blot.blog newsletter #2

Good day. Welcome to the blot.blog newsletter #2. I share links, thoughts and notes from the past week, with a focus on technology.

Articles from me

Watching "Parks and Recreation" reminded me about how much I hate birthdays as an introvert. All eyes on you. The pressure to be social. The fear of "happy birthday" being sung at you in a public space – blot.blog

Instagram has changed its 'Made with AI' label to 'AI info' after complaints that the automatically added tag was a bit to liberal, causing users to think images tweaked with AI tools were fully AI generated – I'm Left Handed

Figma's pulls its AI tool after it got caught copying Apple's Weather app – I'm Left Handed

More and more companies are starting to move away from the cloud and onto their own hardware, mostly due to high, hidden costs – I'm Left Handed

'Why AI can't replace science'. The core argument is spot on: science is about building theoretical models that anyone can use to make reliable predictions. AI, on the other hand, is just glorified data mining - finding patterns without necessarily understanding why they exist – I'm Left Handed

This week I got annoyed with a SoundCloud UX decision – I'm Left Handed

Cloudflare introduces a new tool to help websites block AI web scrapers – I'm Left Handed

The US is trying to catch-up to Asia in building chips – I'm Left Handed

Articles from others

'The Twelve Foundations for a Good Life'. There's nothing ground-breaking here. But that's the point. Living a good life isn't a secret. It's just about implementing the things you know you need to do – Scott H. Young

'Accomplish More with a 3-Item To Do List'. I have become a huge fan of the 3-item to-do list. If you have ADHD you have to try it – Becoming Minimalist

'The Zeigarnik Effect: The Hidden Reason Your Mind Feels Cluttered'. The hidden reason: half finished projects. They take up an oversized part of your brain – Becoming Minimalist

Other thoughts and links

There's a new social media app called 'noplace'. It very much is MySpace the app – it even has a wall. I tried it very briefly. It’s ugly as sin, but at least it’s being bold. Though it is a bit young for me – it's full of kids – clowes.blog

“It was illegal until the mid-1960s for bars in New York to sell alcohol to people known to be gay.” – clowes.blog

I love the wonderful terminology of American music in the 1940’s. Crooner, bobby soxers, doo-wop, hep cat, zoot suit, rag cutter, jitterbug, be-bop, boogie-woogie, hepcat, juke joint, swooner, moldy fig, killer-diller.

The original toilet roll patent from 1891 clearly shows it should hang over the roll, not under.

The Google Maps iOS app finally has a speedometer on it.

I rate films precisely out of 100. I can tell you exactly what I liked and disliked.

But books? They’re all just “pretty good I guess”.