Oliver Burkeman has some cool ideas in his latest newsletter The Imperfectionist. However, the one about a digital detox caught my eye.

A digital detox will probably make you feel sad or anxious (but do it anyway): If you’re anything like me, you may have felt the urge in recent months to get more serious about relegating digital technology back to its proper role as a tool – something you pick up and use when it serves your purposes, then put back on the shelf, instead of marinating all day in the disordered world of the terminally online. Yet it’s striking how often this topic gets written about as if the moment you take social media off your phone, or begin a ritual of leaving your phone in the hallway at home, or switch to a dumbphone, you can expect to feel immediate peace and happiness. This is unlikely! As with other compulsive behaviours, we use aimless scrolling to distract from, or to paper over, emotions we don’t enjoy experiencing, especially sadness or anxiety. So it’s a good bet that when you step away from your devices, you’ll be spending more time, at least in the near term, with the emotions they were helping you avoid. Fortunately, in most cases, just knowing to expect this will enable you to resist the temptation to scurry back to the screens. (And incidentally, if you doubt that you use technology in this emotionally avoidant way, simply take some context where you’d usually always listen to a podcast or music – such as driving, or commuting by subway, or going for a run – and try how it feels not to do that. Weirdly harder than you expected, right?)

It is tough for me to do what Oliver is expressing. One thing I started doing is curtailing my constant listening to podcasts and moving to audiobooks. I thought I might feel like I was missing out on things, and that simply has not been my experience.

So far, so good.

Last night, there was nothing on television, so I switched to YouTube. For some reason only the algorithmic gods understand, I clicked on Jacob Collier Improvises the National Symphony Orchestra (Live from The Kennedy Center) and was transfixed for 18 minutes. I’ve never heard of Jacob Collier. I still don’t know much about this man. All I do know is that he’s a musical genius who made me forget the horribleness of this world for a few minutes. That’s an invaluable gift.

Today, I’m going down the rabbit hole of Jacob Collier. I found some live performances on YouTube and his output on Spotify. I haven’t listened to everything yet, but his style basically blends jazz, pop, and R&B with experimental music and synth-wave. His improvisational live performances of familiar songs are uncanny. He’s a concert-quality pianist, tenor voice, and conductor. He’s simply the most unbelievable talent I’ve ever watched. I think he might be made of music.

I don’t know why I haven’t heard of him before, but he’s simply stunning. If you’ve never heard of him, may I recommend starting with his version of How Deep Is Your Love Live from Fort Lauderdale? His arrangement is creative in a way I’ve never heard before, and his interaction with the audience is both manic and amazing.

Yesterday, I discovered Jacob Collier exists. I can see hours of joy are in my future.

Want to experience it with me?

Just like last time…

McSweeney’s is documenting the “cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes” of the second Trump administration.

This is a great resource that many people should reference in the coming days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

I’ve stopped posting on all social media. If anything, I’m now a lurker. I peruse Twitter/X because I’ve curated my feed to the essentials, and far too many people I follow have not moved to a different platform like Bluesky yet. I continue to skim Bluesky because I’m trying to see if enough of the people I follow on other platforms have finally migrated to Bluesky. Threads and Mastodon are essentially dead to me.

Matt Birchler agrees with me.

I believe Meta that there are hundreds of millions of people signing on every month, but they seem to be doing absolutely nothing there. More interesting stuff is on Bluesky and Mastodon, and better conversation happens on those platforms as well.

For most people, the solution for a Twitter-like social media microblog is Bluesky. The more tech-savvy can have Mastodon. Threads was surpassed by the look and feel of Bluesky. People wanted Twitter. Threads sort of scratched that itch, but ultimately, it did not quite meet the demand. Bluesky did.

John Gruber explains it this way.

