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Welcome to the Kotke Ride Home for Thursday, December 3rd, 2020. I'm Jackson Bird.

A few reasons why Zoom parties suck so much, some science-backed proposals to make them better,

and a few platforms that are trying to do it, a website that will play the radio for you from

anywhere in the world

and any time going all the way back to 1900. And J.R.R. Tolkien's house is up for sale. Here are some

of the cool things from the news today. Zoom parties are just not fun. After the many different incarnations of virtual birthday parties

that my friends and I organized towards the start of the pandemic, by month five, everyone was

very explicit that no matter what alternative we found for celebrating the birthdays without being

face-to-face indoors, they did not want a Zoom

party. There's the Zoom fatigue many people feel from being on video calls all day for work, of course,

but why else have we all become to dread Zoom parties so much? Gretchen McCullough, writing in Wired,

explained the problem, quote,

Say you're having a Zoom birthday party.

You've invited a couple dozen people and liberated from the constraints of geography,

most of them can come.

You're seeing their faces as they pop in, how exciting,

...