I never read people’s Holiday Gift Guides … except for Robin Sloan’s.
Macquarie Dictionary’s Word of the Year is “enshittification” — an excellent choice. And this also gives me the chance to say that while I dip into Bluesky for time to time, I won’t commit to it, because enshittification is its inevitable fate also. (Great links in that post.)
When asked about the chatbot “hallucinations,” data scientist Jörg Pohle says, “I don’t have hallucination or bias problems because I’m not looking for the truth…. I just don’t use the system for learning something or for understanding.” Well, there you go! Problem solved.
My recommended Substack policy: First, establish the maximum monthly amount you’re willing to pay. Then, choose monthly rather than annual subscriptions. When you reach your max and want to subscribe to a new Substack, you can only do so if you unsubscribe from one of your current ones. Gradually you’ll converge on the ones that are essential to you.
(You could do this will annual subscriptions as well but it would take you a lot longer to achieve that convergence.)
Freddie: “If I had to have American policy be determined by polling the userbase of X or the userbase of BlueSky, I would choose the latter and sigh as they passed a law that ordered my own personal execution on public safety grounds. They’d probably do it by forcing me to drink fair trade cyanide through a paper straw.”
Picasso, “Leaping Bulls”
I’m probably going to regret this, but I’ve enabled crossposting from micro.blog — Home of the Truly Cool — to Bluesky. I won’t be be otherwise present. Advertisements for myself will begin immediately.
The Economist: “New work led by Roza Kamiloglu, a psychologist at the Free University of Amsterdam, provides evidence that there are just two primary types of laughter: one generated when people find something funny and one that can be induced only through the physical act of tickling.” I’m laughing about this, but only because I’m currently being tickled.
My colleague Philip Jenkins settles a few persistent myths about the Council of Nicaea. It’s one of those events about which people always feel free to tell Big Lies.
Charles Thurston Thompson, Side view of packing case and horse-drawn ‘van’ for transport of Raphael Cartoons from Hampton Court to South Kensington Museum, 1865. The South Kensington Museum is now of course the V&A.
Currently listening: Bill Evans, The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961 (Live) ♫. Of the many glorious performances on this record, perhaps the most glorious is “I Loves You, Porgy.” Heartbreakingly beautiful … and all the time the tiny audience is chattering away in the background. I don’t blame them — there was no way for them to know that one of the definitive recordings in jazz history was being made right before them — but I just want to teleport into the room to scream “SHUT UUUUUUPPPP.”
After you listen to “I Loves You, Porgy” a few times, go back one more time and listen just to the bassist, Scott LaFaro. He was a great genius, and would die in a car accident eleven days later, at the age of twenty-five.
Frank Auerbach — who died last week — “Albert Street II”, 2010
