Greetings Webtaculators! I hope everyone was able to enjoy spending some time with people they love, and that everyone was also able to take time to think about others who might not be so fortunate. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Mourning For Egypt
Why: Because the West still has no idea how to react to terrorist destruction in Middle Eastern countries.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (10 min. read)
What: Shifting The Paradigm With Meaningless Words
Why: Because modern business hardly seems to be about selling something – it’s now about selling the idea of something. See, e.g., Bitcoin.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: The FCC Hates America – Let’s Hope The Courts Don’t
Why: Because like I mentioned previously, the FCC went and did what everyone says it was going to do – announce that it was removing net neutrality protections. OK, maybe saying the FCC as an entire entity is too strong, since Jessica Rosenworcel, one of the FCC Commissioners, published an op-ed in the LA Times asking the public to stop her agency from destroying the Internet. Remember, telecommunications companies are regulated because there is no clear path to competitive local markets.

HEALTH THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Welfare By Another Name
Why: Because the Washington Post did a deep dive into the way in which the U.S. provides for people who can no longer work, whether that is actually because they are hurt, or because of other reasons. Here are parts 2, 3, 4, and 5.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Alabama Falls Apart
Why: Because Alabama is football, and now Alabama basically has nothing left going for it this year. Their basketball team didn’t have much luck, either.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: Another Pixar Gem
Why: Because based off the way most other movie studios work, there is no reason for almost every single movie they put out to be this good. Sadly, it’s not all good news – John Lasseter, the head of Pixar, took a “leave of absence” for inappropriate work interactions – aka not respecting women’s boundaries in a workplace.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (long look)
What: What A Year
Why: Because even though it’s a bit early for making best of lists, Consequence of Sound just released its top 50.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. look)
What: The Bests
Why: Because someone with too much time on their hands aggregated a whole bunch of “best books of the year” lists. You’ll probably be able to find something that speaks to you in one of them.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Modern Co-Op
Why: Because one of the most fun things I did recently was get together with a group of old friends, sit around a single TV, and beat each other up in Smash Brothers, just like we did when we were in middle school.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: A Better Yule Log; Bucket List; Become A Coppa
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: CYBER EVERYTHING!
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™

Greetings Webtaculators! Trump update (because he really isn’t worth talking about this week) – currently Twitter feuding with unworthy famous person about whether or not Trump should have left American citizens in Chinese jail. I’m really writing this more for myself, so that when I’m old, and assuming the Internet is still around and I’ve kept my payments for hosting this domain name current, I will be able to see what sort of nonsense I lived though. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Zimbabwhat?
Why: Because Africa’s longest reigning ruler, Robert Mugabe, was forced to step down from power. At this point, he still has not resigned. There is a lot to unpack here, and you should probably start with the history of Mugabe.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Entrepreneur Is French Because It’s Fancy
Why: Because I have lots of friends who are entrepreneurs. Many of them are not from wealthy backgrounds, and have still managed to do amazing things. However, it is still interesting to think about where the access to capital came from, and the way in which that access was granted. Related.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Ajit Pai-l Of Garbage
Why: Because Ajit Pai is an asshat and has personally made my colleagues’ jobs more difficult in the attempt to bring parity to the communication potentials of the United States. This is aside from his recent role in ignoring the growth of monopolies within the communications industry, and his direct involvement with the destruction of the existence of an open Internet. Again, while you all still have access to this content, Ajit Pai is a bad person, and deserves to have bad things happen to him. Being the world we live in, he will probably end up receiving a multi-million dollar salary at one of these companies or being hired as a lobbyist.

TECH THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: Moar Tesla Pls
Why: Because the truck is the thing that will actually change the world, but the new Roadster looks pretty sweet, too. Because nothing is perfect, you should also probably be aware of the problems that exist within the company.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Italy Blows It
Why: Because the US is not the only bad soccer team who didn’t make the World Cup.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Super Heroes!
Why: Because super heroes are fun, and so are lists. The new Justice League is not one of those best.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (10 min. read)
What: The Return And Untimely Fall Of Rap Rock
Why: Because between the initial publication of this story and now, one of the artist widely mentioned in the article, Lil Peep, passed away due to a drug overdose.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Back To Basics
Why: Because writing a good cookbook is hard. Here’s why salt, fat, acid and heat are the only things you need to make food taste good.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: Pew Pew
Why: Because EA managed to make a good Star Wars game bad by ruining the reason why people play games. It is a gorgeous game with good mechanics that utterly fails to give people a reason to keep playing it. The company now owns the most downvoted post in Reddit history, which is all sorts of nuts considering what else has happened this year.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Our Drone Future; Our Robot Future; Our Future
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Save America
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™

