Pop culture, according to the right wing, should be frivolous. Because before the internet, it was something sold to girls by corporations run by powerful men. Famous pop stars through the ages, like Frank Sinatra, America’s first Justin Bieber, or The Beatles, the One Direction of their time, would be canonized as Great by Serious Men after history had forgotten they rocketed to success as their generation’s Tumblr Sexymen.
– Ryan Broderick: Taylor Swift vs. the manosphere
Five things I like right now
Listen
Smoove and Turrell is peak Northern Soul. Just the thing for getting into the groove of the new year.
Watch
Are we still in the doldrums post the writers strike? Nothing new is very good. Season 2 of Reacher is pretty good, I guess.
Read
Gosh, the Thursday Murder Club books are good.
Also Ali Abdaal’s Feel Good Productivity was not what I expected, in a good way.
Eat
Biscotti which must be “assertively crunchy”. The recipe in this old Guardian article is very good.
Think
Going to need to plan out the year, somehow.
Turns out cars really are smartphone accessories
Disney+ apps aren’t in Teslas any more because Elon Musk and Disney CEO Bob Iger don’t like each other.
The move comes a month after several major companies, including Disney, Apple, and Sony, pulled advertising from X because the site is becoming a racist, transphobic cesspool whose owner is promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Five things I like right now
Listen
It’s Christmas so get into Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings It’s a Holiday Soul Party.
Watch
I am in the depths of nostalgia for The West Wing. It holds up.
Read
I’ve been reading a bunch of strategy books. Chet Richard’s Certain to Win is a good one.
Eat
Natalie Paull’s book Beatrix Bakes is full of complicated recipes but they are all worth the effort.
Think
Gosh it’s a been a year.
You should be wearing two watches
Antonio G. Di Benedetto in The Verge
A little over a year ago, I made the conscious decision to wear both a traditional watch on my left wrist and a smartwatch on my right wrist day in and day out. And I’m here to tell you with a straight face that this best-of-both-worlds solution has no downsides.
Most days, I wear a Fitbit Charge 5 on my right wrist and a traditional watch on my left. I agree with Di Benedetto, it’s the best of both worlds.
Committee or Working Group?
The difference between a working group and a committee
working groups relax organizational boundaries while committees reinforce them
Replace “AI” with “Automation”
I think that discussions of this technology become much clearer when we replace the term AI with the word “automation”. Then we can ask:
- What is being automated?
- Who’s automating it and why?
- Who benefits from that automation?
- How well does the automation work in its use case that we’re considering?
- Who’s being harmed?
- Who has accountability for the functioning of the automated system
- What existing regulations already apply to the activities where the automation is being used?
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