December 2nd, 2025

Forgot to mention yesterday that I got my first issue of The New Yorker in the mail! Very excited to have a subscription to a real magazine again!

I’m always amazed (not sure why) when I read stupid shit about music. This comment in a Rick Beato video of the top 10 tracks when the video was released about a month ago:

20 years ago albums were a thing and not just a collection of tracks sounding the same, bands were a thing, artists were artists and not just for looks. The music in last 20 or 25 years is far from memorable and mostly chewing gum for 5 mins

“Far from memorable”. Then I listen to this unmemorable song from 11 years ago:

Yep. No “artists” there.

Even if you don’t like that style of music it’s pretty clear when watching the level of artistry on hand in that performance. Never mind that the song is 10 minutes long and nobody is reading music…

Here’s another non-memorable song that sounds like it’s straight out of the 60s. Gardot clearly doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Snark aside Melody Gardot puts on a hell of a show. I saw her several years ago at Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL. Fantastic show.

Another reason I like Fastmail more than Gmail: filters are so much better. There is no way to have a filter stop as soon as it runs inside of Gmail so in order to have the same types of rules in place you have to jump through hoops.

Related to the special election in Tennessee today to fill a House seat and which is supposedly pretty tight in a very red district: seen in a photo of the Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn on a sign behind her: “Vote Early. Vote Aftyn”

From the “cool science stories nobody is seeing because Trump sucks all the oxygen out of the universe of news” dept: Research roundup: 6 cool stories we almost missed