Weekly Links – 7 March 2025

A new month and some more links to share with you all.

Techdirt is not known as an overtly political tech news site. That has changed since Elon Musk came into the US government with Trump’s new administration. This post talks about how part of their job now is to chronicle the collapse of the United States as techbros are a major part of dismantling things.

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Movie Review – I Am Not a Witch

I Am Not a Witch (2017) 
Written and directed by Rungano Nyoni

As an American, and especially a homeschooled one raised by evangelical parents, my general knowledge of African geography is abysmal. Let’s not even see what a blank space it is regarding African history. This often makes me sad because I know many facts about European and American history. Africa is where humanity emerged from, so we should know more about this incredible, diverse continent. 

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Movie Review – The Message (1976)

The Message (1976)
Written by H.A.L. Craig (English Version)
Directed by Moustapha Akkad

The Biblical Epic, while a film genre that has fallen off in recent decades, is quite well known as part of the Hollywood industry starting in the early 20th century. Cecil B. DeMille directed two versions of The Ten Commandments, one silent film (1923) and the more famous Charlton Heston version (1956). Ben-Hur received multiple versions as well as adaptations of the stories of Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba, and more. A film titled The Bible, directed by John Huston, even covered the first 22 chapters of Genesis. That’s not even getting into the multitude of movies based on the life of Jesus. 

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Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Everspark Part Eight

Read the previous chapter here.

(For our journey to meet up with Korrin’s army, I will create a Spark that represents the journey. It uses a Spark like a countdown clock; with each ray, it will be a stretch of the journey. I will roll for each leg on the Yes/No oracle, asking, “Is there a significant encounter on this stretch?” If the answer is “Yes,” I will roll on a random encounters chart and create a NACHOS for that.

I will also roll on this simple terrain table to determine what the land is like generally around me:

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Movie Review – For Sama

For Sama (2019)
Directed by Waad Al-Kataeb and Edward Watts

Our film series for March is 13 Countries, 13. On the website Letterboxd, if you pay for an annual subscription, you unlock a stats page that tracks your films watched. One feature I started looking at was the world map highlighting the countries from which you’ve seen movies. I decided to go through all the countries I hadn’t seen a film from and select a feature to watch at some point. While I won’t be watching them all in one go, I decided to pull some of them for this series. 

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Solo RP Actual Play – The Box and The Key

This game was made as part of Fix Your Hearts Or Die, a game jam tribute to the late, great David Lynch. I decided to continue honoring the artist by doing a solo playthrough of this game. The Box and The Key. I decided to play 10 scenes, regardless of where I ended. I also told myself to play intuitively, using the prompts and going with whatever emerged from my subconscious, the same way Lynch talked about his creative process of being open and letting it happen. I lightly tried connecting things when it felt natural, but otherwise, I let things happen.

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Comic Book Review – JSA: The Golden Age

JSA: The Golden Age
Reprints The Golden Age #1-4
Written by James Robinson 
Art by Paul Smith

The post-World War II period in the United States appeared to be a period of jubilation from the outside. Propaganda became full of images of happy white families enjoying their new homes in the suburbs. The German Nazis didn’t really lose. Some of them were tried & punished in Nuremberg. But many of them became founders of NATO and helped lay the groundwork for the European Union, everything done with the intent of undermining communism. Operation: Paperclip created cover to funnel Nazi scientists into the U.S. to aid in the development of the nuclear and space programs. America has a new coat of pain, but underneath is something dark & evil. 

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Book Update – January/February 2025

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Sixteen, edited by Ellen Datlow
Another year means another Ellen Datlow Best Horror of the Year. As with all of these, it’s a mixed bag. I loved some stories; others were fine, and even some I forgot as soon as I was done reading them. Here are the stories that were highlights for me.

  • The Importance of a Tidy Home by Christopher Golden

Set in the winter holiday season, this story follows two homeless men in Germany who encounter the Schnabelpercten. These diminutive creatives are said to go home to home during the Epiphany and inspect homes to ensure they are clean. In this story, if they are unhappy with the house’s tidiness, they murder the inhabitants inside. This is a genuinely creepy and very wintery tale.

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