{"id":52584,"date":"2025-11-30T19:30:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T03:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=52584"},"modified":"2025-11-30T19:32:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T03:32:37","slug":"weekly-notes-november-24-30-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2025\/11\/30\/weekly-notes-november-24-30-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Notes: November 24\u201330, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' 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01:55:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:215,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.theguardian.com\\\/commentisfree\\\/2025\\\/nov\\\/09\\\/trump-resistance-is-everywhere&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:216,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/archive.is\\\/8JIJt&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>This, of course, was Thanksgiving week here in the U.S., so it was a three-day work week followed by a four-day weekend\u2026which, really, is just how it should be every week, isn&#8217;t it? We did our usual thing of staying home and avoiding holiday travel, having a nice quiet holiday weekend of resting, munching on good food, reading books, watching a couple movies, and bringing out the Christmas decorations.<\/p>\n<h2>&#x1f4f8; Photos<\/h2>\n<figure>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5379.jpeg\" alt=\"Two bookcase shelves decorated with various winter and Christmas themed LEGO sets.\" title=\"IMG_5379.jpeg\" border=\"0\" width=\"750\" height=\"277\" \/><figcaption>Our winter holiday LEGO village, with an ever-growing collection of creepy Santas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5384.jpeg\" alt=\"A low-angle shot of a decorated Christmas tree and presents in front of a bookcase and sliding glass door, through which strings of lights can be seen on a back balcony.\" title=\"IMG_5384.jpeg\" border=\"0\" width=\"563\" height=\"750\" \/><figcaption>We&#8217;d already done our holiday shopping, so our tree is already all decked out with presents. We&#8217;ve also discovered that reusable cloth bags are <em>much<\/em> easier to deal with than wrapping paper!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5373.jpeg\" alt=\"Outdoor plastic snowman and Santa standees in an outdoor graveled corner, with a lineup of holiday-themed gnome figurines at their feet.\" title=\"IMG_5373.jpeg\" border=\"0\" width=\"749\" height=\"562\" \/><figcaption>Out outdoor gnome corner has been refreshed again with the Christmas collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5378.jpeg\" alt=\"The carport of a fourplex condo, decorated with colorful holiday lights, stars, and candy canes.\" title=\"IMG_5378.jpeg\" border=\"0\" width=\"749\" height=\"562\" \/><figcaption>All lit up out front as well, as always.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>&#x1f4da; Reading<\/h2>\n<p>I finally finished <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2025\/11\/28\/jonathan-strange-mr-norrell-by-susanna-clarke\/\"><cite>Jonathan Strange &amp; Mr Norrell<\/cite><\/a>, which I&#8217;d been slogging through for over a month. Had it not been part of my <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/hugo-reading\/\">Hugo Best Novel reading project<\/a> I&#8217;d probably have given up midway through, but I&#8217;m stubborn. This just was <em>not<\/em> my kind of book.<\/p>\n<h2>&#x1f4fa; Watching<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/letterboxd.com\/djwudi\/film\/planes-trains-and-automobiles\/\"><cite>Planes, Trains and Automobiles<\/cite> (1987)<\/a> \u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f: Amusing, but not a regular tradition; it kind of drags on. It was fascinating seeing and remembering what travel (and dealing with travel problems) was like in the mid-80s, without cell phones, internet reservations, ATMs, and similar modern conveniences.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/letterboxd.com\/djwudi\/film\/edward-scissorhands\/\"><cite>Edward Scissorhands<\/cite> (1990)<\/a> \u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f: Still excellent. Also, and amusingly, while it was all very Tim Burton, and being in the mansion on the hill was like being in Burton\u2019s head, many of the scenes in the town struck me as having nearly a Wes Anderson feel. More saturated, of course, but there was a lot of symmetrical framing of shots and stylized dialogue that were very reminiscent of Anderson\u2019s films.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>&#x1f517; Linking<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>David Roskin in <cite>The Guardian<\/cite>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2025\/nov\/24\/hollywood-dark-era-colour-in-movies-wicked?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1\">Hollywood\u2019s dark era: where did all the colour from movies go?<\/a>: &#8220;We all know the late-night slog of finding something to watch, flicking between streaming services until settling on a series someone mentioned at work. And then a few minutes later, you\u2019re squinting, adjusting your lighting or playing around with TV settings \u2013 it\u2019s a night-time scene and you\u2019re unable to make out what\u2019s going on. Prompting the question: \u2018When did everything on screen get so dark?\u2019&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Alexa Peters at <cite>KNKX NPR<\/cite>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.knkx.org\/jazz\/2025-11-24\/local-businesses-reconsider-live-music-licensing-fees-soar\">Local businesses reconsider live music as licensing fees soar<\/a>: &#8220;PROs are companies that represent songwriters, composers and music publishers and collect royalties from the live performance of their copyrighted works on their behalf. Per U.S. copyright law, any establishment that presents live or recorded music must obtain a \u201cPublic Performance License\u201d from a PRO to legally use copyrighted music they represent for performances, overhead house music, jukeboxes, and even karaoke. \u00b6 For years, this relationship between venues and PROs has gone on behind the scenes as a necessity of live music presentation. But, as more PROs have emerged, and rising costs make it more difficult for grassroots music venues and third places, like restaurants, to keep live music going, PROs are drawing more scrutiny.