What the Cult Singer Daniel Johnston Left Behind: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/arts/music/daniel-johnston-drawings-artwork-book.html

Daniel was a brilliant songwriter. brilliant.

#music #MusicTips #DanielJohnston #artist #art

@sharan Another bonus fact: 'The Bog Body' lyrics came from Murphy feeling jealousy over his girlfriend posing lewdly with a thousands-of-years-old mummified body...

@sharan same author but another title: https://bookwyrm.social/book/279165/s/the-devil-all-the-time

@pivic This (and similar) needs much more exposure!

We can't walk around thinking it'll be OK as long as we re-cycle our bottle caps and shampoo bottles while being blindsided by massive greenwashing.

#environment #pollution #greenwashing #recycling

World’s Top 111 Corporations Have Caused $28T in Climate Damages, Study Finds
https://truthout.org/articles/worlds-top-111-corporations-have-caused-28t-in-climate-damages-study-finds/

'Study authors seek to attribute climate damages to individual corporate polluters in order to hold them accountable.'

#ClimateCatastrophe #corporations #capitalism

"1970 kostade 1 liter mjölk i USA 35 cent. 2023 var priset 1 dollar och 15 cent. Om mjölkpriset hade gått upp lika mycket som genomsnittet för bostäder i länderna inom OECD skulle samma liter idag kosta 7 dollar och 20 cent, eller nätta 75 kronor.

Bara de senaste tio åren har bostadspriserna inom OECD, som förenklat kan beskrivas som den rika delen av världen, ökat med i genomsnitt 87 procent.

För tjugofem år sedan kostade en lägenhet på 50 kvadratmeter i Stockholm i genomsnitt runt 550 000 kronor, eller två och en halv årslöner mätt med den tidens inkomster.

Idag kostar samma bostad tolv årslöner."

— Andreas Cervenka: Fuskbygget, pp. 19-19

@sharan Yeah it's weird to hear VB lyrics that aren't about shrimp, conspiracy theories, or dogs. And there's even a love song to a girlfriend on this album. What next!? :)

Bonus knowledge: 'Man of Meat' is influenced by this book, one of two books that Murphy read last year: https://bookwyrm.social/book/494222/s/knockemstiff

@sharan Same! Exactly the same feeling. Thankfully the band is great live... But I was hoping for more... Lasting songs. Even 'Punk Rock Loser' is better than most if these tracks and I don't think it was even the strongest song on 'Cave World'!

"En undersökning av Ungdomsbarometern publicerad i början av 2024 visar att 66 procent av svenska 15-24-åringar anser att samhället är på väg i helt eller delvis fel riktning, en ökning från 37 procent fem år tidigare.

På frågan "Vad är viktigast för dig just nu?" svarade 53 procent "Att tjäna pengar." Fyra år tidigare var siffran 36 procent.

Snabba cash anses nu viktigare än att skaffa sig en bra utbildning. Det prioriteras högre än att umgås med familjen.

Många människor födda i slutet av förra århundradet som sett sina föräldrar och farföräldrar göra en klassresa, upptäcker till sin förvåning att deras eget tåg går bakåt, inte framåt.

Denna känsla delas av fler än unga svenskar och kineser - en hel generation i västvärlden löper en överhängande risk att växa upp till cyniker.

I USA till exempel, svarar en av fyra så kallade millennials, personer födda mot slutet av 1900-talet, att de har det sämre ställt än sina föräldrar, den högsta nivån någonsin.

För tjugo år sedan spådde 13 procent av de tillfrågade i en undersökning i Storbritannien att landets unga skulle få det mer knapert än sina föräldrar.

Ett par decennier senare delades denna deppiga framtidsvision av över hälften av befolkningen, enligt undersökningsföretaget Ipsos.

Detta existentiella mörker är delvis sprunget ur en och samma källa: bostadsmarknaden.

Unga människor i hela världen, från Stockholm till Sydney, Singapore och San Francisco har alla lika svårt att gå i mål med en av de mest grundläggande milstolparna i ett mänskligt liv: att checka ut från föräldrahemmet.

Det beror inte på att de är söndercurlade slackers som sprider chipssmulor och uppgivenhet omkring sig. Faktum är att dagens unga i västvärlden är mer välutbildade och ofta har högre inkomster än sina föräldrar och farföräldrar. Men när de öppnar dörren för att ta klivet ut i vuxenlivet går de rakt in i en vägg.

