In this era of reaching for your phone whenever your mind is left to wander, being inured to boredom is practically a superpower.
A study found that, when confronted with boredom in an experimental setting, many people chose to give themselves unpleasant electric shocks simply to distract from their own thoughts, or lack thereof.
I endorse the idea of diving headfirst into boredom, it's quite liberating.
Interesting take on (Silicon Valley) privilege versus exposure to the current Covid-19 pandemic.
They’re simply succumbing to one of the dominant ethos of the digital age, which is to design one’s personal reality so meticulously that existential threats are simply removed from the equation. The leap from a Fitbit tracking your heart rate to an annual full-body cancer scan or from a doorbell surveillance camera to a network of autonomous robot sentries is really just a matter of money. No matter the level of existential security, the Netflix shows we stream are the same.
I've certainly thought about this myself as we sit comfortably at home while delivery drivers and shop staff risk exposure to supply us with anything we need.
I just got round to reading this account of the legal shambles a couple of white hat hackers were dropped into when their clients, the state of Iowa, decided to abandon and ignore them. It's a gripping read.
MoMA just uploaded an amazingly clear film from 1902 showing the suspended railway in Wuppertal. It's still impressive today but it must have been something 118 years ago.
I was completely out of the loop with TikTok and the various allegations concerning it. This substantial take from Stratechery gave me a much clearer picture.
On the hypocrisy and deviousness of the fossil-fuel companies:
It’s here that British Petroleum, or BP, first promoted and soon successfully popularized the term “carbon footprint" in the early aughts. The company unveiled its “carbon footprint calculator” in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life — going to work, buying food, and (gasp) traveling — is largely responsible for heating the globe.
I knew about the anti-litter campaigns being funded by the packaging producers but I didn't know the carbon footprint was a similar industry invention. All created to put the focus on individual responsibility and cloak the oil industry's.
