This is Funworld (Issue #172)
Far out science, Diggnation reunion, comedy & Carl Yung, crazy politics, Bitcoin crashes, video games & philosophy, atemporality of music, the USD afterparty, europe, and frankencompanies
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
There is so much crazy stuff happening all around us in politics, in tech, in basically everything. And there’s so much complaining and things aren’t as great as they used to be, and blahdiblahdiblah. It’s important to stop and remember that we live in the best times. The best times literally are happening now, all around us. It’s not always obvious because we are in it right now, but we will look back at the current moment and find things about this era that are even more mindbendingly amazing than all the eras already gone by. That’s what I think this issue is all about.
There’s a lot of fun stuff in this issue, from the Diggnation reunion which proves that things are just as fun if not more fun these days, to the Vergecast builder special that proves that you can smash together scrap heap challenge, ready steady cook and Techcrunch and actually get something pretty interesting and fun, to the Weinstein - Howard face off that proves that even those boring old fuddy duddy scientists that are always banging on about fundamental particles and what not, actually can have some fun when they really have to. Also politics is literally the most fun at the minute. Video games are fun. Music is fun. The future is fun. Everything is so much fucking fun. Seriously.
On the development front, I’ve made a tentative start at updating the deploy workflows of all my static site generator’s repos to using a single reusable workflow, rather than all use different ones, which is error prone to manage. I had already done a bunch of work on this previously so picking that back up. It looks feasible though there’s a bit of a challenge to organise it so different sets of environment variables can be passed to each instance running. I’m going to try to get it working for one of the plugins first, then generalise it with some way to pass different sets of environment variables. Realistically I probably won’t get it finished this month though. Need to make sure I don’t run out of build minutes again. I’ve used a little over 1/2 this months build minutes, so roughly on target seeing as we are 1/2 way through the month. I’ll be treading carefully while trying to make some progress.
I’ve been trying to get back into blogging following a few difficult weeks. Somewhat successfully. The new everything page setup seems to be working well I think. I’ve updated all the social media network auto posters and fixed some issues with the RSS feeds. Here are the latest blog posts:
The revival of Linkblog.io https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/08/the-revival-of-linkblog.io
Rogan on living in the best days https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/08/rogan-on-living-in-the-best-days
Cobbling together companies is trending https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/10/cobbling-together-companies-is-trending
The first piece will give you a good idea of my future development plans, the second one will inspire you about the present moment and the final one will Chernobyl melt your brain, but it will be fun.
As I write this I’m noticing how much synergy there is with what I’m writing and the things happening everywhere. It does get kind of dark in places, but maybe, just maybe there is a way to get something operational. I’m going to continue documenting my journey and continue trying to make it happen. Building things sure sure is difficult sometimes. Sorry I mean fun. Difficult and fun at the same time. Diffifun. This is not an endorsement of cults btw, some of those definitely are not very fun.
I’m going to end this issue of the newsletter here before it goes off the rails. :)
I hope you are all doing well.
Podcasts
Eric Weinstein & Terrence Howard Ep#2171 (Joe Rogan Podcast) - Eric Weinstein appeared to be pretty much everywhere at the beginning of the week. This one gets very technical on the science side of things, but I found it interesting to see how a top educator handles complicated learning situations, even if I didn’t entirely understand all the science. The dynamic remains rather jovial even if it could quite easily have gone off the rails quite easily. There’s a fair amount of hypocrisy in there but also some hard truths about the realities of the academic world that you won’t hear anywhere else. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/6786106?episode=24547859097
Eric Weinstein (Duncan Trussell Podcast) - Part of the Weinstein tsunami it seems, I like listening to these two talk, their conversations are always pretty interesting. It’s the intersection of hardcore science and hardcore spirituality, and there’s often some interesting discussion when they aren’t wallowing in self pity. Weinstein it seems has been hanging around comedians quite a bit recently and they talk about some of that here. https://www.duncantrussell.com/episodes/2024/7/3/eric-weinstein
Diggnation Hang, catching up with Alex Albrecht - “Drunk Tales and Bitcoin Fails” Ep#64 Part 1 (Kevin Rose Podcast) - This was a big surprise. I used to watch Diggnation a lot back in the day. It was one of the original DIY internet tech shows. Really cool to catchup again with Alex Albrecht, I hadn’t heard from him since they stopped doing the show. He’s been doing all sorts of interesting things, including a lot of crypto ventures, but also working in movie production. Fun and heart warming to see them back together briefly. They still have the Diggnation energy, they are just both older now, so there’s an element of reflection on your own ageing watching this episode if you were previously a Diggnation fan. https://www.kevinrose.com/drunk-tales-and-bitcoin-fails-the-diggnation-reunion-64
Diggnation Reunion Show Ep#64 Part 2 (Kevin Rose Podcast) - Kevin and Alex do a reunion show, and though they are a little rusty, it’s basically a typical Diggnation show based in the modern internet era, with all that that entails such as AI and conspiracy theories and what not, mixed in with reminiscing about the past. Awesome show, totally enjoyed this episode. https://www.kevinrose.com/diggnation-reunion-show-pt-2-the-show-65
