Yup. This supposed exchange with his neighbor making the coins is pretty amusing. Explanations the note on the website about the neighbor not having given them back yet. https://x.com/LegbootLegit/status/1919745971673551192
Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler presents a new model for creative collaboration called the Artist Corporation — a legal structure designed to help artists and creators collectively own their work, share revenue, and access funding. Drawing inspiration from indie music labels, early scientific societies, and co-ops, he outlines how “metalabels” can support group publishing and financial coordination.
The quirky sensibility coming through in the copy might appeal to the demographic interested in maintaining personal digital gardens rather than a slick SaaS product. It does too me!
I agree. This is a helpful take. The book Prediction Machines [1] is a longer version, and longer view explanation, of what Ben Evan's shares in the post you link to.
The mismatch between AI’s actual utility and its hype reminded me of Prediction Machines[1], which frames technological change as progressing from point solutions → platform solutions → system solutions.
We’re still in the “what the heck is the point solution here” phase, with a lot of anticipation for platform and system-level shifts. There are some point solutions—like coding assistants—that make existing workflows more efficient and higher quality, but they haven’t translated easily to other domains. Platform solutions require completely rethinking workflows holistically, and system solutions demand restructuring everything that depends on those workflows. That’s going to be slow and messy. Including financially messy.
The book likens this to the introduction of electricity. Initially, electrification meant new individual machines in factories organized around steam power. Steam power was hard to turn on and off and not at all portable. Actually getting the full benefit of electricity meant redesigning factories around electricity use as-needed (not just when the steam engine was running) and spatially organize around task efficiency (not proximity to the steam energy production). All that was not a quick shift.
I very much sympathize with the author's frustration over hype that fails to understand the underlying technology and puts unwarranted faith in a small collection of corporate leaders. But I do think that this technology does have a high degree systems change potential and possibly the momentum to see it through this time. Not that we know how that will play out of which actors or forces will bring it to fruition. It really doesn't feel the same as the other tech crazes of the last two decades.
Comparing Kagi to Google on an individual search basis may not be the best way to assess the service. There are a number of features that make it preferable to Google and DuckDuckGo for many of us.
- Ranking results from specific websites has been well referenced in comments here. I love always knowing if something is on archive.org and wikipedia by having those results come to the top. I also rank certain sources of medical information up and down based on reputability, basically overriding their SEO nonsense.
- There are subtle indications for sites that have a high number of ads and trackers, allowing me to opt not to even click on those results.
- AI summaries and answers are not on by default, and simply adding a question mark to the end of my search allows me to get an AI generated answer to my inquiry. I've found these to be very good, but I don't always want them so the control is great.
- Marketing and ecommerce sites seem to be aggressively minimized, which makes the internet feel less like walking through a mall. I only really go to Google if I am shopping for something and want those kinds of results, but this is rare.
All of this makes for a much better experience of the internet overall for me. The reduced cognitive noise is well worth the $10 in my case.
I can't speak to how it preformed in non-English content, so you may be well served by using Google for German content in that case.
I've done video calls from the roof of Stavros Foundation Library, but that's weather dependent.
Actually, now that I think of it, I've also done at least one video call from the halls of the Stephen A. Schwarzman research branch across the street. Granted, these are not dedicated co-working spaces where you can make any noise you wish, but some calls are possible.
A new library branch, the first new one in the Brooklyn system in over 30 years, opened on the ground floor of my building. It's been the biggest quality of life boost I ever remember experiencing that didn't involve a move. The librarians know me by name because I put so many board games on hold.
It helped me get up to speed with gen AI as a graduate school professor and now his posts are the most useful ones I sent to others to help them get oriented.
Sometimes, sure this is the case. I know a few big time artists who have dedicated teams that are always behind the scenes. But plenty of times it's not, as Simon himself pointed out below.
My brother is an "influencer" in the legit sense that he makes all his money from having a following (mostly through brand partnerships). He only gets help for very specific tasks on a project-by-project basis and even then he doesn't do that very often. He loves working alone and the freedom that comes from that.
I have studied funeral design. One of the most inspiring funeral directors I interviewed (https://www.zenithvirago.com/) had a particular specialty for suicides. She was keen on ensuring the parents had a healthy and complete mourning process. This almost always involved insisting that they get up to speak at the funeral, to the point where she lends her body to help them stay standing through the process. At least by her own accounting, it has a profoundly positive effect on how the parents get through this grief that I can hardly imagine. It's an opportunity that doesn't return.
She teaches that when it comes to death and dying and supporting other going through the process, be present, neutral, kind, and courageous. It is hard and awkward to get up to speak. And no shame in not doing it, especially as a more distant connection. But also a lot of good can come from it as well.
So it was most helpful as a conduit for your doctor to get more granular info about your health issue? That's great to hear. I wonder about things that don't rise to that level, like nutrition and resting heart rate that can be important for longterm health. A doctor will likely give general advice for those things if no critical issues are present. But if I've got all this data, why not make use of it before an issue arises?
This question made me laugh from painful recognition... can't wait to hear what others have to offer.
I've mainly taken a mindset of extreme uninvestment, not that I'm not working hard or interested in the problems put before me, but I'm very uninvested in the work going anywhere or anything happening with what I do. This was very hard to learn after running my own companies where I essentially needed the opposite mindset.
Podcast episode (26 minutes) where Evgeny Morozov examines the work of Warren Brody (a psychoanalyst) and Avery Johnson, who developed an alternative vision of human-computer interaction in the 1960s. While their contemporaries pursued "human augmentation" - creating human-computer systems to maximize productivity - Brody and Johnson advocated for "human enhancement," using technology to help people develop richer perceptions and creative capabilities. They argued that information quantity doesn't equate to learning, emphasizing instead how context shapes interpretation.
I had a hard time reading Attia's book because something seemed so extreme and vigilant about his approach. The last chapter really blew that all open in the dramatic portrayal of how psychologically unhealthy many aspects of his life are, for seemingly tragic reasons. For me, the trauma driving his perfectionism brought into question the ethos of his whole approach, regardless of how sound or not the science may be.