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Brian Merchant in <cite>The Atlantic<\/cite>: <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/VKgW8\">The New Luddites Aren\u2019t Backing Down<\/a> (archive.is link): &#8220;Now, with nearly half of Americans worried about how AI will affect jobs, Luddism has blossomed. The new Luddites\u2014a growing contingent of workers, critics, academics, organizers, and writers\u2014say that too much power has been concentrated in the hands of the tech titans, that tech is too often used to help corporations slash pay and squeeze workers, and that certain technologies must not merely be criticized but resisted outright.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>T.M. Brown in <cite>The New York Times<\/cite>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/10\/30\/style\/lamp-club-luddites.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3E8.odbc.kYe2bxxj1pdS\">They\u2019re Trying to Ditch Their Phones. Their Methods Are Unorthodox.<\/a> (gift link): &#8220;The Lamp Club is part of a growing ecosystem of &#8216;neo-Luddite&#8217; groups across the country that encourage people to transform their relationship to technology. Other groups include the Luddite Club, APPstinence and Breaking the (G)Loom \u2014 organizations that, for the most part, were started not by parents wishing their teens would get off their devices but by the teens themselves, who fault phones for fraying human connections as well as accelerating inequality and climate change. There are now more than two dozen Luddite Clubs in North America, from Ithaca, N.Y., to Irvine, Calif.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Elizabeth Spiers: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elizabethspiers.com\/requiem-for-early-blogging\/\">Requiem for Early Blogging<\/a>: &#8220;The growth of social media in particular has wiped out a particular kind of blogging that I sometimes miss: a text-based dialogue between bloggers that required more thought and care than dashing off 180 or 240 characters and calling it a day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Josh Collinsworth: <a href=\"https:\/\/joshcollinsworth.com\/blog\/alchemy\">Alchemy<\/a>: &#8220;The struggle that produced the art\u2014the human who felt it, processed it, and formed it into this unique shape in the way only they could\u2014is integral to the art itself. The story of the human behind it is the missing, inimitable component that AI cannot reproduce. \u00b6 That\u2019s what I and so many others find so repulsive about generative AI art; it\u2019s missing the literal soul that makes art interesting in the first place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Aaron Greenbaum at <cite>Slashgear<\/cite>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.slashgear.com\/1631326\/how-sci-fi-vehicles-from-tv-movies-were-built\/\">Legendary Sci-Fi Vehicles: How They Were Really Built<\/a>: &#8220;If a producer wants a sci-fi vehicle to have a tangible presence and a sense of realism, they have to use a live, physical model. For larger vehicles or when cars and spaceships perform feats of fantastical daring, a miniature is often required, but when the vehicle has to interact with actors or live sets, it is usually built to scale using available parts. Here are 10 iconic sci-fi vehicles and how they were made.&#8221; Light on details, but still entertaining.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/ableplayer\/ableplayer\">ableplayer<\/a> on GitHub: &#8220;Able Player is a fully accessible cross-browser HTML5 media player.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Rebecca Solnit at <cite>The Guardian<\/cite>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2025\/nov\/09\/trump-resistance-is-everywhere\">A year on from Trump\u2019s victory, resistance is everywhere<\/a>: &#8220;Resistance is everywhere, both geographically and in terms of the constituencies participating: civil society and civil servants; human rights, climate and environmental groups (who in many cases had plans in place before the election and hit the ground running when the new administration came in); religious leaders and institutions, elected officials at all levels from city councils to the US Senate, the military, lawyers and judges, educators and students, librarians, of course, medical professionals, journalists, editors and publishers, people in the arts. Of course there\u2019s been shameful collaboration, submission and silence from many figures in most of these constituencies as well. It has been striking that the most wealthy and theoretically most powerful have, in this crisis, often been the first to surrender. It\u2019s non-elites who have stood on principle even when it means taking risks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Nicholas Deshais at <cite>The Seattle Times<\/cite>: <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/8JIJt\">Light rail\u2019s push to Federal Way gives students, workers front-door access<\/a> (archive.is link): &#8220;Unless you were looking for it, Highline College used to be kind of hard to find, even when it was right next to you. \u00b6 Not anymore, thanks to the region\u2019s growing light rail and its new Kent Des Moines Station directly across 99, which, not coincidentally, was almost called Highline Station. With the train coming, Highline reoriented itself to the east, widened the alley and renamed it College Way, demolished the ice cream shop and, in 2019, erected the Campus View building, which has retail and office space on the first floor and housing for 160 students on the four floors above. Two tall signs blare out the college\u2019s name on either side of College Way, for any driver \u2014 or light rail passenger \u2014 who may be unaware.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A week in the life of\u2026. Thoughts, photos, links, and miscellany from the past week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2043,2037],"tags":[886,6982,6033],"class_list":["post-52584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-tv-and-films","tag-edward-scissorhands","tag-planes-trains-and-automobiles","tag-weekly-notes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52584"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52593,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52584\/revisions\/52593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}