In the old world, there was one Twitter-like network that mattered: Twitter itself. In the new world, there exists a diaspora of Twitter-like platforms which have each carved out their own vibes. There are pros and cons to the old world and new. I found it much easier, mentally, to have just one place to check, and that place was available through truly excellent native apps for both Mac and iOS. Now that my attention is spread across multiple such networks — (in order of attention) Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, and, last and definitely least, but still there, X — I feel more scattered mentally, but I’m also pretty sure I spend less time overall using all of them combined today than I did for Twitter’s peak decade-or-so, and that I’m better off for that.

But so while Threads bursting onto the scene in summer 2023 maybe delayed Bluesky’s blossoming, I suspect Threads might have ultimately helped Bluesky by opening the minds of many Twitter refugees into just trying some new alternatives. One size doesn’t fit all. Nor one social network.

Yup.

Tom May, writing at Creative Boom, has an interesting story about a new report from the artist-owned cooperative Stocksy.

The report opens with a stark observation: we’re living in the “Age of Big Content”—a time of infinite scrolls, algorithmic recommendations, and what Stocksy calls “vibe-less mood boards”. The result is a creative landscape experiencing both “Peak Complexity” and the “Meh-ocene,” where global aesthetics are collapsing into sameness.

As the report notes, “Cafes look the same in Tokyo and Mexico City,” while creative industries struggle with originality—evidenced by the fact that not a single original film (as opposed to a sequel, reboot or remake) cracked 2024’s top 15 highest-grossing movies.

I don’t really know what “Meh-ocene” means, but it can’t be good.

The report offers a roadmap to authentic curation and meaningful differentiation for artists and designers. “Surprise sells. Sameness doesn’t.”

The level of incompetence in our federal government right now is astounding.

Astounding.

There is no waving it away. There is no ignoring it. Senior officials in this administration are reckless idiots. To half quote the character Logan Roy from Succession, “You are not serious people.”

I’m actively trying not to go down rabbit holes of news and commentary and commentary on the news and commentary on the commentary of the news, which is what the news generally is nowadays. However, this story from The Atlantic is simply astounding. It is one of the largest security breaches ever. Every one of the senior officials on the group chat has to be fired or impeached. The security of the United States is at risk with these people still holding positions of power.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was added by Michael Waltz, Trump’s National Security Advisor, to a group chat on the commercially available encrypted messaging app Signal. The group chat included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The messages, shared in the group chat, were sent to Goldberg in the days leading up to the United States launching air and naval strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. What began as policy discussions devolved into sharing explicit details about attack locations, military units involved, and sensitive intelligence about foreign entities. This behavior showed a complete disregard for secure communications protocols.

The idea of a journalist unintentionally being part of a war-planning group with national security leaders and the fact that these leaders would use Signal on their personal phones was so outrageous that Goldberg initially thought the group was a prank aimed at humiliating him. However, it turned out to be completely genuine.

I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior U.S. officials, up to and including the vice president.

When Hegseth sent out a full breakdown of the attack and hours later, everything outlined in the Signal group chat was confirmed, he knew it was real. Goldberg then removed himself from the group chat and sent some messages with some obvious questions.

Earlier today, I emailed Waltz and sent him a message on his Signal account. I also wrote to Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, and other officials. In an email, I outlined some of my questions: Is the “Houthi PC small group” a genuine Signal thread? Did they know that I was included in this group? Was I (on the off chance) included on purpose? If not, who did they think I was? Did anyone realize who I was when I was added, or when I removed myself from the group? Do senior Trump-administration officials use Signal regularly for sensitive discussions? Do the officials believe that the use of such a channel could endanger American personnel?

This is all too real. The White House confirmed all of this happened, with a spokesperson saying the message thread appears to be “an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

HINT: Because they are grossly incompetent.

Why were they even using Signal? Heather Cox Richardson has the right idea.

The decision to steer around government systems was possibly an attempt to hide conversations, since the app was set to erase some messages after a week and others after four weeks. By law, government communications must be archived.

…

…the use of Signal may also have violated the Espionage Act, which establishes how officials must handle information about the national defense. The app is not approved for national security use, and officials are supposed either to discuss military activity in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, or to use approved government equipment.

