Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.
- Bill Simmons could be a free agent at Spotify
- Intel is laying off 15,000 and stopping all non-essential work. They currently employ over 125,000. (HT Steve Landry)
- Detrimental effects of UBI (Universal Basic Income)
Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.
- Mookie Betts to be full-time 2nd baseman.
- The rise of the US dollar since the 19th century. The dominance of the dollar is a relatively new thing and should not be assumed to be permanent.
- Spotify lays off 1,500 workers. CEO keeps job. (HT Steve Landry)
Seems just like in diet where real food where you select the ingredients is much more healthy for you - curated playlists on streaming platforms are like processed foods filled with empty calories. Just in this case the empty calories are fake artists and music.
It's all about who the algorithm awards the royalty dollars to.
Steve Rodgers, "I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from."
Glenn Greenwald on the pressure on Spotify to "silence" Joe Rogan. Misinformation is the new "hate speech" tool being used to censor those who disagree with the preferred progressive narrative. Ironic when you recall that when Donald Trump spoke about "Fake News" people accused him of making things up.
How many airheads with a platform like Sean Penn and Danny Glover advocating for Hugo Chavez before Chavez destroyed Venezuela do we need to listen to before we tell these people to fuck off? Everything can't be hate speech and everyone can't be racists and every opinion that differs from yours isn't misinformation. Enough!
Fuck off! I stand with Joe Rogan and with free speech.
Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.
Cool nugget from the Football Outsiders Almanac 2021; "[Tom] Brady, we should note, has one more playoff win over NFC opponents than [Drew] Brees does despite only playing a single year in the actual NFC playoff bracket." Not a knock on Brees in any way but just another example of how historically great Brady has been. (Most of Brady's playoff wins over NFC opponents came in 6-Super Bowl victories with the Pats.)... Joe Rogan, confined to Spotify, is losing influence. Agree with the premise but not the metrics and some of the reasoning they use (who cares about Twitter follower gains - after so many appearances how many more followers is a guest expected to get). Yes not having full episodes on YouTube hurts Rogan's reach but doesn't effect download numbers (why download an episode if you've already watched it on YouTube?). Besides one of the reasons Spotify gave Rogan so much money is as the flagship draw for Spotify's own video platform. As an aside I just added the Spotify app to my phone specifically for Rogan's podcast... Very effective ad. I couldn't help but wonder how (or how long before) the Big Tech firms would censor its distribution... Matt Ridley: Playing the Wild Card. "'Rewilding' is fashionable but there is more to it than letting Nature run free." Hiking in New England it is not unusual to run into a stone wall in the middle of the forest because back in Colonial days that area used to be a farm - but is now uninhabited "rewilded" forest...
Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.
- Good for Shopify's CEO Tobi Lutke
- VDH: The Firebombing of Japan. Malcolm Gladwell has a new book on this subject that's on my reading wish list.
- The rise of anti-Semitism in America is disturbing and has no place in a civil society
Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.
Remember wondering how the fact that FDR was crippled and for the most part confined to a wheelchair could be kept hidden from the American people by a willing and complicit US press? Well future generations will wonder the same thing about Joe Biden's cognitive decline... If I played in the NBA I would try to make my "social justice" message on my jersey "Flat Tax Now!" That certainly qualifies as social justice - right? Doubt the NBA would allow it though... Yesterday I posted the Thomas Jefferson quote, "Liberty is the parent of science and virtue, and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free." I mentioned that political correctness was stifling true science. Also yesterday Scientific American came out and endorsed Joe Biden. "We've never backed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history - until now." It would take Scientific American another 175-years to get their credibility back but my guess is the magazine now won't last another decade... Tim Ferriss mentioned that one of the underrated things about Joe Rogan's Spotify deal is that it is exclusive. That probably means for video too. Ferriss points out that this is a big deal as Rogan's videos of his podcasts pull in huge numbers on YouTube. All of those views would now be going to whatever Spotify's new video offering is. Just something to keep in mind...
