wired.com

Meta’s New Feel-Good AI Ad Uses a Song About the World Ending

The clip features the David Bowie track "Five Years," which includes lyrics such as "Earth was really dying (dying)."

whyisthisinteresting

The Next Great Cities Edition

You can't prescribe meaning, you can't rush belonging. What you can design are the conditions for a city to become itself – the social anchors, the districts, the public places, and the systems that tie them all together. Success comes from cultivating culture, not imposing it.

whyisthisinteresting

The Monday Media Diet with Bodhi Landa

If you spend enough nights on the floor listening to people order martinis, explain natural wine to dates, or negotiate status through reservation choices, you start to realize restaurants are basically focus groups for contemporary aspiration.

noahpinion.blog

What defines Japan's national identity?

America is a flexible society that is rigid when it comes to religion; Japan is the opposite, a rigid society with a surprising flexibility when it comes to faith.

wired.com

Donald Trump’s White House UFC Event Would Be Embarrassing Anywhere

A Monster Energy–sponsored MMA show on the White House's South Lawn was never going to be the height of dignity. But UFC Freedom 250 is failing to clear even the lowest bar.

jefftweedy

In My Life (Beatles cover)

If you haven't heard them, you should check them out. I'm always turning people on to that band.

whyisthisinteresting

The AI Mirror Edition

AI is a mirror, not a crystal ball. It reflects ourselves back to us because it was trained on our words. When we wonder why it's boring or corporate, it's because we're boring and corporate!

3quarksdaily.com

The Use and Abuse of Joan Didion

Authors and their entire bodies of work can be encapsulated in fragments: a few underlined sentences from their books endlessly reposted on Instagram, influencers flaunting book covers on the beach, photographs of authors appearing lost in melancholy—or best of all, smoking—making rounds on the Internet.

honest-broker.com

The Fantastic Nicknames of Jazz

If you're a jazz fan, see how many of the nicknames in the poem below you can identify. And even if you're not a jazz fan, keep reading—you will still enjoy this.

3quarksdaily.com

The American anxiety about alcohol as pleasure and punishment

Over the centuries, drinking has accrued pearly layers of significance, becoming a symbolic and cultural ritual.

honest-broker.com

Four Steps to Hell

Record labels and movie studios have always sought profit—but not long ago they also sought prophets. So when talent scout John Hammond signed Bob Dylan at age 20) or Bruce Springsteen (at age 23) or even earlier launched the recording career of Billie Holiday (at age 17), he obviously wanted his employer Columbia Records to make money. But that was secondary—his real goal was promoting artistry and boosting talent.

whyisthisinteresting

The Saturday Selection, Vol. 96

From art to religion to sex, instrumentalisation has drained away intrinsic value. But life is about more than material benefits.

longreads.com

Who Can I Dance With?

It lingered only at private gatherings, where people would move their bodies in ways that barely resembled dance—rigid, mechanical, almost comical.

3quarksdaily.com

Romantic love is a cultural invention that’s making us miserable

We have been in the romantic age now for 200 years, perhaps shorter, perhaps a little longer time period. And let's put it plainly, it's been a disaster.