Links
The Verge: Grammarly is using our identities without permission. Grammarly’s AI agents make suggestions for improving writing supposedly inspired by subject matter experts, including prominent tech journalists, without permission.
When prunes tried to rebrand as “dried plums.” Listening to this podcast inspired me to get a container of prunes to add to my morning oatmeal. They were tasty, healthy, and induced no undesired gastrointestinal acceleration.
A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish
Jason Lee threatened a national publication that planned to publish a profile of him that included his involvement in Scientology, even though the profile was highly complimentary, the bits about Scientology didn’t make him look bad, and he cooperated in the whole interview process, including talking at some length about Scientology.
The national publication spiked the article, which now appears on Defector.com: A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish
But why does writer Nate Rogers suppress the names of the national publication and the editor who spiked the story? That seems tribal — journalists protecting each other — and maybe like Rogers doesn’t want to threaten future paychecks.
Also, it’s tempting to think what Lee did is an example of the Streisand effect, but it could work to Lee’s benefit by intimidating future publications from bringing up his Scientology connections. And also intimidate publications from bringing up Scientology in profiles of other celebrities linked with the church. So a win for Lee and for Scientology.
They Haven’t Even Started Spending Yet. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent on buying elections represent unnoticeable amounts of money to oligarchs like Musk, writes Hamilton Nolan. For oligarchs, hundreds of millions of dollars is like a normal person spending $75.
United Airlines can now boot passengers who refuse to use headphones with their devices. Toss ‘em out the emergency door at 30,000 feet. Nobody wants to hear your shitty garage-band hip-hop.
‘The Epstein files won’t knock him out’: what Anthony Scaramucci learned in Trump’s inner circle
Like Trump, Scaramucci was from the outer boroughs of New York and found himself among the privileged elites of Manhattan. That makes their backgrounds similar, even though Trump was born to wealth and Scaramucci’s parents were working class.
Early on, it seems, Scaramucci realised that the privileged elites were really no smarter than he was. “You have to get comfortable with being an outsider. Trump is an outsider, but he’s an uncomfortable outsider, and so he has a chip on his shoulder. He’s angry that he can’t get into the salons of the uber-wealthy, the establishment. So now he’s trying to lord over them. He couldn’t get into certain golf clubs that the blue bloods were members of, so he built himself golf courses.”
Psychopathy is a zombie idea. Why does it cling on?
Zombie ideas are social science theories that have been thoroughly debunked, but which are still widely believed, even by social scientists, writes Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen at Aeon. Race science is an extremely toxic example.
Psychopaths are widely believed to have no emotions or empathy, yet research shows they have both.
Doesn’t explain why some people are serial killers and otherwise monsters.
People want to believe that psychopaths are broken people — not like us — but they are just people who made bad choices.
5 things nobody tells you when you move from ChatGPT to Claude. Good tips, despite clickbait headline.
Ars Technica Fires Reporter Over AI-Generated Quotes.
My reaction on reading the headline: “Hell yeah! Kick that sad bastard to the curb!”
But the article provides details that make the situation more complicated:
- The reporter was working while sick in bed with Covid and a fever.
- The quotes were paraphrases, not complete fabrications
Yes, what that reporter did was wrong and unprofessional and he has acknowledged that publicly and apologized on social media.
Where was his manager to tell him that he was impaired and should just stay in bed and watch YouTube?
America isn't exceptional — it's the exception
America does worse than other developed countries for quality-of-life metrics: healthcare spending vs. outcomes, imprisonment rates and more.
On the Fresh Air podcast: Barry Manilow reflects on writing songs — and making the whole world sing.
Before becoming a hit singer-songwriter, Manilow composed jingles for TV commercials. He wrote, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there” and “I Am Stuck On Band-Aids, And A Band-Aid’s Stuck On Me.”
He also played the accordion as a boy.
I think every Jewish and Italian boy cannot get out of Brooklyn, N.Y., unless he learns how to play the accordion. There’s a guard at the Brooklyn Bridge…. And you have to play “Lady Of Spain” before you can go over the bridge. Everybody I knew played the accordion - badly. I happened to - you know, because I was more musical than the rest of my friends, I kind of got through “Hava Nagila” and “Lady Of Spain.”
