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Against the Grain, Bad Religion (1990)
Each of Bad Religion’s albums conveys a different shade of world-weary righteousness. Disgust is probably the dominating emotion of Against the Grain—disgust at growing ecological disaster, our numbing…
4 min read
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All We Imagine as Light (2024)
If films were representative of human experience, we’d get a few thousand movies every year about the people of Mumbai, Lilongwe, Salvador, Managua, Memphis, etc. trying to keep…
4 min read
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No Other Land (2023)
The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Thucydides wrote this 2500 years ago. It’s still true. Heads of state like Donald Trump…
4 min read
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Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation, Musser (2023)
The measurement problem in quantum mechanics, the hard problem of consciousness, and the challenge of developing general AI are not separate issues. Absorbing that message—understanding its potentially enormous…
4 min read
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The Creative Act, Rubin (2023)
I’m admittedly a grouch when it comes to self-help books. Most feel like schemes to make money off our self-loathing, to peddle detours around the actual hard work…
4 min read
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Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars, and Sitars, Kalyanji-Anandji & Dan the Automator (1998)
The brothers Kalyanji and Anandji Shah composed hundreds of Bollywood soundtracks over their career, mostly for masala action flicks. Bombay the Hard Way is a collection of their…
4 min read
