“Art is valuable precisely because it is not easy to create. We are interested in art, in any and all of its forms, because humans made it. That’s the very thing that makes it interesting; the who, the how, and especially the why.”
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If Quantum Computing Is Solving “Impossible” Questions, How Do We Know They’re...
If Quantum Computing Is Solving “Impossible” Questions, How Do We Know They’re Right? “In order to validate quantum computers, methods are needed to compare theory and result without waiting years for a supercomputer to perform the same task.”
Thoughts and Prayers
This is the trailer for an HBO documentary called Thoughts and Prayers about “the impact of the $3 billion active shooter preparedness industry on schools and communities across America”.
It’s tough to watch, as is this clip from the film in which a girl describes a bag o...
In a London increasingly dominated by rideshare services, some drivers are still...
In a London increasingly dominated by rideshare services, some drivers are still opting to study for years for The Knowledge, “the grueling examination that requires applicants to essentially memorize more than 100 square miles of city streets”.
21st-Century Culture Has Hit a Wall. “We — creators and audiences alike...
21st-Century Culture Has Hit a Wall. “We — creators and audiences alike — have to make an effort to encourage bold new forms of culture. Even failures and half steps will be more interesting than overly market-tested products.”
My Recent Media Diet, the Japan Edition
Konnichiwa! I’m back from Japan and finally getting over my jetlag, which took much longer than I expected. Here’s a list of all the things I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, and experiencing over the past few months.1 Let us know what movies, books, art, TV, music, ...
Chindōgu: The Japanese Art of “Unuseless” Inventions
Chindōgu is the Japanese practice of inventing things that are not exactly useful but neither are they useless; they’re more unuseless, a term coined by chindōgu’s originator Kenji Kawakami. Some examples are tiny umbrellas for shoes, chopsticks with a tiny fan on them to co...
My Car Is Becoming a Brick. “Cars used to be entirely mechanical...
My Car Is Becoming a Brick. “Cars used to be entirely mechanical objects” but now “certain models are destined to age their way out of compatibility with the latest software” (like smartphones).
To Explore Violence Against Women, She Drugs Herself Onstage. “It’s an attempt...
To Explore Violence Against Women, She Drugs Herself Onstage. “It’s an attempt to explore whether performance can give form to the disorganizing experience of trauma, its gaps and obsessional thinking.”
What’s the difference between an artist and a creator? “An artist is...
What’s the difference between an artist and a creator? “An artist is a self-directed artistic expressor” vs. “a creator is a self-directed market expressor”. (Wondering where I fit on the 4-quadrant graph…)
Does Harrison Ford Know His Lines?
Vanity Fair sat down with Harrison Ford and asked him to identify which of his lines he’d said in which movie, mostly as a way of getting him to talk about his career. A few observations:
I love that they trolled him with The Star Wars Holiday Special…and he knew the lin...
Small Japanese Pickup Truck Shows Bigger is Definitely Not Better. “Kei trucks...
Small Japanese Pickup Truck Shows Bigger is Definitely Not Better. “Kei trucks are city-sized, not highway-sized.”
America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle. “Social media monetization programs...
America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle. “Social media monetization programs have incentivized this effort and are almost entirely to blame.” Team USA just scoring own goal after own goal these days.
Requiem for Early Blogging. “I still look for people with early blogger...
Requiem for Early Blogging. “I still look for people with early blogger energy, though — people willing to make an effort to understand the world and engage in a way that isn’t a performance, or trolling, or outright grifting.”
The Surprising Benefits of Giving Up. A recent meta-analysis reveals that “adjusting...
The Surprising Benefits of Giving Up. A recent meta-analysis reveals that “adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often ‘a more appropriate and beneficial response’”.
A thread of “feel good” YouTube channels to watch. E.g.: “CinemaTherapy. Two...
A thread of “feel good” YouTube channels to watch. E.g.: “CinemaTherapy. Two former college roommates (one a filmmaker, the other a therapist) analyze movies.”
