Betty Crocker, mid-1950s. I heard a reference the Betty Crocker “add an egg” cake-mix story recently. It is: originally, people didn’t buy the cake mix because it felt too easy and didn’t feel loving, or at least sufficiently Calvinistic; General Mills removed the egg, then people cracked one in themselves, and suddenly they felt like they were “baking” and sales took off. This is also known as the IKEA effect, apparently
Posts in "wastebook"
If you’re wondering how cold fusion produces pollution, let alone a lot of it, don’t worry, this is explained in a chapter by one teenaged prodigy tennis player to another, wherein the latter is wearing a blindfold to improve his other senses but can’t find a bathroom, so he asks the other player for help, but instead, the other player explains cold fusion in exhaustive detail over such a long period of time that the blindfolded player is nearly peeing in his pants, and it all turns out to be a ploy by the explainer to pressure the blindfolded player (who is a Muslim and drug-free) to give away his urine so the other player and his friends can pass a drug test. Stuff like this happens a lot in IJ. Infinite Jest Extraction
Best review of The Sound and The Fury, in Mad Men, s2e11: “Sex is good. This book is just OK.”
The weird bastion stuff in D&D 5e 2024 makes a lot more sense after reading Dungeon Crawler Carl.
“I have no idea what Federighi’s stance is on break-room bananas, but it seems a stretch to think it offers clues to Apple’s strategy on data centers.” The Information: ‘With Google Deal, Apple’s Craig Federighi Plots a Cautious Course in AI’
Where there is saxophone, synth is sure to follow.
I suppose it can be said that I’m an absent-minded driver. It’s true that I’ve driven through a number of red lights on occasion, but on the other hand, I’ve stopped at a lot of green ones but never gotten credit for it.
No, no…AI won’t replace you.
A person using AI will replace you and 4,999 other people.
“cradle-to-crematorium biography” The best non-fiction to read this year
“Labor is valuable only insofar as it occupies a constraint the firm hasn’t yet automated.”