Greetings Webtaculators! Well, it’s been one year since America collectively decided that it was OK for a man with the temperament of a toddler to be President. Specifically, people like this. In a certain rebuke to this choice, the current midterm elections lead to the election of many people who represent the polar opposite of ideals. Not because they are Democrats, necessarily, but because a transgendered person won against a homophobe, a refugee won in Montana, and many people of different backgrounds won for the first time. This is good. This is progress. I can only hope that these individuals live up to their promise, and that voters do not forget the madness that we are currently living through. Or, we could collectively forget / continue to be awful and vote a politically disgraced pedophile into the Senate. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: What’s The Deal With White People And Torches?
Why: Because Poland hosted 60,000 shitheads to call for a Muslim Holocaust. For a country that helped host the Holocaust 70 years ago, that is a truly disgusting sentiment.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: $1.5 Trillion Short Term Memory
Why: Because remember how Republicans constantly threatened to shut down the government and cause financial havoc over the debt ceiling? Apparently they don’t.

TECH THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: 280 Characters!
Why: Because Twitter is dumb.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Sports And The Military
Why: Because Steph Curry apparently writes well, too.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Thor Is Good
Why: Because of Jeff Goldblum, obviously.

TELEVISION THING OF THE WEEK (2 min. read)
What: The Continued Fallout
Why: Because men in [insert industry here] are shitty.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: How To Not Win An Award
Why: Because busking outside of an awards show is probably the most real country thing a performer could do. Good job, Sturgill.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Escape To The Stars
Why: Because science fiction continues to feature more diversity than ever. I highly suggest the Binti series for a really quick but interesting take on Afro-futurism.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Mosaic; May The Force Be With You Forever; Whoops
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: More Better Politicians. The bar is really not that high. We can do better than pedophiles.
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™

Greetings Webtaculators. Somehow things just keep getting more awful. I’m sorry that the world isn’t full of puppies and rainbows, or puppy rainbows, because that is infinitely better than the reality we have to face on a daily basis. This week, we learned you can only politicizes certain kinds of violence, but not others (violence against politicians remains a currently unknown, but we will probably find out more soon), the Trump Train continues to lose its engineers, our brightest stars are lecherous pedophiles, and terrible pizza gets political in the stupidest kind of way. At least the Dodgers lost the World Series. Also, remember to set your clocks back. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Mass Killings
Why: This week, many people were killed in different ways in the United States. Eight people were killed by troubled man who decided to mow down people with a truck on Halloween.  Today, almost 50 people were shot by a troubled man while attending church services.  Finally, three people were shot to death in a Walmart by a troubled man in Denver – I almost forgot about that one.
In terms of responses, our President offered furious vengeance against immigrants for the first one – never mind that Uzbekistan is not in the Middle East, nor is part of the current list of banned countries. For the second, I cannot tell if people are being ironic when they are offering “thoughts and prayers” to people who were killed in the middle of praying, but if it didn’t work in the middle of their massacre, it sure as hell wont do any good after. And the third, like I said, I already forgot that one happened. It really is hard to keep track of them all – and when you’re comparing 3 to 50, it just isn’t memorable.
I am sad. I am furious. I am exhausted. It goes without saying that this should not happen, and yet it continues. Each one of these acts of heinous violence against people commuting from work, worshiping, and shopping was caused by a “troubled man.” The running theme seems to be that when men fail, they are so afraid to face their own shortcomings that they take their cowardice and weaponize it to destroy others. Like every previous time this has happened, the only answers I have are not politically feasible. So I will continue to sit here, sad; furious; exhausted.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: The World’s Wealth
Why: Because a clearer picture of the corruption of wealth has never been produced. There is no greater example of this corruption then when a Queen, whose position is fully funded by the tax paying populous, then avoids paying taxes on that wealth by setting up accounts in a tax shelter. Funny, because the way our government is talking, it seems as though these poor wealthy folk have too many taxes!

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Russian Ties
Why: Because Mueller officially charged Manafort, Gates, and Papadopoulos (that’s a fun name to say out loud) in the actions regarding Russian influence on the election.

TECH THING OF THE WEEK (10 min. read)
What: The X Factor
Why: Because two technology companies came out with new “x”es – Apple with the iPhone X, and Microsoft with the Xbox One X. The second one needs a few more “x”es, I think.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: The Astros Win
Why: Because as a Giants fan, this made me happy.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (8 min. read)
What: Falling Stars
Why: Because Kevin Spacey is a serial abuser. He will be far from the only person who will no longer have a job after this is all said and done.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Somber Musings
Why: Because sometimes sad pop gospel is the right sound for the mood you’re in.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: The Overwrought Problems Of Rich People
Why: Because Salman Rushdie’s latest is escapism for people who like flowery language and happen to inherit Manhattan brownstones.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: A Return To Beginnings
Why: Because Call of Duty went back to World War II in the latest iteration of war games.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What:  Car Climb; Poop Face; Haka
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: A Cayman Bank Account
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™