Let’s start with a fantastic Q&A with Jerry Seinfeld.
The great joy to me is: I’m making this up, but let me see if I can make it sound like it makes sense to me. That’s what comedy is to me. They know I’m lying from the first line, and they don’t care.
Jerry Seinfeld Says Movies Are Over. Here’s Why He Made One Anyway
I found this summary of how and why Congress actually seemed to work like a functioning body for a few days recently really informative and interesting. Especially this section. Another reminder of how extreme gerrymandering hurts our political system far more than creating “safe” districts for the party in power.
…even as emotional hatred towards the other party (“affective polarization”) has skyrocketed, “ideological polarization” — the distance between Democratic and Republican voters on the issues — has barely grown.
Unlike in Congress, where ideological polarization has increased to the point that members of the two parties almost always vote in two distinct blobs (see above), a plurality of Americans still hold a mix of liberal and conservative views.
The week fluidity returned to Congress
Obligatory share of some terrific science news.
NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth
Your mileage may vary, but I geeked out over this insider look at one of the first in-car navigation systems. As impressive as our current technology is – our vehicle and phones are connecting to outer space to keep us on the correct route! – it is often more impressive to see how things were accomplished in less advanced times.
A Curious Phenomenon Called ‘Etak’
This piece focuses on how our mobile phones aren’t changing as much, year-to-year, as they used to and what that means for Apple’s business model. That’s true for all technology. Where you almost had to get a new laptop every two years not that long ago, now a good one will last you half a decade. Much of that is because way more of what we do is on the web rather than in apps, and the value of and need for highly-specced machines is much more limited.
As much as Apple would like us to think otherwise, this is where we are: iPhones are just phones. To most people — even to someone who spends all day selling them — they’re just a tool, and getting a new one feels like an inevitability, not an event. Something about as exciting as upgrading your washing machine.
The walls of Apple’s garden are tumbling down
I’ll admit that I’ve never been a KISS fan, even ironically. Yet I’m still flabbergasted they could sell their catalog for over $300 million in 2024. Can you really put their two or three songs that resonate with the general public into enough movies, shows, and ads, count on streaming revenue, and sell enough clothing to justify that outlay?
Kiss sells catalog, brand name and IP. Gene Simmons assures fans it is a ‘collaboration’