OMM (On My Mind)
~ Late Jan, 2023 ~
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::: Podcasts :::
Lots of good new LifeKit episodes
Long-time host of WHYY’s Radio Times (Philadelphia’s local NPR station) Marty Moss-Coane returns with The Connection
Generally, noting an uptick in the number of popular therapy or therapy-adjacent podcasts.
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::: Music :::
3 new tracks by the amazing supergroup boygenius.
+ The boygenius Rolling Stones cover
New track by The National
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::: Homework :::
The most listened to music by country.
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We may only have 7 years before AI (AGI) singularity… essentially, at least according to some experts, the time when AI could begin to “think for itself” / exceed human capabilities / begin to make decisions that may not be beneficial to humanity. This is why a lot of money is going in the other direction—attempts to slow down the AI advancements. Fears of an “AI takeover” currently at ~ 2.9% (last I heard). There are, of course, other opinions on the matter.
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Thought-provoking article on copy editing.
“Copyediting shares with poetry a romantic attention to detail, to the punctuation mark and the ordering of words.”
“Copyediting is also a white supremacist project in its enactment of the values of domination…”
“I see, too, how often a peer editor seems to get a charge from “gotcha”-ing someone else on these rules. There are power dynamics involved, and for the one doing the “gotcha”-ing, there is often a kind of grasping at straws—a clinging to the “known” and the “knowable,” so as to avoid the terror of the unknown, including the unknown of not knowing whether or how to value oneself.”
“At the same time, copy editors, like schoolteachers, rarely represent the elite themselves. Usually women, they are also usually poorly paid.”
“Like other emissaries of the powerful (see, e.g., the actual police), copy editors often wield what power they do have unpredictably, teetering between generous attention and brute, insistent force.”
“I’m willing to bet, too, that self-professed “grammar snobs” rarely come from power themselves—that there is a note of aspirational literariness in claiming the identity as such.”
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People who don’t read (and are disturbingly proud of this) presumably have not read Fahrenheit 451 and that’s a problem.
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The 1%. Having lived in West Virginia, the (seemingly scarily low) 1% income is basically unfathomable. No idea what pays that much money in WV with a few exceptions. A few top earners in WV.
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See the hip-hop list. Suriname is really going their own way with Three 6 Mafia.
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Shout-out to Libya for surprise love for Pink Floyd.
Shout-out to Uganda for (who knows why?) loving Chicago.
Shout-out to Botswana for pouring out some sugar for Def Leppard.
Brunei, known for being the happy people, seem to love Deep Purple. Go figure.
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Best animal close-up photography of the year.
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Drone captures moose shedding antler in real time.
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Gen Z is feeling The Arts.
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Update from the world of lab-grown meat.
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Excited that breakdancing is going to be in the Olympics (finally). They’ve figured out how to keep score.
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Remote work / WFH could be saving you 72 minutes each day.
This matters a great deal as buying our time back is a necessity in the modern workforce.
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A few places novelists recommend writing.
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More discussion of why surveillance of workers is not good.
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If you haven’t read the JT LeRoy story recently— it never gets old!
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Human interests. Top 50 websites.
These sources are the best of the best, I suppose, at stealing our time.
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First I’ve heard of BAPE sneakers in a minute and it’s them getting hit by Nike.
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Yelp Top 100 restaurants – 2023 edition
As of this moment, I have not been to any of these restaurants. That being said, I hope to try a couple that are within reach.
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“Before 2020, there had been three federal executions in 60 years. Then Trump put 13 people to death in six month.” (Rolling Stone)
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Spicy Food vs. The Common Cold
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Not super surprising news that the presence of children, and more children, in a household increases the likelihood of illness.
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“Tipping fatigue” continues to make news.
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