Nicholas Bate:

1. You get it wrong. Take notes and learn.

2. You are lost. Try a different map.

3. You are too fatigued. Rest deep and long.

4. You can’t be heard. Be bolder.

5. You lack focus. Find stillness and meditate until clarity returns.

6. You need greater resource. Ask nicely and persistently.

7. You need to go home. Go home.

Danny Furst, writing for Columbia Journalism Review, has a great story on the creation of Defector out of the ashes of Deadspin. They have come a long way. I’m actually astonished the base salary at Defector is 70 grand.

The piece ends with the epitome of Defector –

Defector’s co-owners anticipate single-digit revenue growth from subscriptions this year. Meanwhile, one of their old enemies, Barstool Sports, was recently acquired by Penn Entertainment, a gambling conglomerate, for three hundred and eighty-eight million dollars. When I asked Ley about that, he didn’t express envy. Instead, he compared Defector to a neighborhood bar, no pun intended. “This is our little business—we just need to have these margins, pay our employees, and that’s it,” he said. “No one who owns a bar is thinking, ‘I can’t wait for NBCUniversal to come offer to buy my bar for a hundred million dollars.’ If you think of it as a business that you’re running with your friends, it becomes a lot easier to just be like, ‘Yeah, we’re having success, and that’s all we need.’”

Having success with your friends sounds like a good business plan.

Megan Carnegie, writing at Wired, has a story about location-based pay.

Paying employees equally no matter where they live is a reflection of today’s internet labor market—a global landscape of suppliers and buyers who connect as if they were on the same street. “There’s a lively debate in big companies about flat salaries across geography, and, of course, I think everyone should do it,” says Rasch. “People often counter the policy with points about the different costs of living, but put simply, is it fair to pay someone who lives in a poorer part of town a lower salary? No.”

I applaud this idea. Not sure how it is feasible, but more power to them.

Maureen Ryan blows the roof off with a behind the scenes story on the toxic culture of the hit show Lost. Vanity Fair posts an excerpt from her new book Burn It Down.

“I can only describe it as hazing. It was very much middle school and relentlessly cruel. And I’ve never heard that much racist commentary in one room in my career,” Owusu-Breen recalled. Here is a partial roster of statements sources heard while working at Lost. The first four were heard by Owusu-Breen, as well as another individual I spoke to:

When someone on staff was adopting an Asian child, one person said to another writer that “no grandparent wants a slanty-eyed grandchild.”

When actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s picture was on the writers room table, someone was told to remove their nearby wallet “before he steals it.”

When Owusu-Breen and others were riding in a van on a trip, in answer to a question about the luggage, one writer—using a Yiddish word—said, “Let the schvartze take it.”

The only Asian American writer was called Korean, as in, “Korean, take the board.”

When a woman entered the writers room carrying a binder, two sources said, a male writer asked her what it was. She said it was the HR manual for the studio, and he responded, “Why don’t you take off your top and tell us about it?”

There was apparently some discomfort around the show’s cleaning staff using the bathroom in the Lost offices, and there were “jokes” about “putting up a Whites Only sign.”

Finally, when Perrineau’s Lost departure came up, Lindelof said, according to multiple sources, that the actor “called me racist, so I fired his ass.”

“Everyone laughed” when Lindelof said that, Owusu-Breen recalled. “There was so much shit, and so much racist shit, and then laughter. It was ugly. I was like, ‘I don’t know if they’re perceiving this as a joke or if they mean it.’ But it wasn’t funny. Saying that was horrible.” She began leaving the room when she couldn’t take it anymore: “I’m like, once you’re done talking shit about people of color, I’ll come back.”

There’s so much more.

Rick Beato interviews legendary rock guitar icon Nuno Bettencourt from the band Extreme.

The influence of Eddie Van Halen on Nuno is way more than I originally thought. Just great storytelling across the board. There is nothing better than watching an interview with somebody who is just so deeply passionate about what they do.

