While guesting on the podcast “Park and Recollection,” about the TV show Parks and Recreation, Patton Oswalt discussed how he thinks each president’s personality “sets the tone for the pop culture.”

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This video cuts off at Obama, but here’s the rest –

"And then there was a rejection of [Obama], with Donald Trump, which I think was a combination of a white reaction to having a black president, quite frankly. But it's also this thing if you notice, because Trump's whole thing is, like, Well, what is reality? What is truth? And now everything is all about the mutliverse [e.g., the Marvel multiverse] and "Everything Everywhere All at Once," or "Russian Doll," where nothing's really real. There's no actual set truth anymore. And everything is amorphous."

I wonder what the pop culture will be when Harris wins? Joy?

Linkin Park is reunited with two new members: Emily Armstrong as co-vocalist and Colin Brittain as drummer for the first time in seven years. Their new album, From Zero, will be released in November.

Here’s the new single and the announcement concert.

I was never a huge LP fan, but this is cool.

According to his keys to the White House model, American University professor Allan Lichtman calls the 2024 election.

Here’s the video. Spoiler alert: he says it’s going to be Harris.

Here’s the latest trailer for Megalopolis and it’s visually interesting, but I have no idea what’s going on.

Karsten Runquist has seen the movie, and I appreciate his review. In short, he calls it “a big, beautiful mess.”

Emma Beddington, writing for The Guardian, has written a fantastic piece with tips and tricks on how to sort out one’s life.

All of these ideas are great. I need to start implementing a few, though.

Seth Godin –

Perfect is useful. It’s an absolute measure, a north star, a chance to improve our work.

But it’s also a shortcut to persistent dissatisfaction.

Compared to perfect is helpful when we’re creating something.

But it’s also worth noting that perfect is unattainable. What’s on offer is never perfect, but what’s on offer might be exactly what we need right now.

There I Ruined It provides a fantastic mashup of John Denver singing a Country Roads/War Pigs rendition.

What a perfect mash-up.

Ted Chiang with a thought-provoking essay on “Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art:”

It is very easy to get ChatGPT to emit a series of words such as “I am happy to see you.” There are many things we don’t understand about how large language models work, but one thing we can be sure of is that ChatGPT is not happy to see you. A dog can communicate that it is happy to see you, and so can a prelinguistic child, even though both lack the capability to use words. ChatGPT feels nothing and desires nothing, and this lack of intention is why ChatGPT is not actually using language. What makes the words “I’m happy to see you” a linguistic utterance is not that the sequence of text tokens that it is made up of are well formed; what makes it a linguistic utterance is the intention to communicate something.

In the past few years, Chiang has written and talked often about the limitations of LLMs. I can’t help but wonder how his views and thoughts regarding LLMs may one day affect his future fiction.

Matteo Wong, writing at The Atlantic, disagrees.

There are all sorts of reasons to criticize generative AI—the technology’s environmental footprint, gross biases, job displacement, easy creation of misinformation and nonconsensual sexual images, to name a few—but Chiang is arguing on purely creative and aesthetic grounds. Although he isn’t valuing some types of work or occupations over others, his logic leads there: Staking a defense of human labor and outputs, and human ownership of that labor and those outputs, on AI being “just” vapid statistics implies the jobs AI does replace might also be “just” vapid statistics. Defending human labor from AI should not be conflated with adjudicating the technology’s artistic merit. The Jacquard loom, despite its use as a creative tool, was invented to speed up and automate skilled weaving. The widespread job displacement and economic upheaval it caused mattered regardless of whether it was replacing or augmenting artistic, artisanal, or industrial work.

Chiang’s essay, in a sense, frames art not just as a final object but also as a process. “The fact that you’re the one who is saying it,” he writes, “the fact that it derives from your unique life experience and arrives at a particular moment in the life of whoever is seeing your work, is what makes [art] new.” I agree, and would go a step further: The processes through which art arises are not limited and cannot be delimited by a single artist or viewer but involve societies and industries and, yes, technologies. Surely, humans are creative enough to make and even desire a space for generative AI in that.

Rolling Stone has published a list of the 100 best television episodes ever, and of course, there are all kinds of things to nick pick about it. That’s also the point.

These lists are entirely designed to get people fired up and engaged and to provoke nasty comments about why their favorite television episode was overlooked.

These lists only provoke a minor despair that I can’t watch them all.

Seth Godin –

Here’s a useful habit that’s more than a hack…

The next time things are going well, when a project is about to launch, when a meeting has been successful, when the sun is shining… take your phone and go for a walk.

Hit record on an audio app and make a twenty-minute audiobook. Talk about what you know, what you see, what you hope for. Talk about the change you seek to make and how you’re going to get there.

And then save it.

Save it for when you need to hear from that person who recorded it.

It might become the best audiobook you own.

Evan Puschak, at Nerdwriter1, hypothesizes that, unlike movies, TV is not the right medium to tell Tolkien’s stories. He makes some interesting points, but I’m not sure I agree.

