I donât mind some optimism
Opinion | James Carville: Three Reasons Iâm Certain Kamala Harris Will Win
Why Iâm not sweating this election.
nytimes.com
@JayMutzafi
Philosopher, Coder, Podcaster. Topics: Lucid Dreaming, Neuroscience, Tech. Founder at Paracosm Labs. Host of 2 Podcasts.
JayMutzafi.comI donât mind some optimism
Opinion | James Carville: Three Reasons Iâm Certain Kamala Harris Will Win
Why Iâm not sweating this election.
nytimes.com
Letâs put AI to good use.
âMake your health insurance company cryâ: One womanâs fight to turn the tables on insurers
This San Francisco tech worker's AI project makes it easier to fight back against health insurance denials.
sfstandard.com
Let's mix it up a bit, how about a recipe? As someone who grew up in the land of milk and hummus, it shocked me how good a MICROWAVE hummus recipe that takes 5 minutes to make can be. Give this a try, you wonât regret it.
Easy 5-Minute Microwave Hummus
A few weeks ago I went to a friend's bridal shower where we all pitched in to provide a handsome spread of food and drink. I was on wine and smoothie
minimalistbaker.com
The rebuttal to my last postâs article.
No, Most Books Don't Sell Only a Dozen Copies
A little post on why publishing statistics are so confusing
countercraft.substack.com
Some interesting industry stats. Edit: Iâve seen an article rebutting this one. See my next post.
No one buys books
Everything we learned about the publishing industry from Penguin vs. DOJ.
elysian.press
Feels like a good time to bump this.
Thereâs No Such Thing As A Protest Vote
Weâre in the season of protest vote advocacy, with writers of all political stripes making arguments for third-party candidates (JillâŠ
medium.com
New scientific overview of Lucid Dreaming is out, with a really nice section about citizen science!
The neuroscience of lucid dreaming: Past, present, future
Lucid dreaming allows conscious awareness and control of vivid dream states; however, its rarity and instability make neuroscientific experimentation âŠ
sciencedirect.com
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Inventor of the First Karaoke Machine, Shigeichi Negishi, Dead at 100
Shigeichi Negishi, the Japanese engineer who invented the first karaoke machine, has died at the age of 100.
rollingstone.com
Insanely cool and rare breakthrough for a fatal disease. Absolutely amazing.
The Cystic-Fibrosis Breakthrough That Changed Everything
The disease once guaranteed an early deathâbut a new treatment has given many patients a chance to live decades longer than expected. What do they do now?
theatlantic.com
Not all heroes wear capesâŠ
A Conspiracy To Kill IE6 âą Chris Zacharias
The bittersweet consequence of YouTubeâs incredible growth is that so many stories will be lost underneath all of the layers of new paint. This is why I wanted to tell the story of how, ten years ago, a small team of web developers conspired to... | Chris Zacharias | Founder of imgix. YCombinator alum. Ex-YouTuber. Studied New Media at RIT.
blog.chriszacharias.com
This is a pilot program thatâs only available in 12 states for now but itâs a good start. Long overdue.
The IRSâs new free tax filing website is ready to use
The new Direct File website will let taxpayers in 12 states file free â but only a limited number of users can try it out in its early weeks.
washingtonpost.com
A public library getting into publishing is kind of brilliant, I think.
The L.A. Public Library is getting into book publishing. Why it makes total sense
The Los Angeles Public Library has acquired Santa Monica-based publisher Angel City Press, which focuses on L.A. history and culture. It makes perfect sense
latimes.com
I canât help but be optimistic, itâs a brain quirk of mine, so itâs nice when people provide reasons to be, so I donât feel completely delusional
How to Be Optimistic About Technology Now
When I was much younger, I assumed people who were optimistic must have misplaced confidence. How anyone could see a future so bright was a complete mystery, I reasoned, when what we are exposed to is a series of mistakes and then attempts at correction from public officials, corporate executives, and others. This is not [âŠ]
pxlnv.com
Had to post it for the headline alone.
Sphere and Loathing in Las Vegas
My night in front of the worldâs largest LED screen
theatlantic.com
A Kit Kat heist. Modern crime is fascinating.
How to Hijack a Quarter of a Million Dollars in Rare Japanese Kit Kats
The long, strange criminal trail of one stolen load of valuable sweets.
nytimes.com
At long last! Connections has been resurrected. Iâve been saying for years that the modern world needs a show like Connections to remind us of all the things we take for granted, and how everything is a step in a complex chain of human creation. The original show is very much still worth a watch. I believe all episodes exist on YouTube.
Fans of Connections, rejoice! Rebooted classic sci-doc series returns with original host
Ars chats with host James Burke about his "connective" approach to science history.
arstechnica.com
I have been championing for a leaf blower ban/restrictions for many many years. Beyond happy things are moving on this front.
Hear that? Itâs the sound of leaf blower bans.
As restrictions spread, neighborhoods are getting quieter â and cleaner.
grist.org
Also supports the idea that technology is neutral, and the implementation is not.
