All posts tagged: Column

Tracing TN’s cult and psychopathic politics

Tracing TN’s cult and psychopathic politics

Published by Parlour News

The recent assembly elections in Tamil Nadu served to exemplify a major revelation in the fight between two competing trends in politics across the world— the desire for change on one hand, and the continuity of the party in power on the other, interpreted generally as the “pro or anti-incumbency” factor. Tracing TN’s cult and psychopathic politics Although there were no strong indications of these factors in the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, the dominant narratives that underlined party campaigns conveyed a different message and operational realities. While the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) carried out a popular campaign to let party chief and chief minister MK Stalin continue in his position. The party and its leadership maintained the role and relevance of idealogy as a driving factor in the state’s factor, aside another influential narrative that focussed on the Centre-state relationship. The National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) campaign— exemplified mainly by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)— highlighted the anti-incumbency factor, pushing for a resounding defeat of the DMK. …

You need to read the treatise on spacing out, Bored and Brilliant

You need to read the treatise on spacing out, Bored and Brilliant

Published by Webster

I have a tendency to space out. A lot. Whether it’s staring out the window on Amtrak or pausing at work to fixate on a blank spot on the wall instead of my screen, I often let my mind wander. When I was younger, I would often be derisively called a daydreamer, a space cadet, or just plain distracted. Obviously, one can be too absent-minded, but Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi convincingly makes the case that letting your mind wander is not only essential, but a luxury we shouldn’t take for granted in our hyper-connected age. Zomorodi is the current host of NPR’s TED Radio Hour, but she was also the host of WNYC’s Note to Self for many years. In 2015, she did a series of episodes on Note to Self focused on removing digital distractions and the benefits of boredom. Then, in 2017, it became a book. Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self expands on those episodes, bringing in new expert voices, scientific studies, …

The indie web is here to make the internet weird again

The indie web is here to make the internet weird again

Published by Webster

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on internet culture, follow Stevie Bonifield. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. The indie web began a few years after the end of GeoCities, which Yahoo shut down in 2009 (at least, in the US — GeoCities Japan managed to hang on until 2019). GeoCities was a free web hosting service that launched in 1994 and once hosted millions of personal HTML websites, from pop culture shrines to teachers’ pages for their students (and truly everything in between). When GeoCities went dark, those websites disappeared with it, most of them lost for good. Some sites have been preserved through the GeoCities Gallery, but they’re frozen in time like relics in a museum. They’re still sorted into categories for the old GeoCities “neighborhoods” they once belonged to, like Area51 for sci-fi websites or SiliconValley for tech websites. These pages are now littered with broken links and missing images, …

What the leaked AI executive order tells us about the Big Tech power grab

What the leaked AI executive order tells us about the Big Tech power grab

Published by Webster

Hello and welcome back to Regulator. It’s been a very long two weeks away from your inboxes, but luckily for us, Big Tech and Big Government did not stop fighting. In fact, it’s gotten even spicier. Let’s get into it. Last week, I was following up on several rumors that Donald Trump would sign an executive order that would fulfill a longstanding goal of the AI industry: legal preemption that would prevent states from passing their own AI laws. Mostly, I was calling sources trying to get a sense of how the Trump administration planned to approach it: Which agency would be spearheading it? What legal arguments would they use? How would it interact with Congress, which was trying to pass a similar moratorium in the National Defense Authorization Act? And then I got a copy of the draft order itself — possibly a sign that someone in the administration deeply, deeply loathes David Sacks, Trump’s Special Advisor on AI and Crypto. Even though he’s not a permanent government employee — he is, in fact, …

Apple TV wants to go big

Apple TV wants to go big

Published by Webster

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on streaming competition, follow Andrew Webster. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. In 2022, Apple won an Oscar. The company behind the Mac and iPhone made a splash by winning Best Picture with the indie darling CODA, a remake of a French-Belgian film about the only hearing member of a family with a struggling fishing business. It was created with a modest budget reported around $10 million, and yet despite its relatively humble beginnings, for a time the movie was a showpiece for one of the world’s most valuable companies and its fledgling push into the realms of film and television. The success of CODA is indicative of Apple’s streaming service as a whole. While it earned accolades and respect, it wasn’t exactly a mainstream hit. Awards don’t necessarily equal viewership. And while Apple TV has had several acclaimed shows and films, it hasn’t yet translated to …

