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Monthly Archives: March 2018

On this day, March 28 of the year 845, a huge Viking fleet attacked Paris. They were led by chieftain Ragnar (Reginherus in Frankish sources), who is traditionally identified as the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok. Ragnar's fleet, consisting of 120 Viking ships carrying thousands of men, reached Paris after having defeated the French army trying to stop them along the river Seine. After plundering and occupying Paris, the Vikings withdrew when they had been paid a huge ransom of 2570 kilograms (5665 lbs) of silver and gold from Charles the Bald, the French king. The attack is believed to be an act of revenge since Ragnar had been given land and the favor of the king 4 years earlier. The king had betrayed him and Ragnar had lost the land. What goes around comes around. #viking #whatgoesaroundcomesaround #grimfrost

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via Dan

Way back in the early 2000’s I signed up for all of the new social media sites I could find. It was fun to see what kinds of different features they offered and I wanted to lock down my preferred username. Facebook, at the time, was limited to users with a .edu email address so I couldn’t get in. It always bugged me and so, when they opened it up to everyone, I passed. I was definitely the “no, I’m not on Facebook” guy.

I didn’t get on Facebook until December of 2012. My oldest daughter was going to turn 13 and I figured I would need to be able to answer questions and provide guidance on the biggest social network. For a while it was a good time. It was where all of the people were and I had fun trying to find long-forgotten people from my past.

My daughter, funny enough, wanted nothing to do with Facebook. It was for old people. Instagram and Twitter were all she cared about but I hung on to Facebook because I was having a good time. It was a one stop shop for all of my various hobbies and interests.

In 2015, as the machinations of US Presidential politics began, my Facebook good times turned bad. All of the bitching and complaining that dominated political discussions started to seep into other areas of my interest. There wasn’t anywhere on Facebook that was worth hanging out for me because it was all bad vibes everywhere. After the election, things didn’t improve and those bad vibes were working their way into me, personally.

For 2018 I decided to limit my Facebook time to the first day of every month. My plan was to pop in, see what I missed, offer many Thumbs Up, and then bounce until the following month. I made a brief exception for the day after my birthday so I could say thanks for all of the well-wishes.

And now all of this Cambridge Analytica bullshit is breaking. It’s like, I didn’t want to be on Facebook in the first place but now you’re telling me that all of my potential privacy concerns have become Worst Case Scenarios? Fuck that.

So I’ve disabled my account. Deactivated? Whatever the non-Delete word is, I’ve done that. I’m going to give it a couple of months to see if I cool off about it or see if they make substantial changes about their approach to my data.

Confluence! This Dan Cohen post talks about a microtrend that I’m happy to be a part of.

“…the salad days of “blog to reflect, tweet to connect” are gone. Long gone. Over the last year, especially, it has seemed much more like “blog to write, tweet to fight.” Moreover, the way that our writing and personal data has been used by social media companies has become more obviously problematic—not that it wasn’t problematic to begin with.

Which is why it’s once again a good time to blog, especially on one’s own domain.”

I’ve had a nice little posting run here lately and I’m a super-fan of having my own domain.

h/t kottke

Fun night of psych rock at The Broadberry. Jjuu Jjuu started the evening with a quick set of spacey rock. I don’t usually get to see that kind of music live so that was great.

Kikagaku Moro is a Japanese 5-piece that makes really nice psychedelic music. I had never heard of them until I was doing research on the Earthless openers. Their album House In the Tall Grass is crazy-good. Highly recommended.

Earthless is a 3-piece heavy psych band from San Diego, CA. I came to them via the drummer, Mario Rubalcalbra. He has been in Rocket From the Crypt (top 5 band of mine) and Hot Snakes. They played for almost an hour, early too long for this old guy. The lights were sick for the Earthless set, provided by The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show. I can’t see staying sane if you’d been on acid or mushrooms.

Michelle and I just finished the second season of The Crown, a Netflix original series that is a dramatic retelling of the life and times of the Queen of England. It stars Claire Foy and Matt Smith as the royal couple.
I don’t normally get down with the hour-long dramas but we’ve loved this. I don’t really know that much about the English Monarchy but I’ve been fascinated by the way they’re telling this story. I thought it was strange that an English production about English history would spend so much time framing the life story of their still-living Queen with the crumbling of the British Empire. It’s probably a testament to how well-written this show is that they can plainly show the poison of Colonialism and the British class system while creating a sympathetic figure in the head of state. A lot of credit has to go to Claire Foy for being able to be this sympathetic character (who really shouldn’t be getting any sympathy). Matt Smith is great as Prince Philip, a character that we both hate on many, many levels.

The 3rd season of the Crown will focus on a different decade of Elizabeth’s reign and will feature different, older actors in the roles. I think filming starts this summer and I’ll definitely make time for it when it drops.