Guaranteed unhappiness
If your happiness depends on other people acting the way you want, sooner or later, you're guaranteed to be unhappy.
Thoughts from John Karahalis
If your happiness depends on other people acting the way you want, sooner or later, you're guaranteed to be unhappy.
We can all do a better job of communicating that science is valuable because it works. How is it that astronomers correctly predicted, years in advance, exactly when and where Monday's total solar eclipse would occur? That doesn't happen by accident. That's science! I don't know of any other tool, new or old, trendy or not, that can make such a detailed prediction years in advance and be precisely correct.
These days, with entertainment sometimes so blatant in its messaging, about as subtle as a brick to the face, I find the 1982 song Goodnight Saigon by Billy Joel beautifully refreshing. The song describes the experiences of American soldiers in the Vietnam War without making an overtly political statement.
We had no home front We had no soft soap They sent us Playboy They gave us Bob Hope We dug in deep And shot on sight And prayed to Jesus Christ With all of our might
Rolling Stone music critic Dave Marsh once wrote that the song is “obscene” because it “refuses to take sides.” I dare say he's missing the point. I have an opinion about the Vietnam War, too, but I don't need to hear that opinion parroted back to me. Yes, validation can be immensely gratifying, but no man's land is much more interesting.
#Belief #Communication #Favorites #PersonalDevelopment #Philosophy #Politics
Simplistic is easy. Simple is hard.
This is a slight rewording of something Alex Limi once said during an internal presentation at Mozilla. The point is not about usage, but rather creation. Building something simplistic is easy, but building something simple is hard. The observation stuck with me, and I think it's a great little maxim.
Think about it in product design. Picasa was simplistic, but Instagram is simple. eBay is simplistic, but Facebook Marketplace is simple. IRC is simplistic, but Slack is simple.
To be clear, I'm not saying Picasa, eBay, or IRC are incapable. On the contrary, they're too powerful. I prefer the designs of Instagram, Facebook Marketplace, and Slack for what they can't do. Of course, whether anyone should use Instagram, Facebook, or Slack is another question. Even cigarettes can be thoughtfully designed.
“I do not like that man. I must get to know him better.”
—Unknown (often dubiously attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
I find “retention” emails so creepy. A friend recently received one from GrubHub, which guilted him for not using the service enough. They practically read like ransom notes.
“Why haven't you been using GrubHub? What can we do differently? Who's that person you keep hanging out with? Did someone slash your tires?”
Life is hard. Maybe I don't have time for GrubHub right now. Chill.
Think AI is moving fast? Check this out.
Less than one year ago, I wrote that AI would soon be able to generate new music on demand. As an example, I imagined it generating a Beatles/Skrillex mashup about hoverboards.
Well, here it is… almost. It's not perfect. It wouldn't allow me to use real artist names in my request, and it doesn't have enough Beatles influence, in my opinion. It sounds more like Fall Out Boy meets dubstep, honestly. Still, it's still a massive leap forward. Here's what it generated for “A 1960s rock / dubstep mashup about hoverboards.”
https://app.suno.ai/song/a9c7d0c6-2c98-4f06-8336-a9f121ee9132/
Here are some mobile games that don't suck. Most are paid. Most have no advertisements or in-app purchases. Some offer to remove ads for a fee, which I recommend paying.
Not everyone can buy games, yet we all pay eventually, either with our money or with our attention. We buy the product or we are the product. This list is for those who would rather buy the product.
Why compile this list? I'm hardly a gamer. I just want to highlight games that offer exceptional experiences by avoiding ads and in-app purchases. The lesson? Choose a business model that supports your art, rather than ruining your art to make money.
As a rule of thumb, I try not to get worked up about people I haven't met in real life. “Supporters of Political Candidate Want Toast Banned,” a headline might read. Well, I've never met anyone in the real world who wants toast banned. Until I do, I'm not going to worry about it.
Of course it's important to notice and criticize bad ideas before they take hold. At the same time, with social media and the lazy, clickbait journalism it fuels, every bad idea now has a moment in the reactionary spotlight, and most will never affect much. Let's focus on the big problems of the day, the ones we'd notice with or without sensationalism.
#Belief #Communication #PersonalDevelopment #Philosophy #Politics #SocialMedia #Technology #Wellbeing