they removed a slew of titles from their streaming library in order to get a tax cut.
As streaming services like Netflix increase their prices, more and more viewers are pausing their subscriptions, sometimes for months at a time.
The monthly median percentage of premium streaming video subscribers who rejoined the same service they had canceled within the prior year was 34.2% in the first nine months of 2024, up from 29.8% in 2022.
The habit of pausing and resuming service means that the industrywide rate of customer defections, which has risen over the past year, is less pronounced than it appears. The average rate of U.S. customer cancellations among premium streaming video services reached 5.2% in August, but after factoring in re-subscribers, the rate of defections was lower at 3.5%.
Via Slashdot. Our household has been doing this for a long time, as are many of our friends. Between the cost and the gaps between new and interesting titles, there’s little reason to be paying for all of the streaming services all the time.
Related: If you’re looking for an inexpensive (i.e., free) streaming option, consider Hoopla, Kanopy, or Tubi.
Now that Prime Video includes ads in its titles, Amazon is shutting down Freevee, its free ad-supported streaming service.
Freevee’s demise comes as streaming providers try navigating a booming market where profits remain elusive, and ad businesses are still developing. Some industry stakeholders and analysts are expecting more consolidation in the streaming industry as competition intensifies and streamers get increasingly picky about constantly rising subscription fees.
This was inevitable. Not only is there no need for two ad-supported services, but the Amazon/Freevee connection was always confusing. The article notes that Freevee originals like Jury Duty, Judy Justice, and Bosch: Legacy will probably be available on Prime Video after Freevee shuts down.
Related: Every month, I share my picks for the best titles arriving on major streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video.
Nicholas Barber argues that the original Godzilla is the darkest monster movie of them all.
According to kaiju lore, Godzilla is a prehistoric monster, but most fans would agree that it was born in August 1945, when US atomic bombs detonated over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 150,000 people. “It’s important for us to remember that Japan is the only nation on Earth to have directly suffered an atomic bombardment,” Steven Sloss, a leading kaiju scholar, tells the BBC. “That’s why, with what it explores, Godzilla is a film that only Japan could have made.”
Via 1440.
I didn’t see the original Godzilla in its entirety until last February, and I was struck by just how serious, melancholy, and even tragic the film is compared to the campiness that’s so often associated with the franchise (read my review).
It only took them 18 years, but Spotify is finally on the verge of being profitable.
Monthly active users at Spotify rose 11 percent year-over-year to reach 640 million in the third quarter, while total paid subscribers increased 12 percent to 252 million, with both beating the company’s guidance by 1 million.
Total revenue was up 19 percent to reach €4 billion, in line with the company’s expectations. Operating income improved to €454 million, thanks to gross margin strength and lower personnel related and marketing costs, which is a record high for the company, and puts Spotify on the track to reach its first full year of operating income profitability.
Of course, it’s easy to achieve profitability when you lay off 1,500 employees and don’t pay musicians.
In a strange case of “Life Imitates Art,” Russian soldiers have started wearing purity seals inspired by the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game.
The in-universe explanation and the artistic intent behind purity seals — and all of the many symbols and artistic devices used for the various Warhammer 40k factions — may be one thing, but a strong visual image can always be put to other uses in the real world.
The high church aesthetics of the Imperium of Man are a good fit with the influential Russian Orthodox church, which is heavily bound up with national identity. Although totemic charms are rather more pagan than Christian, the purity seal represents a union of church, state, and military, which reflect the political role of the current Russian church.
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Giving front-line soldiers a totem of the Church’s sanction signifies a religious sanction for the war, and marks the soldiers as crusaders.
Finally, a stash of WW2-era munitions was found in Beatrice, Nebraska home after the resident died.
The Beatrice Police Department reported the munitions Thursday, after the resident of the home passed away. There were approximately 40 ordnances located inside the home. After careful examination by the Bomb Squad and EOD unit, all ordnances were determined to be inert.
According to the statement, this is not an isolated incident: “The NSP Bomb Squad and ANG 155th EOD unit respond to dozens of situations each year in which old ordnances or potential explosive devices are located by family members cleaning out the belongings of a loved one.”
Imagine going through your loved one’s belongings and discovering a bunch of grenades, artillery shells, and/or landmines.
From the Blog
President-elect Trump has promised to levy a 60% tariff on all goods coming in from China, a move that decimate independent artists and creators.
For the time being, those aforementioned companies and industries, not to mention independent creators like my friend Seth, must hope and pray that their work arrives in America before Trump can enact his tariffs. That, or they’ll have to accommodate those tariffs by eating the extra costs and/or increasing their prices and thus making it less likely that people will buy their material — either of which could be disastrous for them.
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