Jimmy Dore Podcast (The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast) - Some fun reminiscing about the past, and talking about how great the present moment is, and how utterly bonkers the politics of the moment has become. We are living in a Coen Brothers movie. The whole episode is really great, Jimmy goes into this excellent description of some of Carl Jung’s philosophical thoughts. How people project their secret inner selves onto others without realising it, creating love but also hate, this strange state where conscious and unconscious parts of our mind encounter each other in a real physical way. I found that quite profound. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/6786106?episode=24676771897
Hot Swap growing, donors revolt, President Kamala?, SCOTUS breakdown: Immunity, Chevron, Censorship (All-in Podcast) - Interesting US politics coverage and discussion, especially when compared to the Rest is Politics coverage, really shows how terrible the main stream media coverage is where it’s crap vs crap, whereas the available coverage online is a million shades of color and thoughtful analysis. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/1015378?episode=24680415546
Why is the Bitcoin Price Crashing!? Ep#312 (Rabbit Hole Recap Podcast) - As usual great discussion about all the latest goings on in the crypto space. Yep Bitcoin is crashing, and they go into why they think that might be. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/5436375?episode=24724594244
Solo-Episode: Directed Pan-Ear Beating (Duncan Trussell Podcast) - I was in a bit of a strange mood when I listened to this, I could tell it was a great episode but I was itching to listen to something less esoteric and spiritual. I’m not much of a gamer so I was having trouble getting into his gaming / Elden Ring themed episode. I felt impatient, couldn’t concentrate, had that feeling that I should be being more productive somewhere else. I switched over to the Keen On episode with renowned music journalist Simon Reynolds and totally loved that. That was much more my bag than video games. When I switched back to this episode I was in a mood much better aligned with Duncan’s show, I was able to relax and get really into what he was talking about, even if it was all about video games, the things he’s talking about are much more general. I needed to get into a music history context to be able to comfortably see the video game inspired world he was painting. Funny how the mind works. https://www.duncantrussell.com/episodes/2024/7/6/solo-episode-directed-pan-ear-beating
Simon Reynolds: Reasons to Be Cheerful About the AI Revolution Ep#2020 (Keen On Podcast) - Really enjoyed this discussion where they get into the past present and future of the music industry. Simon has been a music journalist for many years and has lived through many big shifts in the industry and experiences first hand the cultural changes in society that came along with that. That’s why his perspective on how the music scene is today for the current generation is so fascinating to me. He’s still really plugged into it all but he’s got the benefit of his entire career to see where we might be heading. The landscape is very different these days, almost unrecognisable, and it’s going to change even more as we continue evolving music technologies. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/240566?episode=24719459798
What Comes After the Dollar Dies (Eurodollar University Podcast) - Jeff Snider presentation from a recent conference he attended in which he goes into the history of ledger based money systems and their evolution. Fascinating stuff. He then outlines his thesis that Bitcoin has taken a wrong turn and why it might not be the next step in evolution in ledger based money, even if it is very useful as a store of value. It’s really interesting what you can learn and extrapolate when you look at the bigger arc of history. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/276832?episode=24744825559
Alex Krainer and the Charlie Brown Karma of European Politics Ep#182 (Gold Goats ‘n Guns Podcast) - There are a lot of personal opinions in this episode, so it might not be the most accurate, but it paints an interesting picture of how things are currently in main land european politics. Lots of ideas and view points I hadn’t considered and very much the sort of things you won’t hear in the main stream narratives. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/236253?episode=24783326250
Bitcoin v the US Debt Bomb with Matthew Mesinskis (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) - Matthew always had the best angles on bitcoin and the money system from a technical perspective. He has the best tools to analyse the trends and he’s also great at explaining things. They dive deep into the numbers and trends to see where we might be heading. https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/bitcoin-v-the-us-debt-bomb
The Vergecast builds a tech company (Vergecast Podcast) - Fun episode, interesting idea for a show. Together they build a hypothetical company by taking the pre-built parts of existing companies, and add in lots of humour, but also their experience in the tech industry. Their Frankencompany is surprisingly versatile even if it’s completely bonkers. This is probably what the boomers were worried about and why they kept everything to themselves. But it’s also why the world is so much more fun than it used to be. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/415434?episode=24856855249
Jeremy Kahn’s Survival Guide For Our AI Future (Keen On Podcast) - Just a generally pretty high quality take on the current moment with a focus on all this crazy AI stuff that’s everywhere you look. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/240566?episode=24883048785
Starmer’s first week, Le Pen’s loss in France, and Iran’s new President (The Rest is Politics Podcast) - They had me right from the episode title, as the show downloaded in my podcast client, I felt it read like a perfect politics morning buffet of an episode. And it didn’t disappoint, probably the best RIP episode I’ve listened to so far. It has a bit of all 3 of the most interesting stories in politics that are happening today. Great analysis and just the right amount of background and history to get a real sense of what’s happening in some key areas of the world. https://alastaircampbell.org/2024/07/282-starmers-first-week-le-pens-loss-in-france-and-irans-new-president
That’s all from me…
Best regards,
Mark
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