- Nope, that’s not a still from “Blade Runner.” That’s just Beijing. [Gizmodo]
- I (Michael) have been off-and-on obsessed with cyberpunk over the years. People often tell me it’s no longer relevant. Claire L. Evans posits that cyberpunk lost its appeal (or at least its visibility) because we already live in the future presaged by its writers. But isn’t that part of the appeal? Nostalgia for a genre softens the harsh reality of living under global mega-corporations, city-gobbling biotech parks, inescapable advertising, international hacking intrigue, killer drones, and a surveillance state. Like, how many people in all-Underarmour outfits are ordering sex off a cracked iPad screen right now? [Motherboard]
- Or we could blame 1995 for killing cyberpunk. That year, no less than six mainstream movies attempted to exploit the craze—and according to one writer, they were all terrible. Personally, I think Strange Days was one of the decade’s best films, and super relevant given the state of sousveillance, police brutality, and our addiction to user-generated content. [Paste Magazine]
- Related: Here is a collection of the absolute worst hacking scenes in movies. [College Humor]
- Thank you, Google, for showing us that androids dream of psychedelic sheep. Someone fed the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas into the infamously trippy AI neural network and the results are pretty much what you’d expect. [YouTube]
- Reddit fired one of its administrators. In a show of solidarity, unpaid moderators went on strike, shutting down a sizeable chunk of the site’s boards. People are freaking out. Recode looks at the particular challenges and risks associated with attempting to manage a hive mind. [Re/code]
- Reddit “apologizes” to its users. [Reddit]
- PSA: Whenever you feel like your feed is full of shit, you can always rely on The Awl to make you feel better about the state of writing. It’s full of real writers, writing like real humans! And they cover real issues, like the WeWork revolution taking place in New York. [The Awl]
- Fundraising is now more important to museums than ever. Case in point: the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center “unexpectedly announced” that development director Veronica Kessenich would become executive director of the institution. [Burnaway]
- The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive has finally announced an opening date for its new building: January 31, 2015. The opening has been pushed back due to a number of California-specific concerns, like earthquakes. [The Daily Californian]
- Uh, for real, is ISIS selling looted antiquities on Whatsapp? Just a little bit. (My thoughts on ISIS and looting, here.) [Bloomberg Business]
- Ming Wong is a queer Singaporean artist who unites sci-fi and drag for performances in Shanghai. Can we be friends? [The Beijinger]
- Eric Edwards has collected $10 million worth of African Art. Until now, the 1,600-piece collection has only been on view in his apartment. He’s hoping to open a museum in Bed-Stuy. [Gothamist]
- How bad is this outdoor sculpture of Nefertiti? So bad that Egyptians are offended. The replica is now being removed. [BBC News]
