🤖 OpenAI announces leadership transition — OpenAI

Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.

Wow.

💽 Excelsior Album Review — foofaraw

First newsletter issue from our new music and arts critic, Will Kaplan. This was a ton of fun to put together with him.

📺 Monarch: Legacy of Monsters — Apple TV

Just finished the first episode and wow, They are definitely going all out, big budget, huge scale with this one.

🎙️ The Rise of Ant-Man, Harden’s System Crashes, and Refs Earn a Tech — Six Trophies

Took a couple episodes for them to hit their stride, imo, but I was clearly always going to dig an NBA podcast from Shea Serrano and Jason Concepcion.

🦸 Amazon is merging the Comixology app with Kindle — The Verge

This is a complete dumpster fire. I have nearly 3000 comics in ComiXology and about 300 of those are missing in the Kindle app. Plus “Read” status is a complete crapshoot.

💥 blamo — foofaraw

Was a little late getting this issue of the newsletter out, but it’s an exciting one for me as I’ve announced a new contributor. I’ll probably be a bit more vocal about the newsletter for a week or two before quieting down again.

✍️ Why We’re Writing Blog Software — Good Enough

Really looking forward to seeing how Barry and Good Enough tackle this—I can always use another blog…

🎶 8 under the radar albums that dropped this year — @somewhere_soul

My wife sent me this on Instagram and this account is gold for neo-soul, hip-hop tinged jazz and the like. I’m four albums in and they are all great so far.

🧑‍🚀 Astronauts dropped a tool bag during a spacewalk, and you can see it — Space

It’s wild to think there’s just a bunch of crap up there circling around us.

👾 “The Finals” Players In Deep Depression Now That the Open Beta Is Over — 404 Media

I know nothing about this game (and don’t have a PC…), but I definitely want to play it after reading this…

🇺🇦 Ukraine inches closer to joining the EU — The Economist

Edi Rama, the Albanian prime minister, has quipped that Balkan countries should declare war on each other to accelerate their own membership talks.

As someone with family in Ukraine, it’s harder and harder to stay optimistic, but I couldn’t help but smirk at this line.

😶‍🌫️ Welcome to CAPTCHA Hell — The Atlantic

A great piece on the evolution of CAPTCHA’s and AI’s effect on them moving forward.

⌚️ Humane officially launches the AI Pin, its OpenAI-powered wearable — The Verge

it’s not yet entirely clear what you’re supposed to use it for.

I disagree with this. It’s clear to me it’s meant as a phone replacement and I think there’s a lot of lessons here for how Apple can make the Watch+AirPods combo the future.

🎹 King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: The Silver Cord Album Review — Pitchfork

I was recently thinking about KGLW and how they so weird, unique, and truly of themselves. The only other bands I can think of who have succeeded in a similar manner are Phish and GWAR.

📮 Wilco Loft Sans — SimpleBits

Speaking of Jeff Tweedy, this font from SimpleBits in collaboration with Wilco, is excellent.

🎸 The Songs That Shaped My Life — The Atlantic

Boy, I just love listening to people talk about art they love. This excerpt from Jeff Tweedy’s book is no exception, especially him talking about (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay, what I’ve long considered to be the greatest song ever.

🕍 Horror in the Holy Land — Puck

A thoughtful reflection from Julia Ioffe. The thought I come back to as people fight and take sides is that I’m on the side of the people, the citizens, the civilians, not of any government, group, or religion.

👾 Welcome To Aftermath — Aftermath

Another worker-owned site, this time covering the video game industry, to go alongside Defector, 404, and Hell Gate. Love this trend.

🗳️ State Primary Election Types — NCSL

Am I the only one thinking there are enough states where Democrats and Independents can legally vote in either primary and could potentially push someone like Nikki Haley through instead..?

⚾️ Chicago Cubs hire Craig Counsell to replace manager David Ross — Chicago Tribune

Big move for the Cubbies and, I think, is telling for where they expect to be in two years time (and their willingness to invest). MIL/CHC games should be fun.

🪞 Statements, Statements Everywhere — The Present Age

It’s exhausting because sometimes it really seems like people are more worried about saying the right things, or at least whatever they think other people will think are the right things, rather than trying to be empathetic.

This piece captures my sentiments pretty well. In general, we need to stop pushing everyone to have an opinion on everything. But also, let your actions speak instead of these statements that ring false out of a perceived obligation to say something.