År 2020 bodde en majoritet av amerikanska 18-29-åringar kvar hos sina föräldrar. Så många har det inte varit sedan depressionen på 1930-talet.

I USA har medianåldern för det första bostadsköpet stigit till 36 år, den högsta noteringen sedan mätningarna inleddes för över fyrtio år sedan.

I Sverige bor nästan 200 000 unga mellan 20 och 27 år ofrivilligt kvar i föräldrahemmet, enligt Hyresgästföreningen.

Att somna varje kväll omgiven av pojk- eller flickrumstapeter kan göra något med en ung vuxens sinnesstämning."

— Andreas Cervenka: Fuskbygget, pp. 10-11

Noam Chomsky on the term 'enduring freedom'.

Kind of reminds me of what Barry Crimmins used to say to people when they told him to emigrate from the USA: 'I would, but then I'd risk becoming the target of U. S. foreign politics.'

:chomsky: #NoamChomsky #BarryCrimmins #EnduringFreedom #language

https://bookwyrm.social/book/1991114/s/fine-line-between-stupid-and-clever

This will be nice to read. A tie-in with the film sequel that's coming in September.

For you who've not seen the first Spinal Tap film: I envy you.

#books #reading #SpinalTap @bookstodon

https://www.wheresyoured.at/reality-check/

This is another good missive from Ed Zitron about the enormous PR scam that is AI, on the commercial level.

'So you're saying this experimental software launched to an indeterminate amount of people that barely works is going to make OpenAI $13 billion in 2025, and $29 billion in 2026, and later down the line $125 billion in 2029? How? How?

What fucking universe are we all living in? There's no proof that OpenAI can do this other than the fact that it has a lot of users and venture capital!

In fact, I think we have reason to worry about whether OpenAI even makes its current projections. In my last piece I wrote that Bloomberg had estimated that OpenAI would triple revenue to $12.7 billion in 2025, and based on its current subscriber base, OpenAI would have to effectively double its current subscription revenue and massively increase its API revenue to hit these targets.

These projections rely on one entity (SoftBank) spending $3 billion on OpenAI's services, meaning that it’d make enough API calls to generate more revenue than OpenAI made in subscriptions in the entirety of 2024, and something else that I can only describe as “an act of God.”'

#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #OpenAI #google #amazon #microsoft #DeepMind #meta #SoftBank #SamAltman #EdZitron

I'm sad to learn that Alexander Hacke has left Einstürzende Neubauten. Here is his statement:

“I, Alexander Hacke would like to announce that I have left Einstürzende Neubauten.

It is not a decision I have taken lightly. This band has been my family for more than four decades, but it has become obvious for quite some time, after many discussions and efforts to solve our differences, that our basic standards, personally and professionally, have diverged on every level.

In order to uphold my core value of integrity, I therefore have no other choice than to continue on my path without them.”

#AlexanderHacke #EinsturzendeNeubauten #music #hackedepicciotto

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/14/librarians-in-uk-increasingly-asked-to-remove-books-as-influence-of-us-pressure-groups-spreads

I'm a middle-aged white male. I'll say this about censorship of so-called LGBTQIA+ books:

If you're offended by books about sexuality, perhaps especially other sexualities than what you feel is your own, you're the problem. Sexuality isn't a problem. Trying to limit other peoples' choices is a problem.

This has nothing to do with 'oh, they're older, things were different then' or any other kind of psychobabble to excuse this type of censorship.

This is xenophobia, nothing else; it's about trying to forbid what you've perhaps not experienced or considerably thought through, which is appalling and anti-intellectual.

We should always speak out when people try to limit the rights of others.

#FreeSpeech #censorship #USA #books #reading @bookstodon

https://niklas.reviews/csaba-szabo-unreliable

I've just reviewed Csaba Szabo's ''Unreliable: Bias, Fraud, and the Reproducibility Crisis in Biomedical Research'.

It's a tour-de-force through how most biomedicine research results are impossible to reproduce, how the field is corrupted by fraud, and what some real scientists are doing to counter all of this.

@bookstodon #book #reading #CsabaSzabo #BookReview #reviews #books #science #biomedicine #papers #research #NonFiction

https://github.com/weph/obsidian-bookshelf

This is a new Obsidian plugin that allows you to keep track of your reading, produce nice-lookin' graphs, stats, etc.

The plugin doesn't import data from sites, as far as I can tell. Would be great to do that.