What’s the story of the diamond from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’s opening scene? Well according to a licensed Indiana Jones reference book, it was the same diamond he sought to find in his youth!

This re-edit ties the Treasure of the Peacock’s Eye with the opening scene of Temple of Doom!

It’s pretty cool.

Heather Cox Richardson highlights a pamphlet distributed by the US War Department to Army soldiers during World War II on the topic of fascism: what it is and how to combat it.

The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try to gain power “under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ and ‘super-Americanism.’” And they would use three techniques:

First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.”

Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.”

Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices — either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.”

It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”

From 1943 to 2023. Little has changed.

David Pierce, writing at The Verge, has a post about weirdly long “nothing: videos on YouTube.

In a way, I’ve come to see “24 hours + of pure black screen in HD!” as a perfect microcosm of YouTube. YouTube is part entertainment platform, part information library… and part tools repository. It can soundtrack your day, teach you how to beat any game or solve any problem, keep your pets entertained while you’re gone, or transport you to just about any place on earth. A blank screen video is a productivity tool, plain and simple.

One can use YouTube in a wide variety of ways. Personally, I like long colored noise channels like this one. It’s perfect for when I want to zone in on something I’m writing.

Pedro Pascal has shown his face three times on The Mandalorian. Once, briefly, in season one; twice, more extensively, in season two; and then not at all in season three. It begs the question, is Pascal even in the suit?

In the most recent Actors Roundtable video put out by The Hollywood Reporter, Pascal basically said he’s not in Din Djarin’s armor much anymore. I find this fascinating.

“There was an extended amount of experimentation, being in the suit for a lot of it, and frankly, my body wasn’t up for the task as far as, like, the four months of it. But I was in it,” Pascal said. “I was in it a significant amount, an elastic amount (he pretends to tug at his neck, where the suit would chafe). But now we’ve figured it out, which is super cool, and amazingly, it gave me the opportunity to be able to go and do something else.”

I’m glad he went on the promote the actors and stunt doubles who are actually wearing the suit. Still, it’s a shame we had to go through this, frankly, dumb idea of a certain sect of Mandalorians who never remove their helmet so Pascal would be able to do other work.

I’m sure it will help Dave Filoni’s movie when he has pull all the TV show actors into a more cinematic space and can use Pascal’s star power to promote it.

Dave Holmes, writing in Esquire, has a piece on, what else, music.

There is something in the air about that medium-mope, wounded-dude mid-’90s music moment: Counting Crows, Collective Soul, Soul Asylum. Somehow I’m hearing it more now than in 1996, my glory days of wearing a Kangol hat backward and trying to use hype as an adjective. The soul-patched soundtrack of alternative radio, a revolution that was ignited at least partly by our disdain for classic rock, has become our new classic rock.

It’s IPA-core—soothing, warming, heavy but not too—and it might be our last classic rock.

I love the term IPA-core. So funny and spot on.

Justin Baragona writing at The Daily Beast:

More than a week after CNN’s disastrous town hall with former President Donald Trump, the negative impact the fiasco had on the network’s ratings is coming into clearer focus. Last week, the cable news pioneer suffered its lowest-rated week since June 2015, averaging just 429,000 total daily viewers from Monday-Friday. CNN was also down double digits compared to the same week last year in both total viewership and in the key advertising demographic of viewers ages 25-54. MSNBC more than doubled CNN’s daily audience, drawing 976,000 total viewers, while Fox News averaged 1.4 million.

[…]

Since the town hall, CNN has seen several of its weeknight hours — including Anderson Cooper — fall behind Newsmax, the fringe-right channel that has surged since Carlson’s ouster. And on Friday night, the channel’s much-hyped interview show hosted by Chris Wallace averaged only 224,000 total viewers at 10 p.m., drawing 60,000 fewer viewers than Newsmax’s offering.

Losing to Newsmax. Seriously, when will they figure out there’s no mainstream audience for right-wing media. It’s a niche product that can’t bring in big numbers or sustain a decent number.