You need to listen to the searing noise pop album Forever in Your Heart

You need to listen to the searing noise pop album Forever in Your Heart

Published by Webster

There’s something irresistible about music that sounds as if it’s coming apart at the seams. The Black Dresses are masters of barely contained chaos. All of their records feel as if they’re in danger of collapsing into pure noise at any moment. But never have they so expertly woven the various threads of their sound — glitchy percussion, pummeling guitars, irresistible pop hooks — together as they do on Forever in Your Heart. The Canadian duo of Ada Rook and Devi McCallion crafts something undeniably catchy from abrasive electronics, metallic percussion, death-metal screams, and off-key warbling. The opening track, “PEACESIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” jumps out of the speakers with such viciousness that the riff basically trips over itself before settling into a groovey shoegaze verse. When the riff returns, Devi screams, “Can we make something beautiful with no hope?” Both Rook and Devi’s screams are explosive, but nowhere is that more true than on “Silver Bells.” Halfway through the song, after a particularly melodic passage backed by Pretty Hate Machine-esque synths, Rook shreds her vocal chords, delivering the …

How soapy micro dramas became Hollywood’s next big bet

How soapy micro dramas became Hollywood’s next big bet

Published by Webster

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on Hollywood trends and streaming culture, follow Charles Pulliam-Moore. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. Once upon a time (read: a few years ago), there were a pair of upstart streaming services called Quibi and Go90 that were supposed to appeal to phone-addicted millennials. These platforms were supposed to compete with Netflix and Amazon by offering up short-form videos designed to be watched on the go. Both services were touted as being the future of entertainment, and they had sizable financial backing. But neither Quibi nor Go90 managed to gain any real traction before their names became shorthand for “bad ideas exemplifying how out of touch studio and telecom execs can be.” Quibi and Go90 were not long for this world, and much has been written about how they were doomed from the jump. Quibi was oddly expensive, Go90’s landscape mode-focused branding confused people, and neither service …

‘Defending it’s prince’: BJP slams Congress’ P Chidambaram over column on Bihar polls

‘Defending it’s prince’: BJP slams Congress’ P Chidambaram over column on Bihar polls

Published by Parlour News

Just days after bagging a historic victory in Bihar assembly polls, Bharatiya Janata Party sought to attack Congress leader P Chidambaram over his column on the polls and accused him of putting the blame of Opposition’s poor performance on the voters of Bihar instead of Rahul Gandhi. P Chidambaram’s opinion piece was titled ‘Voting is not the end of responsibilities’. BJP’s Shehzad Poonawa blamed him of insulting the voters of Bihar. (ANI/PTI) While referring to Chidambaram’s opinion piece in the Indian Express titled ‘Voting is not the end of responsibilities’, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said that Congress in blaming the ‘janta’ (public) instead of introspecting. “Instead of doing introspection, Congress has once again chosen to defend it’s prince by blaming janta. P Chidambaram writes “it is responsibility of voters to bring them to power”. How entitled and delusional are these guys?” Poonawalla wrote on X (formerly Twitter). He added that Congress would pin the blame on electronic voting machine or special intensive revision of voter rolls and even on the public of Bihar, but …

Counting Renaissance butts in Rome with the Meta Ray-Ban Display

Counting Renaissance butts in Rome with the Meta Ray-Ban Display

Published by Webster

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest phones, smartwatches, apps, and other gizmos that swear they’re going to change your life. Optimizer arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 10AM ET. Opt in for Optimizer here. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that an art history buff in Rome ought to see the Sistine Chapel. Less acknowledged is that getting there from the Vatican Museum will potentially take longer than Frodo Baggins’ entire journey to Mordor. Ostensibly, a well-prepared art lover might have a docent or, at the very least, a working audio guide to help pass the roughly two to three hours it takes to meander past countless busts of naked marble men and Greek amphoras. I was not well-prepared. My family’s tickets were purchased at the last minute. I drew the short stick with a solo self-guided tour during one of the last slots of the day. All I had was a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, a T-Mobile international …

What insiders anonymously think about the AI race

What insiders anonymously think about the AI race

Published by Webster

This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. I spent yesterday at Eric Newcomer’s Cerebral Valley conference in San Francisco, which is now in its third year. I’ve attended this event for three years in a row because Eric does a great job curating the speakers and the audience, and the conversations are more substantive than a typical industry event. This year was no exception; however, I found the most interesting part of the day to be when the results of an anonymous audience survey were shared onstage. The more than 300 attendees who participated in the survey primarily consisted of AI company founders, followed by investors, other industry professionals (including product leaders and engineers), and members of the media. Here are the results of the survey in order of how they were shared onstage: 1. What will be OpenAI’s annualized revenue be at the end of 2026? Median answer: $30 billion. 2. What will Nvidia be …