Despite seemingly being designed by a corporation to be mostly inoffensive, sometimes to the point of banality or worse, Coldplay launched into the world consciousness hot, with “Don’t Panic,” the song in the pole position on their debut album Parachutes. Though I feel more generosity towards Chris Martin and crew, some believe “Don’t Panic” is the band’s only good song.1 Whatever the case, the track was certainly a winning way for Coldplay to announce their arrival on the scene.
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Pocket Computers
John Burn-Murdoch writes for Financial Times about the single unifying theory around the decline in fertility.
The number of births fell first and fastest in the areas that received high-speed mobile connectivity earliest. The authors argue that smartphones have transformed how young people spend time with one another, sharply reducing in-person socialising and leading to the collapse in their fertility.
The reason for population decline is hiding in your pocket.
This isn’t at all suprising to me. Marital experience has taught me that it’s hard for a spouse to be as interesting an endless supply of short-form videos.
Fediverse reactions
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Heart Still Beats
I’ve been on a post-punk x new wave kind of kick the last several days, after I learned Black Marble (who I blogged about last year) are going to be playing nearby in September. The algorithm overlords recommended Castlebeat to me after the end of a listening sesh of “Bigger Than Life.” I hadn’t listened to Castlebeat in a few years, but remembered them from this fan video using footage from the best movie ever to take place in a Target big box store — Career Opportunities.
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New Cans
I recently hit my 20th anniversary (!!!) at the company where I work. Instead of a gold watch, I got what amounts to about $400 in a foreign currency they call “Spotlight points.” Thought I didn’t pull the trigger right away, my immediate thought was to blow the lot on a pair of Sennheiser HD 650 headphones. I’ve been researching these cans for some time now, but even at a consistent 38% off, a price point of nearly 400 bones meant I wouldn’t just impulse buy these things.
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Tapes Of Yesteryear
Niko Stratis writes about the comfort of physical media and older technology.
read more…Let us suffer no worries or troubles, we have salvation in our walkmen and their analogue batteries. Never mind the truth of these eras, the 90s and the days before and after are years often cast in imperfect light as moments in time when we were a proper society. That’s not true for all, and you only need to engage with the culture of the time with eyes open enough to see the hardships and downfalls for many. But still, I understand the desire to glamorize it, and hold the past as indelible proof of a better time.
Pockets have gotten smaller, I’ve noticed, and I imagine that’s because of the shrinking of technology. We don’t have to carry Walkmans and CD Walkmans anymore, and so the pocket industrial complex has responded in kind. Who needs all this space when we no longer own anything we’re able to hold.
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The Intelligence Is Still Artificial
The opinions on AI that you find on the internet tend to fall in the extremes of the other side. Either AI is the downfall of humanity or its savior. My thoughts on the subject, as on many others, ride in the middle of the road.
In my professional life, AI has been a great equalizer. If you know the problems you are trying to solve, absent the knowledge of how to actually go about doing that, AI can be the bridge between concept and reality. It would take me many hours to probe the depths of the Azure cloud through labyrinthine Log Analytics workspaces to find the causes of a spike in ingestion costs. With the Azure MCP and Claude Cowork/Code, it’s done in minutes.
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Canvas Attack
Hacktivism can sometimes be understandable. Yet it amazes me that some people would think that to attack school teachers and students is to live a meaningful and purposeful life.
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A Show of Respect
Whether marching for a Sikh holiday, visiting a Jewish children”s center or attending Divine Liturgy, I’ve never seen a politician put so much effort into respecting the faith traditions of others as Zohran Mamdani. New York is such a diverse city and you truly get the impression that the mayor sees the strength of this. In the words of one commenter, he really knows how to make people feel seen.
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The Perfect Indie Pop Song
A few weeks ago, I saw Mark Robinson from Unrest/Air Miami/Flin Flon open for the Wedding Present at the Motorco Music Hall in Durham. Although the bill clearly stated that Robinson would be playing Unrest songs, imagining him doing those songs without the two other band members, Phil Krauth and Bridget Cross was challenging. Whatever images I could conjure didn’t match the actual show.
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Olly Thoughts
Olly, the developer of the Pagecord blogging software, just published a post on something I was thinking about with regards to music. I’m not buying a lot of physical media these days, but when I do, it’s usually CDs. I just went to a new record store called Hunky Dory that just opened downtown near me, but they weren’t celebrating Record Store Day. I wasn’t sure about going because I didn’t think I would buy anything. So I can relate to Olly.
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