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Watch the weird cinematic rabbit hole that is Blade Runner: The Lost Cut - Adi Robertson at The Verge

“Blade Runner: The Lost Cut” is a 20-minute fan film that splices Blade Runner with

… other films that star Blade Runner cast members, plus more films starring those films’ co-stars, resulting in a masterfully edited cinematic rabbit hole where Rick Deckard is hunting down a cast of replicants including Gene Hackman (via The Conversation, one of Harrison Ford’s first films), Steve Martin (via The Jerk, which stars M. Emmet Walsh, who plays Deckard’s boss Bryant), and John Belushi (via The Blues Brothers, which features Ford’s Star Wars co-star Carrie Fisher).

Getting on lunchtime here so I think I’ll be watching this while I eat.

The coronavirus pandemic is heightening the need for “Right to Repair” – eliminating laws that make it illegal to fix the machines you own.

Cory Doctorow writes about two instances: A researcher has released a proof-of-concept for a hack that allows a relatively inexpensive CPAP machine to function somewhat like a ventilator.

Also, several state treasurers have demanded ventilator manufacturers release documentation so hospitals can maintain their equipment during a crisis.

Also on Cory’s Pluralistic.net today:

  • One guy is in charge of oversight for $2.2T in stimulus. He’s got no staff and he communicates by Twitter. He formerly worked for Elizabeth Warren so we can be optimistic he’s both honest AND competent – but nobody is that honest and that competent.
  • Universities want to install mandatory, undetectable spyware on students' computers.

And more.

(How) American Collapse Resembles Soviet Collapse: Six Ways America’s Collapse is Eerily Like the Soviet Union’s Last Days - umair haque

This article seems more timely now than it was a year ago when it was published.

American collapse is not preordained – we have free will, both as individuals and as a society. But every day Trump remains President and the Republicans remain in power, it’s a day closer .

The Democrats are better. But on a national level they’re still not good. Just not as bad.

‘That Thing You Do’ cast plans reunion fundraiser for coronavirus relief [USAToday]

The Wonders, the fictional group at the center of the 1996 movie “That Thing You Do,” will reunite on Friday for a community watch party of the film to benefit the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund….

Funds raised through the watch party will aid musicians and touring professionals who are out of work because of the coronavirus.

The watch party also will pay tribute to Adam Schlesinger, The Fountains of Wayne musician who died recently of complications of COVID-19. Schlesinger wrote and composed “That Thing You Do,” the song that launched the fictional band ― initially and confusingly called the One-ders ― to brief stardom in the film, set in 1964.

I love this movie. I need to see it again.