All the government officials in the group chat have broken the law. It absolutely is a breach of the Espionage Act. They were not only discussing timing, weapons packages, and intelligence assessments, but they did so on an unsecured app using personal devices, oblivious that a prominent journalist was included in the conversation in real time. Nothing happened when Goldberg removed himself from the group. They didn’t know he was there, had no idea they were breaking the law, and were too incompetent to understand any ramifications.

These officials, entrusted with the nation’s most sensitive secrets and serving in crucial government positions with significant authority and discretion, were behaving like teenagers—sending emojis and chest-thumping messages.

These are unserious people.

All of their personal phones have to be confiscated, searched, and checked for classified communications, classified documents, and, you know, spyware. It isn’t going to happen because we don’t have serious people in charge.

This is the movie Idiocracy come to life. It’s amateur hour. It’s a clown show.

More and more, I’m leaning into the idea that Trump himself is a mouthpiece or maybe a figurehead. He sits there saying the stupidest things imaginable to the press, to show off his signature on mostly meaningless executive orders, and then to go play golf. He has no insight into what is happening in this government. He’s worried about a painting of him in Colorado and pressing the Diet Coke button on the Resolute Desk. This imbecile has a facsimile of the Constitution in the Oval Office, and he thinks it’s the real deal.

Republicans claimed Biden wasn’t really in charge during his Presidency and had little evidence to support the accusation. This story begs the question of who is in charge now, plus there are receipts.

At the end of the day, the bare minimum should be Waltz fired, and the rest resign. I’ll be shocked if anything like that happens.

One additional note, I hope Jeffrey Goldberg has good security.

You may have heard about this evil empire and the rebellion against it? You might even have watched the first season of Andor and thought, “How can this project be so smart, heartfelt, gut-wrenching, and good and still be a part of Star Wars?”

Here we go again.

One of the greatest Star Wars “things” out there, Andor Season Two, is hitting Disney+ on April 22, and we’ve got an official trailer. It’s the most cinematic and realistic piece of art detailing the grunt and secret work of a true rebellion against a fascist dictatorship. Everything about this is top-notch, from the camerawork, choreography, costumes and styling, music, and theatrics. It all comes together.

The first season was a more emotional and personal story than Star Wars ever tackled. With the Skywalker family story, we only get hints of it. It mostly has shades of complex emotion and a personal ‘Hero’s Journey’ writing style. Andor is gritty and nuanced. It’s tense. Fueled by complicated characters. We know that most of the “Star Wars” is glossy and Flash Gordon-y. These are real people fighting a galactic civil war against a tyrannical empire. As much as I love the Jedi and lightsaber fights, I love the desperation of real people we get here. These heroes don’t get to use The Force. They only have their wits and probably a blaster.

We will know soon enough if Tony Gilroy stuck the landing. I have high hopes.

I’ve always struggled with what my digital output should be and look like. How personal should a personal homepage be? I have two sites currently and I keep experimenting with newsletter ideas, but am I spreading myself too thin? Am I being too personal?

Most of the content I have at both seanmcdevitt.com and seanmcdevitt.net is normal. I write and share about the things I find interesting. I talk about stuff that I’ve been thinking about and react to what others have written. Sometimes I add a video or a photo. Pretty normal.

These sites are personal. It’s my writing and my commentary. Obviously, I like to link share quotes from articles, but aside from that everything else is my words. I had a vision for the look of both sites, created it (with help from an outside designer), and it’s a representation of me.

It is also the representation I choose to share. I have carefully set up what the outside world gets to see. This site is a curated slice of me, myself, and I, but it isn’t the whole picture. And that’s okay. I’m not really on any social media platforms anymore, but everyone shows their best side and never the struggles. Who cares?

My feeling in this day and age, my hyper-curation is important to keep a healthy distance from being too personal. However, I know when sharing something personal it resonates more.

