The second Friday in October already. Where is the year going?

This week we have what is probably one of the shortest collections of Friday Links I’ve ever done (unless you count the few times I’ve missed the day). One reason is that I’ve been very busy and a little bit under the weather this week. So I just didn’t collection many. But another reason is that I’ve been thinking about how much time I spend on various activities and considering making some changes. There was a time, not that long ago, where the weekly round up of links was one of my most clicked on posts every week. And that’s just on my personal blog. I can’t get stats from the places where I cross-post the full text, so always assumed the actual numbers were higher. But now Friday Links is one of the least click posts on the blog, consistently.

This isn’t just about click. I’ve always rationalized the weekly round up based on the fact that every day I spend some time reading news and such on the net, and collecting the links of the stories I think worth sharing isn’t a big effort. However, assembling the post takes several hours every Thursday. Even those time when I try to limit how much time I spend, it always takes longer because I’ll reach the time limit and think, “But there was that one story about…” and go looking for the link. Sort of, “Just one more, oh, and that one! And we can’t forget this one!”

It took much less than an hour to assemble this one, and I still spent more time arguing with myself about whether I should go looking for more links so it wouldn’t be so short.

Anyway, here are the links I gathered this week, sorted into categories as accurately as I could.

Story of the Week

Rose McGowan’s Temporary Twitter Lock-Out Inspires #WomenBoycottTwitter Movement.

Science!

Which Sounds Better, Analog or Digital Music? The answer is subjective, but the underlying math is not.

Half the universe’s missing matter has just been finally found.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

WHERE I THINK THEY ARE NOW: HOCUS POCUS EDITION.

This week in awful people

Las Vegas Shooter had ‘No Political Affiliation’.

News for queers and our allies:

Experts confirm gender identity is biological and say insurers should cover trans health needs.

This week in Writing

New Hire: Talking with DW about moving to Seattle, publishing his sketchbooks, and finding cartoonists from every continent on Earth.

This Week in Covering the News

ESPN Suspends Jemele Hill Two Weeks For No Good Reason.

News about the Fascist Regime:

GOP embarrasses Trump, accidentally admits Obamacare was a huge success.

This Week in Foreign Enemies

Could we reverse a hacked presidential election?

Things I wrote:

Celebrate Indeginenous Peoples Day.

What’s not to love about Halloween?

No one deserves to live in a closet.

The Night Was Sultry, part 3 — finding the emotional hook.