➰ Cool Tribal Tattoo. Is It From the ’90s? — NY Times

For some of these customers — and some of the tattoo artists — a dash of authentic ’90s bad taste is the whole idea.

🔥 Nobody Pounces Like The Heat —Defector

The Jimmy Butler Heat’s whole thing is that they run harder than you, they punish every mistake, and they never once give an inch.

Not to get ahead of myself, but I’m starting to think the Heat have a real chance to beat the Nuggets.

🏛️ The Four Freedoms, According to Republicans — NY Times

I wanted to say something witty here about all the people who’ve voted against their interests to allow these things to happen, but all I can do is shake my head in sorrow.

👴 ❲ A Few Thoughts on Quentin Tarantino’s Plan to Retire ❳ The New Yorker

Soderbergh risks insignificance, merely vanishing; Tarantino risks the illusion of significance, being a nuisance. Soderbergh escaped from Hollywood in order to evade its limitations; Tarantino’s planned escape seems meant to evade his own.

The comparison/contrast to Soderbergh is pretty apt. However, while they are both great directors, it’s Tarantino’s meticulous attention to detail in his writing that really sets him apart from other filmmakers.

🌸 The Superbloom Is a Glimpse of California’s Past — The New Yorker

Some beautiful photos of flowers and lush greenery in California.

📺 Television, time, and constraint — Austin Kleon

Watching TV right now, you can start to see the varied results of “there are no constraints.”

⏲️ The All-American Inspiration for TikTok — The Atlantic

One reason that TikTok now finds itself in the crosshairs of U.S. regulators is precisely that it has followed the model pioneered by American innovators, leveraging user data to fuel its algorithmic feeds.

🍎 Apple’s Mixed-Reality Headset May Define Tim Cook’s Legacy — Bloomberg

Maybe this is the necessary step, to get people using the device before a more practical one can be made, but it sounds terrible to me.

🚧 Strong Prototypes, Weakly Held — Good Enough

Fun to follow along as the folks at Good Enough work on making news things.

🥊 ESPN’s Brave New World — Puck

It truly is wild that ESPN made $5 for basically every household in the US during cables peak.

🏀 Inside the decade-long plan to bring Victor Wembanyama to NBA glory — ESPN

He’s obviously super skilled and there’s no better place than SA, but I struggle with the sentiment from Givony on The Lowe Post saying he’s going to be a 20ppg scorer and compete for an all-star spot from day one.

🐣 Instagram’s New App Could Be Here By June — ICYMI

I rolled my eyes at first, but if you can truly follow from Mastodon then maybe it’s not so bad. Ideally, it’d work like an instance with tools purpose built for the creator-class and us normies can follow without ever touching the app.

📝 Chronicler of the Flower Moons — The Ringer

Corporate ideas have been to reduce the idea of ambition and quest and myth. These shows feel like the vision of reaching is crimped somehow.

My excitement has me picking up copies of both Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager.

🍎 Apple TV+ Hits Viewership Highs With ‘Ted Lasso’ & ‘Silo’ — Deadline

Feels like Apple has been making a lot of right decisions since launching and have recently started broadening their audience (that are less up my alley).

💰 IRS tests free e-filing system that could compete with tax prep giants — The Washington Post

The tax-filing industry is a complete sham.

🔗 Aboard — Social Bookmarking App

Looks kind of like a social/public/collaborative version of mymind—from Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. I added my email… hopefully beta soon…

via: waxy.org

🇨🇳 Hollywood’s China Problem — The Town

Great episode on China around censorship, Hollywood, Disney, and TikTok.