📹 The Hidden Geniuses Behind A$AP Rocky’s Wildest Music Video /// Offline Media

Friend of the Variable and the mastermind behind The Outer comic on foofaraw launched a new video podcast looking at video from a post-production perspective and this episode was superb.

💥 The Movie Mistake Mystery from “Revenge of the Sith” /// FX Rant

Really, really fun look at visual “mistakes” in movies.

🥪 Giving a Small Sandwich Shop a BIG Rebrand…For Free ///SuprOrdinary

Some absolutely stunning filmmaking. Wish there were more short videos of this quality for fictional stories.

🧑‍🏫 How I, a non-developer, read the tutorial you, a developer, wrote for me, a beginner /// annie’s blog

I almost gave up but then I realized: If I connect the backside Snarfus stagnator to the backside shamrock Klingon troglodyte emulater, it’s good! Everything beep-boops and ding-dongs and I get the Actual Topic of the Tutorial, which lets me do the Very Simple Thing the way I want after all! Pretty cool.

Couldn’t capture my feelings better about some of this stuff if I tried.

🗞️ Business Insider Founder Henry Blodget Launches Regenerator /// Ad Week

With Regenerator, Blodget aims to provide a “rolling analysis” of broad, timely subjects, such as the trade war, stock market fluctuation, future of Google, and durability of the artificial intelligence hype cycle.

I’m not subscribing quite yet, but I’m keeping my eyes to see if this becomes something interesting to check out.

🍷 The Pour-igin of Species /// Pudding

Since my wife works on wine, I had to mention this. I don’t think you should ever pick a wine based on the animal, but if you do, I guess you can follow this. Still an awesome visual site as always from these folks.

🎧 Crucial Tracks the app, the intro post /// End on End

So that got me thinking — what if I combined these ideas with my love of blogging and created an app where anyone can share their Crucial Tracks with the world? And the Crucial Tracks app was born.

I already mentioned this once, but I’ve been really digging Crucial Tracks already and love the idea of these niche communities.

🤖 Company apologizes after AI support agent invents policy that causes user uproar /// Ars Technica

Switching between machines instantly logged them out, breaking a common workflow for programmers who use multiple devices. When the user contacted Cursor support, an agent named “Sam” told them it was expected behavior under a new policy. But no such policy existed, and Sam was a bot. The AI model made the policy up, sparking a wave of complaints and cancellation threats.

I’m probably beating a dead horse at this point, but things like this are the reason jobs can’t be passed to AI. In the end, these kinds of mistakes, some of which the company will never even know about, end up damaging and costing more then they save.

📹 Poker Face S2 /// Trailer

New trailer for Poker Face season two looks incredible. Absolutely can’t wait, although I’m going to have to pay for Peacock again, I guess… anyways, new season premiers on May 8th.

📻 Crucial Tracks music journal

New web app from friend of the Variable, Jason Dettbarn of Crucial Tracks. For a few years now, Jason has done a song-a-day playlist on Apple Music—this app lets you do just that as a nifty music journal. He threw v1 together in a week, but it’s already super slick and works great with new features planned soon to allow you to add songs to your Apple Music playlist or share directly to socials. You can see my public profile here.

🛌 Why Hitler Slept Through D-Day /// Westenberg

Because by that point, Hitler wasn’t running a government. He was running a cult of sycophants and suck ups, hanging on his every whim and tantrum, too scared to face the man and too weak to stand up to him. His staff were no longer commanders. They were cowards who had learned that the most dangerous thing you could do in the Third Reich was tell the truth.

Can’t put my finger on it, but this sounds quite familiar.

🤖 OpenAI is building a social network /// The Verge

While the project is still in early stages, we’re told there’s an internal prototype focused on ChatGPT’s image generation that has a social feed.

Oh goody! An AI social app, where AI bots post AI slop, to be consumed by other AI bots, to train the AI models. Peak creativity if you ask me. Can’t wait to see all the “art” these wonderful “artists” make for us all.

🗞️ Trump Cuts Permanent Press Pool Spot for All Wire Services After Court Orders AP Access Restored /// The Wrap

Wire service publications like the AP, Reuters and Bloomberg, provide news to smaller newspapers, radio, and television stations across the nation. Their efficiency allows a wider audience to be aware of the conversations taking place in the Oval Office and for consumers to hear directly from the president.

We are 100% in a constitutional crisis as this administration disobeys this court order along with the supreme courts 9-0 decision.

🐺 Does Colossal Biosciences’ dire wolf creation justify its $10B+ valuation? /// TechCrunch

Given the common startup tendency to overstate capabilities, it wasn’t easy to take Lamm’s claims at face value, particularly since Colossal’s ambitious de-extinction projects for the woolly mammoth and Tasmanian tiger were not slated for completion until 2028.

