February 14, 2020
-
Bookmark
Reaction GIFs of Black People Are More Problematic Than You Think
“‘Digital blackface’ dehumanizes Black people by flattening our stories Naomi Day Jan 3 · 7 min read Credit: giphy.com T he internet is a portal to intercultural…”
February 10, 2020
-
Bookmark
Opinion | I Don’t Want to Be the Strong Female Lead
“Credit… Hokyoung Kim Skip to contentSkip to site index Opinion I Don’t Want to Be the Strong Female Lead In pop culture, women are often objectified and…”
February 7, 2020
-
Bookmark
“I recently wrote a fairly well-received Twitter thread about how the cyberpunk sci-fi of the 1980s and early 1990s accurately predicted a lot about our current…”
-
Bookmark
1,000 True Fans? Try 100 – Andreessen Horowitz
“More than a decade ago, Wired editor Kevin Kelly wrote an essay called “ 1,000 True Fans ,” predicting that the internet would allow large swaths of people to…”
February 6, 2020
-
Bookmark
Why Public Wi-Fi is a Lot Safer Than You Think
“If you follow security on the Internet, you may have seen articles warning you to “beware of public Wi-Fi networks” in cafes, airports, hotels, and other public…”
-
Bookmark
The Last Word On Nothing | Guest Post: Weird Rock, Weirder Story
““There is an aspect to this story that is weirder than you canimagine.” That sentence was e-mailed to me by a geologist, Jan Kramers, atthe University of…”
January 25, 2020
-
Bookmark
Panicking About Your Kids and Their Phones? The New Research Says Don’t
“A growing number of academics are challenging assumptions about the negative effects of social media and smartphones on children. Candice L. Odgers at home with…”
January 20, 2020
-
Bookmark
[DRAFT] Investment Memo: Earnest Fund 2 | Earnest Capital
“Introduction What follows is a public draft of the investment memo that I intend to use for Earnest’s second fund with as few redactions as possible. This is…”
January 16, 2020
-
Bookmark
Superkül is our 2020 Designer of the Year | Designlines Magazine
“Why build a passive house? To this question, Meg Graham and Andre D’Elia return a thoughtful gaze. “Because,” Graham says, “it’s the right thing to do.” A…”
January 10, 2020
-
Bookmark
Everyone’s Resolution Is to Drink More Water in 2020
“Why are we so obsessed with hydration?”
January 5, 2020
-
Top 30 Albums of 2019
A bit of background from my 2013 preamble for those new to my lists:
I do this more for me — as a way of discovering new music — than for you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to get as much joy from these amazing artists as I did this year. My list-making secret is to start a “long list” of albums I like at the beginning of the year. I keep adding when something strikes my fancy and use the year-end holidays to figure out which ones really made the cut.
For those interested, my previous Top 30 Albums are still online:
- Top 30 Albums of 2010
- Top 30 Albums of 2011
- Top 30 Albums of 2012
- Top 30 Albums of 2013
- Top 30 Albums of 2014
- Top 30 Albums of 2015
- Top 30 Albums of 2016
- Top 30 Albums of 2017
- Top 30 Albums of 2018
This 2019 list is my 10th and I’m going to look at the 300 albums I’ve recommended this decade and do a Top 30 of my Top 30 as well this year at some point.
This was a great year for music as far as I was concerned. This was one of the easiest lists to make so far. My concerted effort to listen to more women musicians, authors, directors, commentators, etc. has really paid off. 16 of my Top 30 are by women or bands with women in them.
And now, my Top 30 Albums of 2019! Enjoy!
Note these are in alphabetical order. I could never rank-order these — it would change daily.