Poetic Textural Landscapes by Lee Hyun-Joung
I’ve posted about Korean artist Lee Hyun-Joung’s swirling and swooping work before, but I recently saw one of her pieces in person and decided to feature some of her most recent stuff. It’s always a good time to look at art.
Tags: art · Lee Hyun-Joung
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Lots to like about Variety’s list of 100 Best Comedy Movies of...
Lots to like about Variety’s list of 100 Best Comedy Movies of All Time, but Coming to America at #46 and no Trading Places at all make me question the list’s credibility.
How the Elite Behave When No One Is Watching: Inside the Epstein...
How the Elite Behave When No One Is Watching: Inside the Epstein Emails. They reveal “a power elite practiced at disregarding pain” who have “learned to look away from so much other abuse and suffering” to protect their network of power.
What’s All the Fuss About Pluribus?
So I’ve been watching Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus on Apple TV and this review from Inkoo Kang resonated with me (emphasis mine):
Millions of offscreen casualties aside, it’s clear that Gilligan is aiming for a lighter — and stranger — outing than his tw...
“The Little Movie That Couldn’t”: ‘Mallrats’ Turns 30. I can’t remember if...
“The Little Movie That Couldn’t”: ‘Mallrats’ Turns 30. I can’t remember if I was one of the few that saw this in the theater, but I loved this movie on VHS/DVD. Haven’t seen it for, what, 20 years though…
“Today, the only naked bodies that many Americans will likely ever see...
“Today, the only naked bodies that many Americans will likely ever see are their own, a partner’s, or those on a screen. Gone are our unvarnished points of physical comparison — the ordinary, unposed figures of other people.”
Meet the Aphantasics, Those Who Can’t See Mental Images
We’ve talked before about how some people can picture things in their heads quite vividly and others can’t at all. The latter group has a condition called aphantasia.
As soon as I close my eyes, what I see are not everyday objects, animals, and vehicles, but the dark unde...
Activists are role-playing ICE raids in games like Fortnite & GTA to...
Activists are role-playing ICE raids in games like Fortnite & GTA to teach people what to do IRL situations. “Many people may not have seen an interaction with ICE yet, it’s a way to get folks to know or get used to what that might look like.”
The World Lost the Climate Gamble. Now It Faces a Dangerous New...
The World Lost the Climate Gamble. Now It Faces a Dangerous New Reality. “We are heading into ‘overshoot’ within the next few years. The world is going to become more turbulent and more dangerous. So, what comes after failure?”
The Bad UX World Cup 2025. “Build a date picker with bad...
The Bad UX World Cup 2025. “Build a date picker with bad UX (the worse, the better).” The winning entry used a Tinder-like interface to swipe your desired days, months, and years.
A Bright Light Has Gone Out
I’m headed out on an unexpected trip this afternoon, to attend the funeral of Dr. Steve Feller, who was my advisor in college and to whom I owe a great deal. I talked about Doc, as all his students called him, on this podcast with Craig Mod several years ago. From the tran...
My Pace
Goro Obata went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if he could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when he came to die, discover that he had not lived.
In the mountains of Hokkaido, Goro Obata traded city rules for freedom, backcountry skiing, fly fishing — and a café that sometimes closes on sunny days. Watch his story of choosing lifestyle over convention, and discover what “Higashikawa style” really means.
Obata in the video (bold mine):
From then I thought, life is fast. Death comes so easily. If I just drift, in no time I’ll be an old man. I want to build a fun lifestyle. That’s what I thought. I want to build it.
(With apologies to Henry David Thoreau.)
Tags: Goro Obata · Henry David Thoreau · video
Stigler’s law of eponymy: “No scientific discovery is named after its original...
Stigler’s law of eponymy: “No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer.” Stigler’s law is itself an example of Stigler’s law.
The Librarians
As part of the fascist war on “woke”, tens of thousands of books have been pulled from the shelves of libraries around the country over the past few years. On the front line are the nation’s librarians, “first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment rig...