Greetings Webtaculators! Sorry again for the delay. It’s mildly hard to pay attention to what’s going on in general when your county is on fire. Let’s just pretend that it is still the weekend, and the last two days didn’t happen yet.  On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Something Big!
Why: Because only Trump could turn something that was supposed to be a success into a barely avoided unmitigated disaster. Also, wasn’t killing Bin Laden supposed to end ISIS in the first place?

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: Presidential Spitefulness
Why: Because personal vendettas aren’t supposed to drive government procurement, but it’s really hard to say that didn’t happen here.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Impeachment Hearings Are OK
Why: Because some people like to sue just for the sake of suing.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Up In Flames
Why: Because much of California was, and continues to be, covered in fire. It is not fun. Also, it is becoming increasingly clear that many of these companies that promise to deliver service have failed immensely at their sole purpose.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Boo This Man
Why: Because Trump went to a baseball game, which is essentially the first time he has gone to a large gathering of people that wasn’t hand picked to enjoy his presence. It did not go well for him.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (2 min. watch)
What: The Final Trailer
Why: Because Star Wars

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Oh Kanye…
Why: Because I have never heard of a version of Jesus who cares about an individual’s tax rate and appreciates being compared to Chick-fil-A. Hot trash.

PHOTOGRAPHY THING OF THE WEEK (long look)
What: Apocalyptic
Why: because nothing shows the end of the world like watching it burn.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Revealing A Monster
Why: Because Ronan Farrow’s depiction of the Weinstein story, and more importantly about the women who lived it, is a good read.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: Fallout In Space
Why: Because The Outer Worlds is one of the finest first person RPGs to come out in a very long time. Also, the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare does the interesting thing of making you realize that the war that was depicted in the 2007 iteration of that game, is the same war that is being depicted 12 years later.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Comedy, Part 6; Comedy, 90; Comedy, 00
Why: Because Internet.

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

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

Greetings Webtaculators! Since today was likely the last day of Northern California summer that I have free this year, I made the most of it and went for a bike ride. Hopefully, you all were able to do something that you enjoy doing this weekend. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (2 min. watch)
What: Quid Pro Quo
Why: Because Mulvaney admitted that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine to pressure Kiev to investigate our 2016 election, which Trump has continuously denied. Who knew that a phrase that most people under the age of 40 learned from The Lion King would be so important in non-lion politics?

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Profit Off Of Chaos
Why: Because people made billions of dollars by trading immediately before global trade deals were announced.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (7 min. read)
What: Right To Vote
Why: Because a judge just temporarily struck down a law that would strip ex-felons who cannot pay their fines or fees of their right to vote. Unrelated, Rest in peace, Representative Cummings.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Women In Space
Why: Because this was the first spacewalk conducted by multiple women. No, that does mean that it was the first woman to conduct a spacewalk, Trump.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Walk Offs Are Fun
Why: Because speaking of space, the Astros are heading back to the World Series against D.C. after a 5’6″ tall dude crushed a ball to the moon.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Moar Zombies
Why: Because it’s almost Halloween, and if you liked the first Zombieland, chances are you will like this one too.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (30 min. watch)
What: Tay Tay And A Tiny Desk
Why: Because Taylor Swift performed at NPR, and it was interesting seeing how her songwriting process works.

ART THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Revisiting NY MoMA
Why: Because the revamped museum is opening tomorrow with a focus on permanent exhibits.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. look)
What: Modern Horror
Why: Because people usually rely on other kinds of media to scare people now, so it’s interesting to look on how scary stories are written today.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. reads)
What: Stream Everything
Why: Because Google and Microsoft are racing each other to deliver console level gaming through any device. Microsoft’s Project xCloud is currently running a beta, and Google’s Stadia releases next month for early adopters. Hopefully your ISP doesn’t have data caps if you plan on using these services.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: All Of DOS; Gaming On Drugs; Applies To People Who Actually Went To Law School, Too
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: The Ability To Hit A Walk Off Home Run To Send My Team To The World Series
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

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

Greetings Webtaculators! Sorry about the delay – much like last week’s news, my weekend was too full of things to be able to get this out on time.  One of the things it was full of was food. One thing I learned you can do is make a reservation to a decent restaurant with a bunch of friends, and ask for the entire menu. It’s a surprisingly reasonably affordable way to get to try everything a place makes, as long as you have enough people. Highly recommended. The wait staff might hate you at the end, though, so remember to tip well. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: America The Weak
Why: Because the US just lost every ounce of credibility it had with its allies by immediately withdrawing forces from Syria to let Turkey forces murder the Kurdish people. Power vacuums are not something that works in international politics. This is the exact reason why we could never leave the Middle East after Saddam, and why we never should have gone in in the first place – once you take ownership of a problem, you cannot wash your hands of it. Trump has unilaterally made the world a more dangerous place, and is working to undo the minimal good any of these wars ever accomplished.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Eat The Rich
Why: Because the wealthy are taking more than ever at the expense of people who clearly do not have as much. You can afford more.

