Is Netflix the only company within the high-flying FAANG stock portfolio not under antitrust scrutiny?
I appreciate Eddy Cue’s honesty regarding Apple Music lossless encoding. Very few people will be able to notice a difference.
~ via Shame in the Public Arena - Glory to God for All Things
Listening to the spaceship engine sounds from the Dark Noises app at night makes me feel like I’m praying in my quarters aboard the Starship Enterprise.
Adding this movie to my Netflix queue was an easy call.
A new Netflix movie called Skater Girl chronicles the journey of an Indian teenage girl who discovers a life-changing passion for skateboarding. It’s also the story of Asha Gond.
I’ve longed for pages like this on Apple Music, where you can see the output of a record label. Trusting the curation of a particular label has been one of the best ways to find new music since forever.
Freddie deBoer recently read an oral history of the film Dazed and Confused. He found himself wondering about the sense, among the cast and crew of the movie, that the kind of teenage cruelty depicted would never fly today. In At the Heart of It All, the writer, who never seems shy about openly discussing the more difficult aspects of life, argues that this type of cruelty among teenagers is not only still here, but will indeed never fully go away.
As the kids say, “it me.”
When Medium decided to stop funding many of the publications on their platform, most editors of those publications wrote nice notes thanking Medium for their patronage. A few detailed new plans for publishing their content elsewhere. Sarah Cords, from P.S. I Love You, however, will not go gently into that good night. She is angry about the defunding of the publication she had put her heart into, and wants others to know it.
📚When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanathi: The story of Kalanathi’s promising life as a neurosurgeon disappearing with his diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer is tragic. However, Kalanathi’s musings on medical care, relationships and life make this an inspiring read.
I recently showed my wife my iPhone screen, which was dulled by complete grayscale. She responded by telling me that it didn’t look as interesting without the colors. Which was just the point. The once vibrant phone, alluring to my eyes, was now rendered much more boring. The bloom had come off the rose, and my attention was my own again.
At this point, none of the money from the $16 billion “Save Our Stages” relief fund has been distributed. I was happy our senator was supporting that bill and I would love to see the venues get payments.
🎮 Oregon Trail: I haven’t actually played the game, but I enjoy listening to the desert noir soundtrack when my wife is playing it.
Following the previous post, I’m risking turning this into a Sharon Von Etten fan blog, which would be weird, since I haven’t even heard most of her work. I did come across this cover of one of Daniel Johnston’s best songs, “Some Things Last A Long Time,” though, and found it unique enough to want to share.
It may be partly the haircuts (hey Linda Ronstadt), but something feels so authentically 70’s about this collaboration between Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten. Despite the video featuring the two artists sitting alone in rooms playing acoustic guitar, this song has a fleshed out band that augments the pair well. The song plays with country instincts the way many in the 70’s did (think Fleetwood Mac), without giving in to the cornier trappings of the genre. If the YouTube comments are any indication, the harmonies between Olsen and Van Etten are the realization of the dreams of many fans.
Facebook has been quietly rolling out a prayer post feature that will let users post prayer requests. The slow roll includes targeting particular users (ones who make their religious preferences fairly apparent, I would imagine). Once the request is posted, other users can respond to the request for prayer.
Photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash. There are many reasons to be frustrated with Spotify, but my number one at the moment has to be the way their payment setup is forcing artists to change their song structure in order to get paid by the service. So much so that it’s considered an act of rebellion for a song to have a standard verse, chorus, verse format. Or, as in the case, that Alan Jacobs writes about, a slow intro that gives way to something with hooks.
I appreciate the way the official Micro.blog app has edges. If I don’t click the “Show More” button, I get a good snapshot of what is going on and don’t spend the time endlessly scrolling. It’s nice to have the choice to make depending on my time and attention.
📺 The Bad Batch: The first episode got the thumbs up from the little guy, who loved Clone Wars. May the 4th be with you.
🎮 Wonderbox: My son is really enjoying the single and multiplayer modes of this game. The levels and the puzzles feel so lovingly crafted. An Apple Arcade delight.
These Buy Nothing groups, which offer a way to trade goods with neighbors and reduce spending and waste, are a fantastic idea.
🍿 Wolfwalkers - A brilliantly and vibrantly illustrated movie. I was frustrated with the narrative that pagans were enlightened and Christians were backwards, but my wife thinks the contrast was more about the way the British saw the Irish.
Over at Brainpickings, Maria Popova writes about accepting reality and setting your expectations accordingly. Though most of the piece is focused on passages from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, she also offers lessons in equanimity from Walt Whitman, who had to reset his outlook in the face of a debilitating stroke.
When Ursula Le Guin wrote the The Tombs of Atuan (published in 1970), the second book in the Earthsea series, female leads in fantasy books were almost nonexistent. It was countercultural for her to include Arha, a young priestess, as the main character. She discusses this in the more recently written afterward to the book.