Islam
Documentaries: Germany, Islam and the new Right [http://overca.st/Hxap8mM] It's so nice to hear that German racists sound so much like Australian racists. It's particularly weird to hear the sort of person who in Australia complains about people not being real refugees because they
Google makes some great software, even on iOS, but unfortunately doesn't seem to be growing out of a phase that I had hoped was temporary; a refusal to honour the slide-from-left gesture which has become the standard 'back' gesture in iOS. Slide-to-go-back is a lifesaver with
> Successful terrorism is so rare in Australia that the overreaction is perhaps understandable. The police response seemed exactly right. But our political and media systems need to get better at measured reaction. — Overreaction from fear is a measure of a terrorist’s success [http://www.smh.com.au/comment/
Link
On Nerd Entitlement, by Laurie Penny [http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/on-nerd-entitlement-rebel-alliance-empire] This discussion on the effects of male and female nerd adolescence is pretty wonderful. I kind of wish I'd been able to read it fifteen years ago before I slowly figured out some of it manually.
Doctor Who
I think you ought to know, I'm feeling very depressed. I did not expect a Doctor Who season finale to be so gutting. They've made me almost cry before, but I've never felt so hollow as I did after watching one of the best
TV
Talking about part ones is a mug’s game. Too much about ‘Dark Water’ is riding on Moffat sticking the landing with 'Death in Heaven’. So, without trying to judge the whole thing, here are a few things I really liked, which are totally worth writing down a few
Politics
Of Gamers, Gates, and Disco Demolition: The Roots of Reactionary Rage [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/16/of-gamers-gates-and-disco-demolition-the-roots-of-reactionary-rage.html] If historical context was a drug I’d be in big trouble. Here’s an article that brings some to the whole gamergate issue.
TV
Even more than ‘Kill the Moon’, this is Doctor Who as fairy tale. Whether it works for you depends on two things: how keen you are on that idea, and how willing you are to be led past main characters being completely stupid for the plot’s sake, without noticing
TV
There’s a lot of fresh ideas turning up this year, and I like it. Elements of ‘Into the Dalek’, 'Listen’ and 'Kill the Moon’ have all been particularly surprising, and now we get 'Flatline’, a story full of elements you’d think would have turned up
TV
I loved this story. I had forgotten what it felt like to go back and replay my favourite moments obsessively during the week. ‘Mummy’ reminded me. I was initially terrified… not of the Mummy, but that they were going to brush off the argument from last week. I was intensely
TV
This was different. There’s a lot of differences between this year’s Who and last year’s Who, but I don’t feel it’s ever been as stark as in ‘Kill the Moon’. Perhaps not since 'Midnight’ have we had a story that is so simple and
Quote
> The human superpower: forgetting. If you remembered how things felt, you’d have stopped having wars, and stopped having babies. — The Doctor, ‘In the Forest of the Night'
TV
At times, ‘The Caretaker’ seems to be explicitly trying to be 'the funny episode’, with that sort of 'funny’ music they play on TV when everyone’s sneaking around acting slightly out of character. I didn’t like these bits that much. Capaldi’s Doctor does an awful
TV
I’ve never been so freaked out by new-Who than when the unfortunate bank-visiting gentleman turned his bald head to reveal that it was now concave instead of convex. Yeesh. This serves to make the Teller a much scarier creature than he otherwise would be… and he would have been
TV
As the fine folks on The Incomparable’s TeeVee podcast [http://www.theincomparable.com/teevee/] pointed out, this is a story with a pretty weird structure. In a way, it’s sort of reminiscent of some of Moffat’s crazier breakneck stories in season six, like ‘The Impossible Astronaut’. Short
TV
I have a meh-hate relationship with Mark Gatiss’ Doctor Who scripts. At their best, they’re tolerably pointless. At their worst, they’re accidentally horrible, like ‘The One Where The Doctor and His Friends Shot a Crazy Old Lady and then Crushed a Defenceless Slug Creature’ [https://thegreatescapism.com/post/