Where is the balance?

George Foreman, the Olympic gold medalist and two-time heavyweight champion who also became known for his namesake grill, has passed away.

Our hearts are broken. With profound sorrow, we announce the passing of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr. who peacefully departed on March 21, 2025 surrounded by loved ones. A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great grandfather, he lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility, and purpose.

A humanitarian, an Olympian, and two time heavyweight champion of the world, He was deeply respected — a force for good, a man of discipline, conviction, and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name— for his family.

We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers, and kindly ask for privacy as we honor the extraordinary life of a man we were blessed to call our own.

Mark Manson with some good advice:

Stop letting others' opinions weigh you down.

When you stop taking things personally, you free yourself to live a life that’s true to you.

Remember, most people are too caught up in their own heads to be focused on yours.

Embrace your flaws; they make you relatable and real.

And hey, becoming hard to offend? That’s how you build resilience and strength.

If you found this helpful, save it for when you need a reminder.

According to an e-mail sent to followers of the official KISS website, KISSOnline, and picked up by various media outlets, including Mitch Lafon, the group will perform an unmasked live show as part of the three-day KISS Army Storms Vegas event, which will take place Nov. 14-16 at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.

While I won’t be attending, the band playing unmasked is exactly what should happen for one-off events like this. It could also mean something for the future, like a residency. However, I can’t see the band setting up a Vegas residency without makeup.

W. A. Finnegan, who used to help write Federal policies, wrote in his newsletter, The Long Memo, that because of Trump’s incompetence, every student loan is now “forgiven.”

Trump announced that the Small Business Association will take on student loans immediately as he attempts to dismantle the Department of Education. Of course, that really can’t happen, and if it does…

You agree to repay the loan under specific conditions. In exchange, the Department of Education agrees to disburse the funds, maintain servicing standards, and follow the law under the Higher Education Act of 1965.

Those terms are not flexible. They’re not vague. They’re not “up for reassignment” to whichever federal agency a rogue president feels like tossing them to this week.

The MPN allows your loan to be transferred between servicers—companies like MOHELA, Nelnet, Aidvantage—but those are just contracted agents of the Department of Education, not owners. You can’t be assigned to a totally different federal agency that has no statutory authority under the Higher Education Act. That would be like your mortgage getting transferred to the Parks Department.

If you suddenly find your loan managed by an agency not named in your contract, not authorized by Congress, and not subject to the same legal compliance regime, guess what?

That’s a breach. A big one.

And in contract law, a breach that goes to the heart of the agreement—like changing the party responsible for enforcement or management—is what courts call a material breach. That means the contract is no longer valid. And if it’s not valid, they can’t enforce it.

So yes, if Trump goes through with this, we’re talking about millions of legally unenforceable loans. Essentially, “loan forgiveness” for every student who ever signed the MPN, now, today, yesterday, and in the future. The government would lose its legal standing to collect. Servicers would be stuck in limbo. Every borrower would have a legitimate argument that the contract they signed is no longer binding—because the government breached first. And abrogation of responsibilities of a loan originator typically gives rise to making the entire debt unenforceable.

This isn’t just bad policy. It’s contractual suicide.

And that’s the funny part. Trump may have just accidentally forgiven the entire student loan system. Not through legislation. Not through executive mercy. But through everything, the Orangutan does, pure incompetence.

I’m sure this will get fixed, but maybe not.

Mark Mullenberg of Automattic wrote a blog post about company culture and he came around to this bit about the Automattic Creed.

There’s the story about how, if you have an ethics statement above where you sign the test or something, people cheat less. So I thought, well, what’s our equivalent of that? We have the Automattic Creed. It’s an important part of our culture. So we put the creed in, it says:

I will never stop learning. I won’t just work on things that are assigned to me. I know there’s no such thing as a status quo. I will build our business sustainably through passionate and loyal customers. I will never pass up an opportunity to help out a colleague, and I’ll remember the days before I knew everything. I am more motivated by impact than money, and I know that Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation. I will communicate as much as possible, because it’s the oxygen of a distributed company. I am in a marathon, not a sprint, and no matter how far away the goal is, the only way to get there is by putting one foot in front of another every day. Given time, there is no problem that’s insurmountable.