Spoiler alert: no. While there may be some interesting conservation applications here, I feel like the money and science could be put to much better use elsewhere.

🃏 Middle-Aged Man Trading Cards Go Viral in Rural Japan Town /// Tokyo Weekender

While the cards — all made entirely by hand — are currently in high demand and often out of stock, they are only available for sale at the Saidosho Community Center.

These are so freakin’ cool. And the fact it seems to be helping the community by getting kids to turn out to events and volunteer is amazing.

🏒 It’s Never Too Early To Get Ready For Gavin McKenna /// Defector

Blackhawks will probably suck again next year, so maybe we can pair Bedard and McKenna like the old Toews and Kane duo.

💃 Skydancing With Trump /// Status

The fact that so many feel compelled to kiss the ring just to move deals forward underscores a grim reality: democratic norms are rapidly eroding in the U.S. and being replaced by a system that is more akin to corrupt nation states, where doing basic business hinges on personal allegiance to the top political leader.

It’s a monarchy with a mob mentality.

🧊 ICE arrested a Columbia student during his citizenship interview /// The Verge

I love how people used to parrot “it’s fine if they go through the process” and now we are literally arresting them for going through the process.

🇸🇻 April 13, 2025 /// Letters from an American

Let’s be very clear about exactly what’s happening here: President Donald J. Trump is claiming the power to ignore the due process of the law guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, declare someone is a criminal, kidnap them, send them to prison in a third country, and then claim that there is no way to get that person back.

Fuuuuuuuck these people. Heather nails it again here as always. It’s a daily must read, but I’ll continue to link/quote her on a near-daily basis anyways.

🚔 Tesla accused of hacking odometers to weasel out of warranty repairs /// Pluralistic

Twiddling is key to enshittification: it’s the method by which value is shifted from end-users to business customers, and from business customers to the platform. Twiddling is the “switch” in enshittification’s series of minute, continuous bait-and-switches.

I don’t think anyone would be surprised at this behavior, but it’s ridiculous that it’s become commonplace in our capitalist economy with barely any repercussions.

🎓 Harvard’s Decision to Resist Trump Is ‘of Momentous Significance’ /// NYT

Within hours of Harvard’s decision, federal officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to the university, along with a $60 million contract.

The people (and orgs/institutions) that have the means, absolutely must stand up to the ridiculous, overbearing, controlling, and fascistic behavior. It’s necessary to help give permission to those who wouldn’t be able to survive doing so. And Harvard has the cash.

🔬 Seth Rogen’s Criticism of Silicon Valley’s Support for Trump Was Cut From the “Full” Stream of Breakthrough Prize /// THR

After being introduced by host James Corden, Norton began by praising some of the tech titans in the audience — which included Breakthrough Prize co-founders Yuri Milner, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sergey Brin — for underwriting the awards. (Each recipient is given $3 million.) Emboldened by a dirty martini backstage, Rogen jumped in with a none-too-subtle reference to past attendee and current DOGE mastermind Elon Musk. “And it’s amazing that others [who have been] in this room underwrote electing a man who, in the last week, single-handedly destroyed all of American science,” he said, clearly making Norton uncomfortable. The comment underlined the irony of Silicon Valley’s increasingly cozy relationship with the Trump administration, which has cut federal science funding and defied scientific consensus. “It’s amazing how much good science you can destroy with $320 million and RFK Jr, very fast,” Rogen continued.

Apologies for the super long quote, but I think the context helps place what Rogen is saying, which I absolutely love to see.

🥁 The Roots, De La Soul, Janelle Monáe, and More to Perform at Newport Jazz Festival 2025 /// Pitchfork

You’ve got Questlove, Yussef Dayes, and Antonio Sanchez all in one place?! While there’s lots of other big names there, I couldn’t care less about them when you’ve basically got three of the best living drummers. Too bad I’m still unemployed…

📹 Eddington /// Trailer

We are getting spoiled this year with incredible filmmakers releasing new movies. Ari Aster has quickly put himself in conversation with some of the biggest filmmakers as he’s elevated and turned horror on its head into anxiety inducing master pieces. Can’t wait for this one.

🍟 Italian beef potato chips? An upstart snack company highlights classic Chicago foods /// Chicago Sun-Times

Like so many startups, Local Style sprang from an unanticipated career shake-up, when Gardner lost her job as senior vice president and head of marketing and merchandising at Foxtrot.

I can’t help but desire these down to my bones. Buying a bunch as soon as I have a day job again…