Matt D’Avella tries intermittent fasting for 30 days. It sort of worked for him. Of course, he’s pretty lean already.

I need to make it part of my priorities.

Taegan Goddard, writing at Political Wire on Ron DeSantis’s much-ballyhooed campaign launch on Twitter Spaces yesterday:

In the end, the event had all of the appeal of a glitchy conference call.

Apparently, the event eventually did launch, but it was stuck with constant problems. When moderator David Sacks, a venture capitalist and former PayPal product lead, first unmuted himself to start the talk, the Space was filled with loud, echoing feedback sounds before quickly going silent. The accounts of DeSantis and Sacks popped in and out of the initial room, muting and unmuting themselves before leaving entirely.

Politics aside, what a shit show. And a complete disaster for DeSantis, Elon Musk and Twitter.

CJ Chilvers, writing at his site, dropped a bomb.

The truth is: we all have books that are already written…somewhere. They live in our blogs, social feeds, and notes. It’s the constraints and strategy, and the decision to ship, that eludes us.

I’m trying to get the book done. Really, I am.

Paramount Plus just dropped the official trailer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2.

I don’t know about you but I am really excited to see what happens in this upcoming season. Especially excited about that Star Trek: Lower Decks crossover.

Tina Turner, the ’Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ noted for a multi-genre mastery that propelled her to massive pop hits in the 80s, is dead at 83. Her publicist Bernard Doherty announced she died at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland.

Being a kid of the 80s, What’s Love Got To Do With It is the song that acquainted me with Tina Turner. I was aware of her but didn’t know anything other than “Proud Mary.” Her solo career was incredible.

Personally, I love the duet with David Bowie and the James Bond theme “GoldenEye.”

Rick Beato devoted a whole livestream to pay tribute to her.

I was never really a big fan outside the hits, but this live cover Vintage Trouble performed of “Baby Get It On” by Ike and Tina Turner is a rendition I can listen to over and over again.

Rands in Repose has a post all about the latest beta for Photoshop called “Generative Fill.”

His example is pretty wild.

It drew the goddamn bike. Click on the image and look at the larger size. It took a good swing at an appropriate color palette, and it drew the goddamn bike. Sure, it hallucinated the back of the bike into the tree, and there are other weird artifacts, but this is a beta. This is the first iteration. And this is 30 seconds of effort on my part.

Here is the official announcement. Generative AI is on its way to so many products right now.

Charlie Warzel, writing for The Atlantic, has a story that most everyone with half a brain already knows.

Twitter has evolved into a platform that is indistinguishable from the wastelands of alternative social-media sites such as Truth Social and Parler.

[…]

Twitter has so fully assumed the role of a far-right platform that it might be killing its competitors. When Parler shut down in April, its parent company noted that “no reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more.” Left unspoken is the reason: Twitter has become a right-wing echo chamber.

If Musk weren’t too preoccupied lapping up approval from trolls, reactionaries, and Dogecoin enthusiasts — a few of the constituencies left on his site that still seem to adore him — the Parler statement should worry him. Right-wing alt-tech platforms may attract investors and a flood of indignant new users with persecution complexes, but they are, ultimately, bad businesses.

I get this, but I don’t use Twitter like other people. I have curated my follows and lists via Tweetdeck to be as perfect as can be. I don’t see the crap because it doesn’t get in my carefully crafted bubble.

I’m still on the platform, but I rarely post anymore and have taken off all or most of my previous postings. It’s not fun, it’s hard to use without Tweetbot on my phone although I have found an alternative with MarinDeck, which is a port of Tweetdeck.

If Musk gets rid of Tweetdeck, he’ll lose millions of followers. Including me.

The Flash dropped its final trailer and it looks amazing.

Nicholas Bate:

Head in the direction of…

Love

Effectiveness

Profitability

Wellness

Creativity

Music

Mountains & Coast

And things will improve.