Pocket Realities

The best of Stephen Colbert’s #HeWhoShallBeNamed | Boing Boing:

In the past year, Stephen Colbert decided he no longer wanted to utter the barbarous name of our former president. After using asterisks like a swear word, he decided to crowdsource euphemisms with the hashtag HeWhoShallBeNamed. Here are the best of these, chosen by The Late Show staff.

My personal preference has been Lord Dampnut (anagrams are sexy), but Марионетка is pretty good too.

Wingdings redrawn in the style of Comic Sans to create the “worst font ever” | Boing Boing:

Tom Goulet’s Comic Dings [.otf, Google Drive] is an intentional atrocity of type design: Wingdings, the unweildy dingbat font, redrawn to use the crudely-weighted linework of Comic Sans. Some people just want to watch the world kern.

There is no fire hot enough, no pit of hell deep enough, to cast this into…

… But police have never lied about the circumstances they killed someone if there were no cameras present to dispute them, right?

Official account of fatal police shooting in Austin, Minn., disputed:

Family members and community activists are disputing the official account of a fatal police shooting last week in Austin, Minn.

The man, who has not yet been officially identified, was fatally shot by a police officer in the parking lot of a gas station in Austin on Thursday night, after he left his home following a lengthy standoff.

A statement from Austin police alleges the man was shot because he confronted officers while armed with a knife.

Michelle Gross with Twin Cities-based Communities United Against Police Brutality has been in contact with the man's family, and is raising money to help them. She said Sunday that the man was having a mental health crisis and was not threatening anyone.

"It's a wrongful death situation. There's no question about it. And we are definitely saying that the police are … lying about the situation," she said. "If they think that they're so right, they should release the body camera footage immediately."

Authorities have not said whether the officers involved were wearing body cameras, or whether they were activated. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the shooting; the BCA did not provide updates on the investigation over the weekend.

Gross also said actions by law enforcement during the standoff that preceded the shooting caused major damage to the family's home. The money being raised was going to help them with living expenses.

"We feel strongly that this is a wrongful death. We're appalled at the conduct of the Austin Police Department that not only left a man dead but that left the household of the whole family uninhabitable," she said.

Related link

• EarlierMan dies in confrontation with police in Austin, Minn.

I’m With Optimistic:

Any big plans for the new year???

Hyperbole and a Half: The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas:

From my grandparents’ flowery explanation and frequent use of the word “miracle,” I went in expecting to be blown away by the production. Unfortunately, the church moms and the pathetic excuses for actors that they called their offspring failed to bring the characters to life in the way I had hoped.  And the story just seemed to center around everyone being really impressed with Jesus and there wasn’t much suspense and not a single battle scene.

This is now the greatest* story ever told.

*For certain values of great

52 things I learned in 2021 by Tom Whitwell from Fluxx | Fluxx Studio Notes:

Productivity dysmorphia is the inability to see one’s own success, to acknowledge the volume of your own output. [Anna Codrea-Rado]
The world’s second most popular electric car (after the Tesla Model 3) is the Wuling HongGuang Mini, which costs $5,000 and outsells vehicles from Renault, Hyundai, VW and Nissan. [Brad Anderson & José Pontes]

With omicron, you need a mask that means business | MPR News:

With another coronavirus variant racing across the U.S., once again, health authorities are urging people to mask up indoors. Yes, you’ve heard it all before. But given how contagious omicron is, experts say, it’s seriously time to upgrade to an N95 or similar high-filtration respirator when you’re in public indoor spaces.