A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety. | | | | The Italians invented good food coma. Eataly Los Angeles.
(Eataly) | | | | | | “A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.”
|
| |
| | rantnrave:// I have a real hard time with social media. I am a very active participant. I share. I appreciate. I rant. I rave. And sometimes I have righteous vendettas against corporate and political baddies. All of this in order to figure out what I think and what to do. Sometimes, it helps me. The ability to share your thoughts and be heard. Be recognized. To find others with similar views. Similar tragedies, likes, dislikes, and battles. And even those that disagree. I started on IRC decades ago. Then USENET. Now FACEBOOK, TWITTER, and INSTAGRAM. I have doubts about Facebook's tactics and ethics. But my usage of the service doesn't upset me. Nor does INSTAGRAM. But the service that I use the most does. Twitter. The venom there is beyond measurable. Sometimes I contribute to it. With an innocent aim. Empathy isn't in the algorithm. Whatever happened to empathy? As my friend ALEX BOLEN said to me recently about our current global state, "We’ve got bullies, we’ve got sympathy, but very little empathy. This is the real problem. Tough one to solve..." I'm an addict. For social media. I need to understand what people are thinking in order to write right here. But like curating, wading through the nastiness takes its toll. It's one of the reasons I took 6 months off. My heart and mind reached toxic levels. Everyone has a voice and it seemed like everyone is livid. And very little positivity seems to shine through. In fact, this isn't new. Television news for decades has led with scandal, crimes, war, and so forth. Sadness and bad news get engagement. It optimizes to our prurient interests. And yet, can we really blame a platform? And if we do, are platforms extensions of how founders think? We can just not use it. Leave. But we keep coming back in many cases. I deleted Facebook and Twitter off my phone at the suggestion of my friend MARK SUSTER. For my own good. No different than asking the hotel to clear out the mini bar before I get there. Some of us can't help but eat the OREOS. NEW YORK TIMES columnist MAGGIE HABERMAN recently wrote that she is taking a break from Twitter. She points out the anxiety that many of us feel due to our reactions to the platform and its content. She writes, "The viciousness, toxic partisan anger and intellectual dishonesty are at all-time highs." Twitter CEO, JACK DORSEY briefly responded to some of it. For what its worth. Jack is co-founder and CEO of one of the most prominent and influential discussion platforms in the history of the world. He is far too silent, far too often for a CEO of his stature. I don't know if he doesn't like public speaking or is worried whether what he says will affect his business. I imagine the former. But we really need to hear more about what he thinks, how he's dealing with his platform's influence and faults. He tweets about it a bunch. But 280 characters even in threads isn't enough. Brevity does not help here. That's ironic. In March he wrote, "We’re committing Twitter to help increase the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation, and to hold ourselves publicly accountable towards progress." For all our sakes and mental health, I wish he would discuss this deeply and often. Twitter has lagged on product and communication for too long. Which is ironic given it's a product and communication platform. I'm rooting for us, which means I'm rooting for him. For now, I'm still eating the Oreos. Same volume, less time. But I don't feel much better. Not looking to blame anyone, other than myself. Can you observe, participate in dialogue, and enact change and progress without social media? If you're my age do you remember what it was like to not have a mobile phone? I don't even remember what it was like without social media. I don't remember what it was like to not feel anxiety. I'm not one to put my head in the sand. But I'd like to save my peace of mind. Maybe I need to read this book ?... My brother-in-law and I took the babies to EATALY LA yesterday. I fainted from too much choice. One question I've always had. It's one store and yet if I sit in one of the restaurant's areas I can't bring things to the table from the many stations of epicurean awesomeness? That's very, very wrong. Yes, I'll order some stuff from the menu and eat it there. But also understand this, the table itself is a staging point for individual recon missions to the "Italian balls" station or the Roman pizza outpost. Important stuff. If I could, I just go there in my bathrobe and take baby tastes of everything... Happy Birthday to ASHLEY LENT LEVINSON, DAVID NATHANSON, DOUGLAS SCOTT, and SCOTT DONATON. | | | - Jason Hirschhorn, curator |
|
|
| On May 5, 1989 the L.A. Weekly printed a cover story, written by Jonathan Gold, about N.W.A., the most notorious band in the U.S., let alone in Los Angeles. Twenty years after the release of their first album, N.W.A and the Posse, we are happy to present Jonathan Gold's article... | | |
|
| It’s a “great shame,” says Silicon Valley insider Jaron Lanier, that so much of big tech’s AI has been aimed at manipulating you. | | |
|
| Fox Sports, The Times, and Le Figaro have tapped into AI, voice AI, and automation for their World Cup reporting. | | |
|
| Jarrod Ramos had connections to vengeful right-wing theology, and a hero complex drawn from violent anime | | |
|
| Steve Bannon is trying to sell Trumpism to Eastern Europeans-but shared ideologies die hard when they run into economic and military realities. | | |
|
| Oh, fandom. So passionate, so partisan-and, too often these days, so prolifically peevish. From Tumblr and Wattpad to more mainstream platforms like Twitter and Instagram, online communities have served as rallying points for stan armies: obsessives who comb over every interview and shred of non-news for information about the object of their adoration. | | |
|
| In his interview with Kara Swisher, Mark Zuckerberg at last drew a line around what is not acceptable on Facebook.* I think he drew the line in the wrong place. So do many commentators. So where do you think the line should be drawn? Where do I? | | |
|
| The comic has stormed though 75 years of show business; he remains prodigal in expression, memory, and imagination. | | |
|
| Will journalists, due to hatred of Assange, unite behind the Trump DOJ in support of one of the gravest threats to press freedom in years? | | |
|
| After photographs go viral, your child becomes a social-media influencer and a celebrity on Instagram. Should you step in? Parents reveal the contrasting conflicts of instant fame | | |
|
| | | cool kids never have the time |
|
| At the kind invitation of Rob May and the Botchain team, I had the opportunity recently to keynote Brains and Chains, an interesting conference in New York exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain.This is both an exciting and challenging topic, and the goal of my tal | | |
|
| The nonpsychoactive chemical, found in marijuana and hemp plants, has become the latest ingredient to invade New York’s wellness space. | | |
|
| It sounds simple, but I’ve seen guys who called themselves “rat smashers” pick the wrong rat to smash. | | |
|
| This week UK telecoms regulator Ofcom announced that streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon are now more popular than traditional pay-TV. It's a sign that the Internet plays a crucial role in today's distribution of video entertainment. However, according to research and analytics firm MUSO, pirate audiences remain a great untapped pool of wealth. | | |
|
| A week after the country’s triumphant World Cup win, conversations have ignited about what it truly means to be an immigrant, African, and French. | | |
|
| Everyone generally agrees that dilution should be avoided. VCs insist on pro-rata rights to avoid the dreaded “D” word. Executives often complain, after a new financing, that they should be “made whole” to offset the dilution that came with the new round. Founders work as hard as they can to maximize their valuation at each financing event to avoid painful dilution. Dilution = bad. | | |
|
| Five public rallies are scheduled for the next week. | | |
|
| The NFL is putting its anthem policy on hold after leaked documents prompt criticism. | | |
|
| The iconic rapper sat down with Stereo Williams to discuss hip-hop OGs, young guns, and remaining relevant in the rap game. | | |
|
| China had high hopes for "Asura," the $100-million fantasy epic based on Tibetan mythology. But the movie hit theaters last weekend with a thud, grossing just $7 million. The producers quickly yanked the mega-flop from theaters, offering no explanation. | | |
|
| © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group |
|
|
