Elezea // The B-Sides

Wagner James Au has been in the VR space for a long time and he makes a good point here. The “metaverse” is not a thing—at least not in Apple’s vision.

For me the big reveal is Vision Pro has little or no VR capabilities—instead, the overwhelming focus is on displaying photos, video, and audio in an AR space. Even the rumored ultra-realistic avatars are not really avatars per se, but volumetric models of the individual user, called a “persona”.

Relatedly, there’s little or nothing in VisionPro that smacks of the Metaverse as it’s properly defined—no immersive shared virtual world, no highly customizable avatars, no virtual economy of user-generated, etc. But then that shouldn’t be a surprise: Apple CEO Tim Cook has never been a booster of the Metaverse concept.

This prediction about the changing nature of computer programming doesn’t seem that ludicrous to me:

Over the next few years, A.I. could transform computer programming from a rarefied, highly compensated occupation into a widely accessible skill that people can easily pick up and use as part of their jobs across a wide variety of fields. This won’t necessarily be terrible for computer programmers — the world will still need people with advanced coding skills — but it will be great for the rest of us. Computers that we can all “program,” computers that don’t require specialized training to adjust and improve their functionality and that don’t speak in code: That future is rapidly becoming the present.

And let’s also remember…

Once, only the small priesthood of scientists who understood binary bits of 1s or 0s could manipulate computers. Over time, from the development of assembly language through more human-readable languages like C and Python and Java, programming has climbed what computer scientists call increasing levels of abstraction — at each step growing more removed from the electronic guts of computing and more approachable to the people who use them

This statistic is kind of terrifying:

Monbiot points out that only 1% of human land use is attributable to our cities, industries, and infrastructure. Farming occupies 38% of all land on the planet, but of those 38%, only 6% is used to feed people directly. The rest is used by pasture-fed livestock or for crops to feed livestock. He calls this ‘agricultural sprawl’: vast areas of land used to produce small amounts of food.

The rest of the post—about food inequality—is well worth reading.

Fantastic quote from the amazing Caroline Polachek:

Here’s the thing with mentorship: The landscape of how people consume music changes drastically every five years. So what advice does one generation have to give to the next? Very little. Discovering yourself is the only thing that can be taught in that way. Every generation has to rewrite the rules and come up with new ways of navigating and creating meaning—in a way that previous generations not only can’t advise on but can’t understand.

This post on microtiming in a riff from Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” is gloriously nerdy. If you understand this excerpt you’ll love it:

The problem is that on the album version of the track and in some live recordings, it doesn’t really feel like an even 5/8—the rhythm is consistently off enough that if you try to tap out really strict eighth notes, you end up not being with the band when you get through to the other side.

(via Jamie)

I’m not saying I did this Spotify search for a reason. I’m just saying someone put in a lot of effort on this playlist and they deserve credit for a job extremely well done.

This seems like a pretty good take to me:

It seems more likely to me that ChatGPT and similar products will emerge as rivals to Reddit or Wikipedia than they will to Google. They’re already much closer to being as good as those sites for retrieving vibes than they are close to being as good as Google for retrieving facts.

The quality control on Sam Records can be a bit touch and go, but I lucked out with a pristine copy of this wonderful set. Really hope it makes it to streaming services at some point! #jazz

Hey sorry to be a bother but can you please plug the guitar sound in the second half of this song straight into my veins because it would sustain me for a thousand years.

I confess that I’ve never listened to this album front to back. But it’s this month’s VMP record and dang, have I been missing out. What an absolute banger.

I love this analogy of how the game Civilization is a good predictor of management performance:

The choices you make in the early game influence your ability to compete in the late game. You have to take risks. Sometimes those risks don’t pan out. You won’t get feedback on your choices until long, long after you’ve made them. The only way to know is to try, and wait, and learn, and adapt, and keep trying again.

Some great ideas in this extensive guide on asynchronous participation in brainstorming.

After the live meeting, redesign the shared doc to become a worksheet for people participating on their own time.

Fair point:

One reason that TikTok now finds itself in the crosshairs of U.S. regulators is precisely that it has followed the model pioneered by American innovators, leveraging user data to fuel its algorithmic feeds.

Tim Hecker is one of the musicians I listen to the most, but talk about the least. Because I’m tired of hearing people go “how can you listen to that!?” And yet somehow he manages to smooth out my emotions with his walls of sound. Give “No Highs” a try if you’re curious, just don’t @ me if it’s not for you… (NYT interview, gift article)

This is very true for my wife as well. Fascinating essay.

Many eldest daughters describe feeling like they have had to grow up more quickly or even forfeit their childhood to substitute for their parents.

I’m a bit behind on reading but finally catching up and this profile of The National is so great. It acknowledges and owns the stereotypes, but Amanda Petrusich also captures why dismissing them as “sad dad music” is simply not accurate.

This one hit me hard. It’s difficult to imagine an internet without Dooce. Andy’s post is a wonderful eulogy:

I’ll remember her as the person we invited to open up XOXO 2015. Big-hearted, funny, thoughtful, provocative. She gave me a minor panic attack when she showed me her opening slide, and then I laughed and cried, along with everyone else in Revolution Hall. I’m going to miss her.

I am definitely re-watching that talk tonight…

All I can say is that this really, truly is the perfect album. Always delivers joy, never gets old.

I think I am finally ready to hit pause on the most fun side project I’ve ever done—my music data/recommendations site.

It uses APIs from Last.fm, Spotify, Discogs, and OpenAI to do… well, a lot. It’s been all-consuming so I am trying my best to disconnect for a while and just let it sit.

But still, let me know if you have ideas for how to make this more useful, ok? Cool.

Flip phones are making a comeback (especially with Gen Z) and I’m not mad about it.

Modern models improve on the ones you might remember. Most come with features like Bluetooth, 4G and contemporary cameras, even if they retain the design of early relics. Some have an internet browser but employ an operating system that doesn’t support apps like Instagram and TikTok. What are you going to scroll now?

I loved this essay about the few movies that get the philosophy of time travel right.

The honor roll of Hollywood movies that get this very basic conceptual point right—if you’re traveling back to the past that had a causal impact on the present, your trip by definition already happened and already had whatever causal impact it was going to have—is very short.

Case studies like this one on how Lululemon tried to become a tech company are always fascinating. In this case too much cash combined with unrealistic pandemic dreams…

Market research has shown that people generally value experiences over things. During the pandemic, people couldn’t go out and do much of anything, so products had to suffice. But now it’s back to experiences.

The problem with AI as an assistant/co-pilot:

Anything you do to optimize your work, cut some corners, or squeeze more ‘efficiency’ out of it (and out of your life) will eventually make you dislike it.

Solid set of random thoughts from ‪@lethain@mastodon.social‬ today.

Middle management is something that people often view as fake work, but it’s the critical work of translating an executive’s stated plan into a series of real plans that the company can actually implement. Executives who don’t understand this are doomed to create systems and processes that impede organizational execution.

I love this detail about ‘Space Invaders’:

The technological limitations of the day were also responsible for a key gameplay component of Space Invaders—shooting enemies caused the remainder to move faster. ‘At the start of the game, it takes about a second for all the invaders to take a step. As their number decreases, the time to draw them all becomes shorter, and so their speed of movement increases.’