Social media algorithms can be redesigned to bridge divides â hereâs how
"It falls to both the tech companies that built these systems and an engaged public to create technologies designed for social cohesion."
niemanlab.org
âThis was a terrible idea and I regret everything.â
Weird A.I. Yankovic, a cursed deep dive into the world of voice cloning - Waxy.org
What would it sound like if the musicians parodied by "Weird Al" Yankovic sang *his* parodies instead? I jumped off the deep end into the world of A.I. voice cloning to find out, and the results are even worse than you imagine.
waxy.org
What the actual fuck? âWhen you take a photo on your phone, the vibrations of your voice can create tiny bends in the light that are enough to extract audio, according to Kevin Fu, a professor of engineering and computer science at Northeastern University.â
Your photos can hear you. AI and machine learning help researchers get audio from still images and silent videos
Using a machine learning assisted tool called Side Eye, researchers can extract audio from photos and muted videos like TikToks.
news.northeastern.edu
Editing text on mobile is still atrocious.
The invisible problem â Scott Jenson
jenson.org
Permission to be wrong is a rare gift
Birds Arenât Real? How a Conspiracy Takes Flight | Peter McIndoe | TED
Peter McIndoe isn't a fan of birds. In fact, he has a theory about them that might shock you. Listen along to this eye-opening talk as it takes a turn and ma...
youtu.be
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Portland ranked 11th best city to survive a zombie apocalypse
Whether the zombies wander slow like "The Walking Dead" or run at a terrifying pace like "World War Z" it seems like Portland is a decent place to be if a zombie outbreak happens.
oregonlive.com
With an unadulterated timeline, Seabird is already in compliance. Ahead of the curve as always. This is going to be interesting and in theory, a very good thing. But devil and details and all that.
All hail the new EU law that lets social media users quiet quit the algorithm | TechCrunch
Internet users in the European Union are logging on to a quiet revolution on mainstream social networks today: The ability to say 'no thanks' to being Internet users in the European Union are logging on to a quiet revolution on mainstream social networks today: The ability to say 'no thanks' to being attention hacked by AI.
techcrunch.com
If the image somehow truly resembles anything remotely corresponding to the reality of those particles, that would be pretty freaking cool.
Visualizing the mysterious dance: Quantum entanglement of photons captured in real-time
Researchers at the University of Ottawa, in collaboration with Danilo Zia and Fabio Sciarrino from the Sapienza University of Rome, recently demonstrated a novel technique that allows the visualization ...
phys.org
This is the way
The US just invested more than $1 billion to kick
The move represents a big step in the effort to suck CO2 out of the atmosphereâand slow down climate change.
technologyreview.com
This timeline just keeps getting weirderâŠ
Warner Bros. Japan Apologizes For the US Barbie's Official Social Accounts Engaging in Barbenheimer Memes
Warner Bros. Japan issues apology over the use of Barbenheimer memes on social media.
themarysue.com
I happen to be adjacent to the venn diagram of San Francisco rationalist/spiritual community so Iâve seen this unfold a while back and always thought it was a creative modern solution fitting our social media world. Interesting to see it hitting mainstream.
Tired of Dating Apps, Some Turn to Google Docs
Writers of so-called Date-Me Docs, which can read like 1,000-word versions of the personal ads of yore, hope for a more meaningful connection than a swipe might allow.
nytimes.com
People (at least in tech) know what dogfooding is. âEating your own dog foodâ or using your own product in a way that informs you of what itâs actually like using your product. A while back I came up with the idea of Catfooding, which is learning what the experience of using your competitorâs product is. I feel line still not enough companies do this.
Catfooding
jaymutzafi.com
I, for one, welcome our new potato overlords. Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to link to a website called SpudmanâŠ
The eyes have it: Potatoes prevail in battle for Oregon state vegetable supremacy
The potato is now the official state vegetable of Oregon after a bill passed the state House of Representatives on June 21
spudman.com
Mashup memes continue...
Matthew McConaughey Contemplates Barbenheimer
Existential Matthew McConaughey is back to unravel the mystery of Barbenheimer. After all, he's worked with Nolan. He understands the infinite possibilities ...
youtube.com
You might not have to venture to Alaska to see the northern lightsâŠ
Here are the NW states where the northern lights are likely to appear this week
Northern lights occur when a magnetic solar wind slams into the Earthâs magnetic field and causes atoms in the upper atmosphere to glow. The lights appear suddenly and the intensity varies.
oregonlive.com
Pictures and videos of the MSG Sphere in Vegas have been making the rounds. But here is a cool video of some of its construction process and design from a year ago.
Las Vegas is Building the Worldâs Largest Sphere
Vegas thought it had seen everything. For more by The B1M subscribe now - http://ow.ly/GxW7y Full story here - https://theb1m.com/video/the-world-first-stru...
youtube.com
âDesperate to play catch-up to Facebook and Twitter, the company shut down one of its most prescient projects; you can see in Reader shades of everything from Twitter to the newsletter boom to the rising social web. To executives, Google Reader may have seemed like a humble feed aggregator built on boring technology. But for users, it was a way of organizing the internet, for making sense of the web, for collecting all the things you care about no matter its location or typeâŠâ
%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F24761812%2F236714_Google_RSS_Reader_HHerrera.jpeg)
Who killed Google Reader?