- U.F.O.F. by Big Thief
- Assume Form by James Blake
- Open Reduction Internal Fixation by Blue Hawaii
- Ghosteen by Nick Cave
- Immunity by Clairo
- Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared by Deerhunter
- Norman Fucking Rockwell by Lana Del Rey
- When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? By Billie Eilish
- Agora by Fennesz
- Crush by Floating Points
- The Highwomen by The Highwomen
- Jaime by Brittany Howard
- Music To Draw To: Io by Kid Koala
- Cheap Queen by King Princess
- Kiwanuka by Michael Kiwanuka
- Cuz I Love You by Lizzo
- Bobby Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited by Mercury Rev
- Trappy Bats by Moon Diagrams
- Just Another Diamond Day by Mutual Benefit
- All Mirrors by Angel Olsen
- Dreaming Is Dead Now by Skinny Pelembe
- When I Get Home by Solange
- Heavy Is The Head by Stormzy
- Athena by Sudan Archives
- Igor by Tyler, The Creator
- Father Of The Bride by Vampire Weekend
- Remind Me Tomorrow by Sharon Van Etten
- The Age of Immunology by Vanishing Twin
- Atlanta Millionaires Club by Faye Webster
- Ode To Joy by Wilco
I’m pretty sure I’ll be moving to a “Top 20” list in the future. I tend to have around 20 clear favourites and then add some last minute editions by scouring critics’ lists to round it out and I never end up feeling as strongly about those picks.
December 29, 2019
-
Bookmark
“Ronald Perry can’t seem to get his patients’ teeth white enough.”
December 24, 2019
-
Bookmark
“In the 1990s researchers announced a series of discoveries that would upend a bedrock tenet of neuroscience. For decades the mature brain was understood to be…”
December 4, 2019
-
Bookmark
A Better Social Media World Is Waiting for Us
“Social media is broken. It has poisoned the way we communicate with each other and undermined the democratic process.”
December 3, 2019
-
Bookmark
Open Source Code Will Survive the Apocalypse in an Arctic Cave
“The last stop for civilization before the North Pole is Svalbard, an archipelago north of mainland Norway along the 80th parallel.”
-
Bookmark
Does Who You Are at 7 Determine Who You Are at 63?
“In 1964, with “Seven Up!” Michael Apted stumbled into making what has become the most profound documentary series.”
December 2, 2019
-
Bookmark
In 2029, It’ll Be Harder to Write Science Fiction Because We’ll Be Living It
“This article is part of New York ‘s Future Issue, a collection of predictions about the near future as seen through the recent past.”
December 1, 2019
-
Bookmark
The 78 Best Book Covers of 2019
“This year, at Lit Hub, we spent a lot of time thinking about book cover design. Oliver Munday wrote about designing the cover for Fleur Jaeggy’s newly reissued…”
-
Bookmark
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
“November 2019 Everyone knows that to do great work you need both natural abilityand determination. But there’s a third ingredient that’s not aswell understood:…”
November 11, 2019
-
Bookmark
Remembrance Day Poppies: The Political History of a Symbol
“The origins of the Remembrance Day poppy are pretty well known. However, how they made the jump to Canada, is rather unclear.”
November 8, 2019
-
Bookmark
Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind
“In three decades of advocating for prison abolition, the activist and scholar has helped transform how people think about criminal justice.”
November 7, 2019
-
Bookmark
“We have a fraught relationship with dentists as authority figures. In casual conversation we often dismiss them as “not real doctors,” regarding them more as…”
November 6, 2019
-
Bookmark
Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?
“Pat Brown, Impossible’s founder, argues that we can’t fight climate change unless we get rid of cows.”
-
Bookmark
What came first? Wheeled luggage or a man on the moon?
“This man had to carry his luggage when he got home. Brian Weisberg: Marketing Quant Follow Sep 22, 2014 · 5 min read Take a moment and look at this picture of…”
November 3, 2019
-
Bookmark
What Happens When Lyme Disease Becomes an Identity?
“Polly Murray, in the 1960s and ’70s, was a mother of four with an old house on several acres in Lyme, Connecticut. In the summer, her kids built forts in the…”
November 2, 2019
-
Bookmark
Kids these days: Why the youth of today seem lacking
“Abstract In five preregistered studies, we assess people’s tendency to believe “kids these days” are deficient relative to those of previous generations. Across…”
-
Bookmark
Is the world really better than ever?
“By the end of last year, anyone who had been paying even passing attention to the news headlines was highly likely to conclude that everything was terrible.”
-
Bookmark
“What exactly is Amazon? This is the question that has consumed me for the last ten years.”
-
Bookmark
What does it mean for a machine to “understand”?
“Thomas G. Dietterich Oct 27 · 7 min read Critics of recent advances in artificial intelligence complain that although these advances have produced remarkable…”
-
Bookmark
The 1950s Are Greatly Overrated
“Anyone miss the cookie-cutter lifestyle? Photographer: H. Armstrong Roberts/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Photographer: H. Armstrong Roberts/Hulton Archive/Getty…”