I've not tested the plugin, but it's nice to see. I love https://bookwyrm.social to keep track of books I want to read, create lists, and other things, but that's all online.

#books #reading #Obsidian @bookstodon

If you love watching musicians who are absolute masters of their craft, and like weird fusion and experimental... stuff, then Mats/Morgan just uploaded a live show. They really groove together, and I can't stop being impressed by Mats' skills on the keyboard (he's blind). And Morgan is an absolute god on the drums as always.
#musictip #musictips #music #Zappa

https://youtu.be/O6CkXqnimk8

Meta is trying to stop a former employee from promoting her book about Facebook: https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-trying-to-stop-a-former-employee-from-promoting-her-book-about-facebook-004938899.html

Edit #1: the fuckers won an 'emergency ruling' to have the distribution of the book stopped: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5zyq0250wo

Edit #2: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/14/mark-zuckerberg-free-speech-meta-sheryl-sandberg - lol:

'I am as shocked as I am confused that Mark Zuckerberg is going all-out to block a memoir by Facebook’s former director of global public policy, Sarah Wynn-Williams. I thought information wanted to be free? I definitely heard that speech should be. We know Meta’s revolting oligarch doesn’t write his self-serving public pronouncements, but he should at least make time in his busy Magafication schedule to read them.'

Edit #3: https://www.theverge.com/news/629347/meta-careless-people-flatiron-books-macmillan - from Flatiron Books:

'“We are appalled by Meta’s tactics to silence our author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement,” Flatiron says in the statement, which was also shared with The New York Times. “To be clear, the arbitrator’s order makes no reference to the claims within Careless People. The book went through a thorough editing and vetting process, and we remain committed to publishing important books such as this. We will absolutely continue to support and promote it.”'

Edit #4: book review from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/16/careless-people-a-story-of-where-i-used-to-work-by-sarah-wynn-williams-review-a-former-disciple-unfriends-facebook:

'In Myanmar, as Wynn-Williams recounts at the end of the book, Facebook facilitated the military junta to post hate speech, thereby fomenting sexual violence and attempted genocide of the country’s Muslim minority. “Myanmar,” she writes with a lapsed believer’s rue, “would have been a better place if Facebook had not arrived.” And what is true of Myanmar, you can’t help but reflect, applies globally.'

Also:

'The book’s title comes from F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.” For Wynn-Williams, Zuckerberg’s “move fast and break things” philosophy is just such entitled carelessness, leaving Facebook staff and their customers to sweep up the wreckage. But the Facebook she describes is not run by careless people, not really, but rather by wittingly amoral ones who use technical genius and business acumen to profit from human vulnerability. For instance, she claims Facebook – now Meta, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp – identified teenage girls who had deleted selfies on its platforms, and then supplied the data to companies to target them with ads for putatively tummy-flattening teas or beauty products.'

...and:

'Wynn-Williams’s shtick, often presenting herself as the only conscience in the room, does wear thin. I tired of reading of how shocked she was at some Facebook policy, while continuing to spread its values worldwide. “I’m astounded at the role money plays in elections in the US,” she writes at one point, as the 2016 Trump campaign gears up with political ads and targeted misinformation from which Facebook massively profited. Are you really so naive? I wrote in the margin. “I’m also against exporting this value system. But Facebook is effectively bringing this in globally by stealth.” And you’re part of it! I wrote in the margin. If only she’d taken to heart the critical messages of, say, David Fincher’s movie The Social Network or Dave Eggers’s novel The Circle, she might have leaned out earlier.

And yet her memoir is valuable, not just as indictment of the Facebook cult but of bosses’ entitled behaviour that will resonate for many. She depicts Zuckerberg as a tech-bro Henry VIII, a thin-skinned angry child whose courtiers let win at the board game Settlers of Catan during flights on his private jet. She charges him with lying to Congress about the extent of Facebook’s compromises to woo China and allow it to operate there, suggesting that his company was developing technology and tools to meet Chinese requirements that would allow it to censor users’ content and access their data. He was, she claims, much more in cahoots with Xi Jinping’s authoritarian regime than he let on to US senators.'

#book #reading #meta #facebook #MarkZuckerberg @bookstodon #FlatironBooks #Myanmar #genocide #SherylSandberg #DonaldTrump #XiJinping #China #USA #capitalism

https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/11/chris-hedges-trumps-war-on-education/

I love Howard Zinn.

#HowardZinn #ChrisHedges #CriticalThinking

#FountainPens #handwriting