INTERNATIONAL THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. reads)
What: China Don’t Play
Why: Because sports and video games, two of America’s biggest leisurely pursuits, have shown that both are always political, regardless of what them and their players and viewers say.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: LBGTQ Rights Are Not About Bathrooms
Why: Because conservatives want you to think that the real problem is that that a dude can be a pervert and watch girls pee, instead of the real issue of whether or not someone can be fired simply because of who they love.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Northern California Went Dark
Why: Because power outages normally occur because something went wrong with the power system – a line went down; there was a natural disaster; the fuel source ran out. In this case PG&E preemptively cut power to about 800,000 customers, a nicer way of saying over two million people, because of the potential damage its systems might cause. Another way to put it to understand the magnitude of the outage – imagine if the population of the states of New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, or Wyoming suddenly did not have power (don’t even get me started on how roughly 1/3 of the United States gets more representation in our federal government than a just a portion of the greater Bay Area gets). PG&E is at this juncture due to a number of reasons, including global warming, increasing utility expenses, under investment in infrastructure, and the inherent dangers of electricity, but this is obviously no long term answer to deal with this. As a modern first world society, we can, and must, do better.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (10 min. watch)
What: Sub 2
Why: Because a human being just ran a marathon in under two hours. Here’s how he did it. Also – in the time it took for you to watch the video, He would have run 2.5 miles. Ridiculous.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: What Is A Parasite?
Why: Because Bong Joon-ho made yet another great, unique movie.

TELEVISION THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Pitter Patter
Why: Because Letterkenny is back. I suggest you start from the beginning.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (long reads)
What: The Best Of The Teens
Why: Because Pitchfork released it’s top 100 tracks and albums of the last decade. It is interesting to see how much this decade represented a shift from indie to rap / pop, and how little albums seem to matter in recent years. One good trend is the top ten of both are dominated by women and people of color. Thanks streaming!

PHOTOGRAPHY THING OF THE WEEK (long look)
What: What We Have Wrought
Why: Because the violence you see here is directly on us.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Testament
Why: Because Offred story continues in only the way Atwood can tell it.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Killer App
Why: Because Asgard’s Wrath is the most fully realized VR game I have ever experienced.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: A Perfect Circle; Gritty Grouch; Breaking Bad, Bitch!
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Nike Vaporfly Next%
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

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

Greetings Webtaculators. I keep on waiting for Stupidgate to end, but somehow it keeps on getting stupider. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Any Of These Things Are An Appropriate Reason For Impeachment
Why: Because Trump keeps on asking foreign leaders (Boris Johnson, Xi Jinping, Scott Morrison, and Volodymyr Zelentzki, so far)to interfere in the US election.  Trump spent US taxpayer dollars exploring how expensive it would be to build a alligator moat behind the boarder wall.  There is also another whistle blower.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Play For Pay
Why: Because college athletes in California will be able to make money from their efforts in 2023.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Probably Say Goodbye To Roe v. Wade
Why: Because two men accused of sexual assault are poised to severely limit a woman’s right to abortion.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. watch)
What: BEWARE: ROBOT DOG
Why: Because those Boston Dynamics robots that have been around the Internet for a number of years, are finally for sale. Just what we needed.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: The Problem With Sports Journalism
Why: Because like most things these days, no one wants to pay for good content, so we get stuck with a massive decline of quality of writing, or just not giving good writers the ability to make a living wage. At least we still have Ray Ratto. Also, sorry to all the A’s fans. You deserved better this year.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Joke’s On You
Why: Because even though The Joker got dragged by critics, people don’t seem to care, and lead the movie to have the highest October opening.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Space Not Trucks
Why: Because Sturgill Simpson continues to buck his genre’s norms while he makes complex, synth and distortion heavy country music.

ART THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. watch)
What: GDP
Why: Because Banksy is opening a gallery in the form of a store.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: The Water Dancer
Why: Because Ta-Nehisi Coates, best known for his journalism, think pieces, and his comics, just published his first fiction. Of course it’s political.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Meet Your Destiny For Free
Why: Because Destiny 2 just got a massive upgrade after Bungie, the game’s devloper, bought back the rights to it’s game from Activision / Blizzard, and released the last base game and the last two years of expansions for free.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: 1979; Scotch Without The Glass; Duck Wizard
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Something Else To Write About Besides Trump
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

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