What $10 a word will buy you
Michael Lewis’s The Big Short is breaking my brain.
Blog Posts on Unimportant Bird
Recent content in Blog Posts on Unimportant Bird
Latest posts
653 words about Substack's new moderation tools
The platform is trapped in a prison created by its own awful policies.
770 words about All the President's Men
It’s Robert Redford’s fault.
Journalistic losers
To succeed in this industry, first delete your higher cortical functions.
Unimportant Bird: Year One
Some lessons learned.
Wikipedia is a lifeboat in a sea of garbage
I’m happy it survives. But its existence increasingly feels like anomaly.
A quick note about this site's RSS feed
It’s been updated.
Monday links
Letter from an ICE jail. Inside DHS. Awash in images of violence.
Saturday links
Let’s not emulate Charlie Kirk, thanks.
Friday links
AI as a failed technology. The right’s war on wikipedia. Corn.
Hey let's review a comic about a bird getting existential
bird comic by Ruby Carter is quite good.
Wednesday links
Ta-Nehisi Coates. Odessa. AI slop podcasts.
Tuesday links
Far-right moral panics. New Age fantasies.
Tuesday links
The political emptiness of abundance. Delayed disaster aid. The kids can’t read.
Monday links
A must-read interview with Mahmoud Khalil.
'A man for whom historical truth had all his life run at twenty-four frames a second'
More notes on Joan Didion’s Political Fictions (2001)
Thursday links
Buc-ee’s. Bari Weiss. Google’s monopoly.
Wednesday links
Hotel workers strike. Proud AI haters. No zines in museums please.
I love to hate on Ross Douthat
He’s a conservative intellectual trapped in an enemies-to-lovers arc with liberalism.
Tuesday links
Gilding the White House. Wishcasting Trump’s death.
The critic is dead
But criticism is alive? Maybe?
A few scattered thoughts about cheap art
I can’t tell if this is coherent but it’s been on my mind.
How do you grieve for a pet?
Someone please let me know.
Another marginal note on Joan Didion
Political Fictions (2001)
The internet is ugly when it falls apart
On the perceptual experience of link rot.
Comics won't just break your heart
On the unforgiving economics of making comics—and cartoonists’ efforts to change them—in the wake of #ComicsBrokeMe
I leave pieces of myself behind
It’s difficult to articulate what gets lost.
A marginal note on Joan Didion
Political Fictions (2001)
'Raid of the Rainbow Lounge' is still relevant
This is kind of a film review but also just a rant.
What use is obsessive journaling?
It’s pointless. I love it and can’t live without it.
Kamala Harris and the burden of Fortnite
I’m not sure it’s possible to come up with a worse idea.
Sometimes I turn incoherent thoughts into something like gold
A few notes on writing good.
Five hundred years of bureaucratic violence
The methods have changed. The cruel essence remains.
This comic is a glorious mess
A review of Do a Powerbomb! by Daniel Warren Johnson.
Who gets to decide what 'real democracy' is?
Anyone, as long as they don’t work at Politico.
Write about whatever you want
I know there’s a lot going on but there always is.
I can’t stop thinking about how vapid this comic was
No one needed to see Art Spiegelman step on a rake.
A short history of fast food brands posting on Twitter
Welcome to the nightmare realm.
POV: Your future landlord is a robot
Searching for a new house causes enough psychic damage already thank you.
Do you have more of a comment than a question?
Kindly shut the fuck up.
It feels strange to review something that destroys you
Some notes about two films: One earnest, one cynical.
What could be more post-truth than this?
I think we’re about to find out.
She is only capable of writing strawmen
The Fountainhead is silly.
Are we cooked? Opposition and kayfabe
At the end of the day, reporters need to file stories.
The internet does not have to suck
Please make your own website!