It’s not legally binding, but it’s written in the first person, you read it and you kind of identify with it and then you sign below that. We want people who work at the company who identify with our core values and our core values really are in the creed.

This is amazing. I’d love to replicate that somehow.

Matthew McConaughey has a newsletter called Lyrics for Livin’. He waxes philosophically about a variety of topics. I liked his latest article about happiness versus joy.

Happiness: an emotional response to an outcome. That’s what happiness is, and we all want more of it. It is a noble pursuit. Hey, if I win, I’m going to be happy. If I get that promotion, I’m going to be happy. If she says yes, I’m going to be happy. If I finally fit into that dress, I’m going to be happy. If my kid gets into that Ivy League school, I’m going to be happy. Yeah, it’s an if, then cause and effect, quid pro quo. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think it’s the wrong pursuit, because it’s an unsustainable standard that we immediately raise the bar for every time we attain it. See, it is result reliant. Happiness is a short-term dopamine hit that is set up to fail. Joy. Joy is a different thing.

Why? Because joy is not a result. It’s a constant. It’s the feeling we have from doing what we are fashioned to do, no matter the outcome. You see, joy is the process, the behavior that we are enjoying while on our way to our destination. Joy is contentment, satisfaction in the doing. Now, personally, as an actor, I started enjoying my work and literally having more joy in my life when I stopped trying to make my work a means to a certain end, when I stopped seeking happiness as a result, approval as the outcome, accolades as proof. For example, oh, I need this film to be a box office success to be happy, or I need the respect of my peers and my performance to be acknowledged to be happy. Those are reasonable aspirations. But the truth is, as soon as the process of the work, the daily making of the movie, the doing of the deed, as soon as that became the reward in itself for me…

Well, guess what?

I got more box office. I got more approval, I got more accolades, more results than I ever had before. You see, Joy is always under construction. It is a constant approach, alive and well in the doing of what we are fashioned to do and enjoying it. When we choose experiences over outcomes, we get more results and enjoy it.

Here’s the trailer for Shopping for Superman, a crowdfunded documentary about the 50-year history of local comic book stores and their shaky future.

The origin story of your friendly neighborhood comic shop. Tracing the 50-year history of the local comic book store’s far-reaching impact, we examine their cultural significance and the numerous threats they face today.

After a 75% industry contraction, floundering sales, superhero fatigue, and online retail competition, can our heroes survive?

I had a fleeting thought about owning and operating a comic book shop when I was much younger. I can’t fathom anything like that now.

Vince Vance and the Valiants should probably give up.

Mariah Carey, accused of copyright infringement in her 1994 Christmas hit “All I Want for Christmas is You,” has won her case. Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani rejected songwriter Adam Stone’s claim that the song lifted a song he wrote in 1989. Almadani ruled that the two merely shared “Christmas song clichés” already typical of the genre.

His evidence for the lawsuit included the shared title and key lyrics, references to Santa Claus and mistletoe, and the plaintive female vibes, which the court found to be a well-established cliche of Christmas music. Yep.

Vince Vance is Stone’s stage name, and he co-wrote a fantastic song also titled “All I Want for Christmas is You.” He’s the guy with the spiked-up mohawk in the video. Lisa Layne has some powerhouse vocals.

Personally, I like the Vince Vance song better.

Ross Rosenfeld, writing for The New Republic, basically thinks Trump is insane.