Google Reader was supposed to be much more than a tool for nerds. But it never got the chance.
theverge.com
I want to offer a counterpoint to this notion: the answer engine could reduce the amount of spam blogs on the web and will force a return to quality and substance, because most of what can be summarized, especially as an answer to explicit questions, is commodity information. People might not bother publishing another listicle or a recipe that is filler packed only to attract search engines because those will be circumvented by an answer engine. Remains to be seenâŠ
Google Is About To Turn The Online Publishing Industry Upside Down
Google plans to change the way it presents search engine results by using artificial intelligence. And, at the risk of overstating the potential consequences, it will be like dropping a nuclear bomb on an online publishing industry thatâs already struggling to survive.
forbes.com
Great name, great concept, great success.
43-year-old used her life savings to open a bar that only plays women's sportsâit brought in almost $1 million in 8 months
Jenny Nguyen, founder of Portland, Oregon-based The Sports Bra, says she never wanted to start her own bar or restaurant. Here's what changed her mind.
cnbc.com
For better or worse, MRIs are huge and expensive. Wait until they do visual imagery at high fidelity and really blow everyoneâs mind.
Scientists Use GPT AI to Passively Read People's Thoughts in Breakthrough
An AI model similar to ChatGPT was combined with fMRI readings to non-invasively decode continuous language from subjects, a new study reports.
vice.com
Iâm considering the matter settled.
Nutrition Scienceâs Most Preposterous Result: Could Ice Cream Possibly Be Good for You?
Studies show a mysterious health benefit to ice cream. Scientists donât want to talk about it.
theatlantic.com
âThis is what it feels like to pay for the product instead of being the product: There is an experience and a service with relatively clear limits that I obtain in exchange for money, rather than a series of traps to avoid or puzzles to solve in exchange for the possibility that I might forget for a few hours at a time all the things that give me anxiety.â
Why would anyone subscribe to a social media platform?
The lost quality of "Doesn't Make Me Wish I Was Dead"
maxread.substack.com
The cognitive burden of the modern era
Every Day is April Foolâs Day Now
Deepfakes, Puffy Popes, AI-generated Trump arrest photos, articles written by GPT-4: We're living in a world where fear of being fooled is constant.
vice.com
If I could make a living either talking philosophy, or time travel, I would. So I couldnât resist an invite to one of my favorite sci-fi podcasts to talk about the philosophy and physics of Interstellar.
How Time Travel Works in "Interstellar" â Andrew Heaton
Jay Mutzafi rejoins the show to discuss the many elements of "Interstellar," from gravity to parenting to gut feelings. Jay's notes on the various forms of time travel here: https://jaymutzafi.com/time-travel-movies-tv-shows/
mightyheaton.com
Back from the future!
A Growing Number of Scientists Are Convinced the Future Influences the Past
âOur instincts of time and causation are our deepest, strongest instincts that physicists and philosophersâand humansâare loath to give up,â said one scientist.
vice.com
In preparation for a podcast appearance I've decided to publish a my personal list of Time Travel movies and TV shows. It's a work in progress, and I intended to add more notes and items to these lists, but it's a decent starting point. Spoiler tags included...
Time Travel Movies & TV Shows
A non-exhaustive list of Time Travel Movies, TV Shows, and more, updated
jaymutzafi.com
Emulating human traits in AI, such as emotions, or worse, self-awareness, is going to confuse a lot of people in potentially terrible ways.
You Are Not a Parrot
And a chatbot is not a human. And a linguist named Emily M. Bender is very worried what will happen when we forget this.
nymag.com
Ted Chiang has some used metaphors for ChatGPT like lossy image compression for the web.
ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web
OpenAIâs chatbot offers paraphrases, whereas Google offers quotes. Which do we prefer?
newyorker.com
Some folks are working on an app to make it easier to find non-alcoholic cocktails out in the wild.
BuzzCutt
Weâre making it easier to find N/A while out, connecting you to bars and restaurants that have options you can enjoy.
buzzcutt.co
Finally, someone is tinkering with caffeine metabolism.
Can Science Finally Create a Decent Cup of Decaf?
slate.com
Our New Social Media Platform, The Matrix, Isnât About Enslaving HumanityâItâs About Bringing People Together
We know that you, humans, and us, the machines, have had our differences in the past. Differences that led to all-out war and culminated in humans ...
mcsweeneys.net
Cable Sasser, Portlandean, creator of the Mac software company Panic, and unique snack aficionado, is blogging again! Itshappening.gif!
The Blog Is Back. (Also Snacks.)
Hello!! Itâs been a while. My name is Cabel and you probably came here from Twitter? Maybe? For the past too-many years Twitter absorbed all of my âblogging energyâ âit was âŠ
cabel.com
Everyone is tinkering with image generating AI but I've been playing around with music generation AI. Unfortunately since the music industry is more regulated, all of the clever demos for these tools that were able to generate music "in the style of" specific songs and artists, never saw the light of day.
Empowering the World to Create Music | Soundful
Soundful is an intelligence-driven music platform that enables creators and artists to be inspired, create and monetize music.
soundful.com