… there are people who play the accordion and actually make it sound good. I was not one of those people.
They Spend Thousands Decorating Homes No One Will Ever Go Inside.
Sarah E. Needleman at The Wall Street Journal:
Newcomers are upending the once-fusty dollhouse scene—decking out wee abodes that could belong in the (mini) Hamptons
So far this year, Michael Hogan has spent more than $5,000 on metal bar stools, a curved sofa and other modern décor to furnish a newly built home he’ll never live in. That is because the dwelling is so small it is better suited for a resident the size of a mouse.
Hogan is among a new cohort of dollhouse devotees who are shaking up how grown-ups indulge in the classic children’s hobby. Instead of outfitting old-timey homes with old-timey décor, they are assembling contemporary miniature abodes packed with tiny versions of trendy trappings sold in stores such as IKEA and West Elm.
Some enthusiasts are “shaking up tradition by embracing artisans who use 3-D printers, design software and laser cutters.… Others prefer to stick with only classic tools such as tweezers, razorblades and glue.”
Emily Brouilette, 46, grew up in a four-floor Victorian built in the 1800s. When she got into dollhouse collecting a few years ago, she invested in an ultra-industrial domicile resembling stacked shipping containers…. Her most prized miniature purchase to date is a framed poster of her favorite band, the Rolling Stones, that measures a little more than an inch in height and width. A tiny copy of her husband’s favorite book, “Moby-Dick,” rests on a tiny night stand. “I wanted my mini house to very much reflect me and my husband living there, though mini versions of us would be kind of weird,” she says.
The photos accompanying the article are wonderful.
The Rest Is History podcast: Victorian Britain’s Maddest Mystery . Roger Tichborne, a 25-year-old aristocrat and heir to a fortune, died in a shipwreck in 1854. “His mother, certain of her son’s survival, advertised extensively with a tantalising reward for her son’s return. Twenty years later a rough, corpulent butcher from Australia named Arthur Orton arrived in Europe and declared himself to be the long lost heir. The trial that ensued captivated the public…. " Writer Zadie Smith discusses the case, which is the basis of her new historical novel, “The Fraud.”
The Imaginary Worlds podcast looks at Doctor Who’s regeneration, which began nearly 60 years ago as a gimmick to replace a lead actor whose health was failing, and has become central to the Doctor’s story, “about an alien being who is striving to be better but keeps overshooting the mark."
Podcast host Eric Molinsky says the source of regeneration’s narrative power may be that we all change over time and when we look back on our past selves they seem like other people.
Ryan O’Neill: Let me repeat that back to you.
One of the most effective communications strategies I use is repeating back, in my own words, what was just explained to me.
I do this sometimes when doing interviews, but I find the people I’m interviewing will interrupt me to make the point themselves, or elaborate on whatever point I’m repeating back.
What Happened When the U.S. Failed to Prosecute an Insurrectionist Ex-President. Historian Jill Lepore: After the Civil War, attempts to prosecute Jefferson Davis bogged down in politics, racism and legal pettifogging and went nowhere.
These kinds of lists are catnip for me.
Luxury Paradox: The more expensive something is the less likely you are to use it, so the relationship between price and utility is an inverted U. Ferraris sit in garages; Hondas get driven.
The Middle Ground Fallacy: Falsely assuming that splitting the difference between two polar opposite views is a healthy compromise. If one person says vaccines cause autism and another person says they don’t, it’s not right to compromise and say vaccines sometimes cause autism.
Focusing Effect: Overemphasizing factors that seem important but exist as part of a complex system. People from the Midwest assume Californians are happier because the weather is better, but they’re not because Californians also deal with traffic, bad bosses, unhappy marriages, etc, which more than offset the happiness boost from sunny skies.
I encounter the Focusing Effect regularly. I live in San Diego and do business with people from all over the world. I think they think my life is just surfing and campfire parties on the beach with Gidget.