I knew nothing at all about Ellen Siberian Tiger as of two days ago, but this record got mentioned on The Key and honestly, it’s lighting my hair on fire.

Currently reading: The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner 📚

Hard not to read this quote about AT&T’s testing of the Picturephone (an early telephone with video features) in the context of Zoom fatigue in 2020:

When the AT&T market researchers asked Picturephone users whether it was important to see the person they were speaking to during a conversation, a vast majority said it was either “very important” or “important.” To phone company executives, this must have been deeply encouraging. Apparently the market researchers never asked users their opinion about whether it was important, or even pleasurable, that the person they were speaking with could see them, too.

Some people baked bread, some people cut bangs, some people took up knitting. Maybe my pandemic coping hobby can be “needlessly replacing every tool in my productivity tool chain.”

If you think installing tracking software to spy on your reports would make you more comfortable with extended remote work, you have failed as a manager.

Now that I’ve had a chance to rewatch The Rise of Skywalker a couple times, I feel comfortable ranking the films. Posting it here for posterity:

  1. The Empire Strikes Back
  2. Rogue One
  3. The Force Awakens
  4. Return Of The Jedi
  5. A New Hope
  6. Solo
  7. The Rise Of Skywalker
  8. The Last Jedi
  9. Attack Of The Clones
  10. Revenge Of The Sith
  11. The Phantom Menace

Thank you for your time.

I’ve consumed a lot of “how to lead remotely" content lately (for obvious reasons) and so much of it boils down to:

  • acknowledging humanity
  • meeting your reports where they are
  • demonstrating empathy
  • active listening

So, like… what were leaders doing before last week?

Finished reading: Horror Stories: A Memoir by Liz Phair 📚

If you were expecting a linear memoir Liz Phair, or “here’s what happened the night I wrote ‘Flower,’ you’re going to be a bit disappointed. Phair abandons the linear format that plagues many otherwise interesting memoirs and instead presents a series of stories that seek to answer the question “why are you like this?”

She’s always direct, never pulling punches, even when she’s shining a light on her own behavior. She never apologizes, but rather presents her truth and leaves interpretation up to the reader.

Being a huge fan of her discography isn’t required to enjoy this book; in fact, she devotes vanishingly few pages to it. Most of the musical discussion that is present in the book focuses on the aftermath of her 2003 self-titled record, and how exhausting and uncomfortable her brush with pop stardom felt for her. It never comes off as pity-seeking, but rather “these were the consequences of choices I made.”

If sea levels increase a little under 2 feet by 2100, Delaware (the nation’s lowest-lying state) will lose roughly 8% of its land area, including nearly all of the state’s protected wetlands.

🔗 What Does Climate Change Look Like in Delaware?

I never bothered to make a Best of 2019 music list, which is something I’ve done since my teenaged years, but I did make a “best beers I had for the first time in 2019” list, so there’s that.

After decades of advancements in semantic markup and accessibility, Instagram decided that we should consume all content as flat, inaccessible images via Stories and we just… went along with it.

The very structure of American life has changed to make the basics of stability difficult to attain, down to something as simple as eating with your partner or child…The problem of dinner is far larger than what you’re going to eat.

🔗 Dinner in America: Who Has the Time to Cook? - The Atlantic

Haven’t watched anything yet, but my first impression of Disney+ is that every single other streaming platform needs to copy how D+ handles login on Apple TV.

This new Sturgill Simpson record is the sound of an artist just straight-up Going For It on every single song. It has no chill whatsoever, and I mean that in the best possible way. I think I love it.

Anyone who insists Apple is “now a services company” has never logged in to iCloud•com.

I somehow found the spot in YouTube TV that allows me to record all college football games with one click. I am drunk with power.

Actually, it’s fine that my rMBP battery percentage indicator decrements even when it’s plugged in. It’s fine and good.

Finished reading: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell 📚

A few thoughts:

  • The “doing nothing” in the title isn’t just chilling, or conspicuous, performative self-care. It’s deeper and more profound than that, in a way I was not totally prepared for.

  • I was also not preparedness all for the academic rigor, complete with a web of primary sources. This is a substantial book.

  • (There is something somewhat ironic about reading this on vacation, as the author stresses the value of “resisting in place.”)

  • I’ve also been rereading “Franny and Zoey” on the beach (for the hundredth time, perhaps) and I keep coming back to this quote from Salinger, a quote so large I want to live inside it:

“There’s a marvelous peace in not publishing, there’s a stillness. When you publish, the world thinks you owe something. If you don’t publish, they don’t know what you’re doing. You can keep it for yourself.”

Anyway, I really want to think about this ideas that this book is posing. Like, really think deeply about them. And I get the irony of posting half-baked thoughts about this book, but this is maybe just part of my process of thinking now… And maybe that’s why I needed this book so badly.

Front cover of “How To Do Nothing” by Jennifer Odell

Working on it.

The vacation house has Yahtzee… but no score sheets. Downloaded a score sheet to my iPad Mini, opened it in Notes and am keeping score with the Pencil. I am living in an Apple commercial.

“This is some really nice music… if you’re old.”

— Yung Stunna on John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.