Some of you might argue that Trump isn’t mad, but just a psychopath feigning madness for his own ends. Or perhaps his ludicrous assertions began as convenient foils and have morphed into true delusions. After all, he’s had plenty of people telling him he’s right. Perhaps there’s a more accurate Shakespearean comparison, then. King Lear has a deep hole in him that constantly has to be filled: He insists that his three daughters publicly fawn over him to gain his graces and dismisses his most beloved daughter, Cordelia, when she refuses to engage in the practice. He cannot accept the errors of his ways. Yet Lear somehow retains his hold on power even as his hold on reality slips away, until ultimately he meets his demise and causes the death of all who are dear to him.

We are in a Shakespearean moment right now. Journalists are trying to understand Trump’s irrational behavior, and are generally unwilling to consider the possibility that it is not some grand strategy but just a sign of a madman with increasingly diminished mental faculties. Perhaps he’s not quite yet burying steaks to grow meat trees, like George III, but Trump’s delusions cause considerably more damage than that. Are we going to wait until he’s ranting about “drainage” like Daniel Plainview and beating someone to death with a bowling pin? Are we going to continue to bend over backward to pretend that this emperor isn’t naked?

He’s not insane or a madman. He isn’t calculating or cunning either. He just has a lot of money, has never been told no, and is being used by people who are smarter than him to destroy the government. He ran the first time because he was insulted. He ran the second time to stay out of jail. The end.

He’s entirely delusional about everything because he has no concept of reality. The world revolves around him. He has no empathy. I doubt he has the capacity for love. He’s a sociopath and the sooner a majority of people understand his proclivities the better.

Wil Wheaton announced a brand new weekly audiobook podcast called It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton, in which he narrates speculative fiction stories he loves from places like Lightspeed Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Clarkesworld Magazine, and On Spec. The podcast launches on March 26.

This sounds cool, but I’ll probably pass on adding it to my collection. I have too many podcasts already. Still, it’s only seven episodes, so maybe.

Ezra Klein speaks to Democratic pollster David Shor about what voter data reveals about the 2024 election.

On ethnicity:

Ezra Klein: “Where do we begin?” David Shor: “In 2016, Democrats received 81 percent of the Hispanic moderate vote, while in 2024 they received 58 percent. That’s only 6 percent more than the 52 percent of white moderates that they received in 2024. The main story here is just a continuation of the trends that we saw four years ago. Throughout the entire Trump campaign, we’ve observed this racial depolarization.”

On GOTV:

Klein: “How does that sit with you — the idea that Democrats didn’t lose to Trump, they lost to the couch?” Shor: “It’s just not empirically correct, I would say.”

On gender:

Klein: “I feel like the story you’re implying you believe here is that this polarization among young men and women is driven by young men who were in high school and online during Covid.” Shor: “We’re in the midst of a big cultural change that I think people are really underestimating. […] If you look at zoomers, there are some really interesting ways that they’re very different in the data. They’re much more likely than previous generations to say that making money is extremely important to them. If you look at their psychographic data, they have a lot higher levels of psychometric neuroticism and anxiety than the people before them.”

On messaging:

Klein: “If I’m reading this chart correctly, when Democrats attack Trump for cutting or wanting to cut Medicare and Social Security, his disapproval increases by 2.5 points. If they attack him for letting Elon slash budgets, hurting Americans and putting privacy at risk, that hurts him by 2.2 points. Passing a one-party power grab to cut government services without compromise, that’s 2.1 points. These all look about the same, and none of them creates a very big shift.” Shor: “Can you just think about this scenario for a second: Can you imagine stopping a Trump voter on the street and you say 70 words to them and then there’s a 2.5 percent chance they changed their mind? I think that’s incredible and a big deal.”

You can also read the entire transcript.

Professor and authoritarianism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat joins WIRED to answer the internet’s burning questions about dictators and fascism. Why do people support dictators? How do dictators come to power? What’s the difference between a dictatorship, an autocracy, and authoritarianism? What are the most common personality traits found in tyrants and dictators? Is Xi Jinping a dictator? How do dictators amass wealth? Professor Ben-Ghiat answers these questions and many more.

Spend half an hour and learn something.