2023-04-16 Links & stuff

A musical weekend, discovering the prolific Steve Goodman.  I was listening to John Prine’s rendition of “You Never Even Call Me By Name” and then found Steve’s own rendition.

Steve’s “City of New Orleans” and his 1978 performance at Austin City Limits.

Steve died of leukaemia at the age of 36. His wife Nancy’s liner notes: “He extracted meaning from the mundane.”

Dean Martin’s Sway & the French/English version of c’est ci bon. Tuba Skinny’s full jazz set at Jazz Heritage Centre in 2022.  Cesaria Evora is the barefoot performer par excellence. Jesse Cook started playing pots & pans during Covid and it’s incredible

Taylor Bloom and Ben Cooley were on Josh Turner’s cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s Baby Driver . That video was the beginning of the discovery of so many wonderful talented young musicians. Taylor & Ben’s rendition of The Boxer and Homeward Bound. Josh & Carson mesmerize with their cover of Amazing Rhythm Aces Third Rate Romance. Reina del Cid & Toni Lindgren with Josh & Carson cover Route 66.

I heard David Graeber and Chris Voss talks at Google yesterday, and Dr. Oliver Sacks talk about musicophilia.  I learnt a bunch of powerpoint techniques from the outstanding OneSkill Powerpoint channel, and put them to use on a work project. I learnt how to draw Multiple Causal Diagrams, used Excalidraw to draw them, and put them into that same project slideware.

It was a good weekend indeed.

2023-04-14 Links

Stripe’s 2022 Annual Letter

The Guerilla artist “Sign from above” — wonderful read.

A tweet from the OpenAI alignment team lead:

Vice: ChatGPT hustlers taking on more jobs

Seth Godin: Fettered