However, I admit that I did not finish the first season of Rings of Power because I was bored and didn’t really like the various stories presented. For me it was the story, not the medium.

I’m tired of the news organizations asking her response to Trump’s race-baiting, misogynistic, and quite frankly stupid statements that aren’t worth the American people’s time. It’s obviously one of the reasons she hasn’t done a sit-down with the news media until now. Everything is geared to her reactions to whatever shit Trump has said. She ain’t got time for that.

Nicholas Bate:

1. Write every day.

2. Write fast.

3. Write when you do want to.

4. Write when you don't want to.

5. Write a lot. Edit a lot. From quantity produce beautiful quality.

6. Write anyplace.

7. Write from keyboard.

8. Write with pencil and paper.

9. Write stuff.

10. Write thoughts, things and themes.

11. Got writer's block? Write about how it really is annoying you.

12. Write now. Write tomorrow.

13. Write as the sun comes up, as the sun goes down and as your chai tea cools.

14. Write.

Rick Beato outlines the latest practice in popular music…interpolation.

It’s all bullshit, though. It’s just a term that lawyers came up with for stealing. I mean, the Dua Lipa riff on INXS is so ridiculous. I’m glad the band got a writing credit. Still, all of these examples are just stealing. It’s a one-half step away from sampling, which is almost always stealing unless the artist gets permission i.e. getting the original writer(s) credit.

It’s time for some football.

Marvel celebrates its 85th year in 2024, a kinda-sorta anniversary the company has marked with some special comics and merchandise — and now a YouTube video that contains clips of Marvel writer Stan Lee, current Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, and assorted images from throughout Marvel’s long history.

That’s all nice, and, hey, that’s the Red Hulk, but Stan Lee was like 16 years old when Marvel began with Namor and the original Human Torch. Soooo, yeah, he co-created many, many characters, but he was not there at the beginning like this video implies.

Andy Bell –

I’ve tried Notion, Obsidian, Things, Apple Reminders, Apple Notes, Jotter and endless other tools to keep me organised and sure, Notion has stuck around the most because we use it for client stuff, but for todo lists, all of the above are way too complicated.

I’ve given up this week and gone back to paper and a pencil and I feel unbelievably organised and flexible, day-to-day. It’s because it’s simple. There’s nothing fancy. No fancy pen or anything like that either. Just a notebook and a pencil.

I’m in an ultra busy period right now so for future me when you inevitably get back to this situation: just. use. fucking. paper.

I’ve tried many of the apps he mentions. Notion is good as an organized database, but I can’t really see myself using it as a to-do list. Believe me I have plenty of Notion templates to show for it. Things was way too complicated, and I don’t see Apple Reminders and Notes as to-do tools.

I’ve also tried paper planners and notebooks, but the habit never sticks. Even when I spend too much money on the planner, pen, or both.

My company uses Workfront to assign work and manage jobs, so I might be biased on digital versus paper. Also, I don’t have to assign jobs to myself while managing my assigned jobs. I’m sure it would be different if I direct reports, but I don’t.

One day, I might try using Patrick Rhone’s setup. It sounds the most like me and I won’t have to spend a fortune on planners.

Dodgers fans are notorious for arriving late to games. But not when there’s a Shohei Ohtani bobblehead to be had. Shohei Ohtani bobblehead night: Dodgers star makes MLB history after catching first pitch from his dog.

Decoy, a Dutch Kooikerhondje, has been in the public eye since Ohtani's MVP acceptance speech last year, and his initially unknown name became a storyline as Ohtani embarked on the most lucrative free agency in professional sports history. He finally revealed the name at his introductory news conference at Dodger Stadium, and fans were quick to embrace their new furry mascot.

OK, that’s a fun story.

Bernie Miklasz on the state of the St. Louis Cardinals.

When Bill DeWitt Jr. purchased the St. Louis Cardinals before the 1996 season, the franchise was in decline. Diminishing crowds, a shortage of stars, mediocre results, and no postseason appearances since 1987. It was a bad time, but DeWitt aggressively revived the franchise and led the Cardinals to a long and distinguished run of success loaded with stars, future Hall of Famers, big games in October, and a new level of popularity.

The fans loved it. I loved writing and talking about it. It was an incredible era for the Cardinals.

Take a look now. Sparse crowds, with fewer than 15,000 fans actually coming through the turnstiles for the recent game. Dull team. Little entertainment value. Little star power. And possibly headed to a second consecutive losing season (full schedule) for the first time since the expansion era began in 1961.

The sad thing -- and the frustrating thing -- is that it didn't have to be this way. It didn't have to happen. But Mr. DeWitt let the franchise fall apart ... looking more like the down-and-out team he took over in 1996.

What's the old expression? Killed the golden goose.

It’s bittersweet because I can’t watch Cardinal baseball (unless it’s on ESPN, Fox, or AppleTV), and the product is basically unwatchable.

It will be interesting to see what the owners do this offseason. I assume several people will be looking for new employment on and off the field.