We can’t make everything a priority.

Jason Kottke on death in the celebrity age:

Frankly, I don’t know how we’re all going to handle this. Chances are in 15-20 years, someone famous whose work you enjoyed or whom you admired or who had a huge influence on who you are as a person will die each day…and probably even more than one a day. And that’s just you…many other famous people will have died that day who mean something to other people. Will we all just be in a constant state of mourning? Will the NY Times national obituary section swell to 30 pages a day? As members of the human species, we’re used to dealing with the death of people we “know” in amounts in the low hundreds over the course of a lifetime. With higher life expectancies and the increased number of people known to each of us (particularly in the hypernetworked part of the world), how are we going to handle it when several thousand people we know die over the course of our lifetime?

Our brains were not built to make everything we see on TV and the Internet a priority.

Whether it’s donating to a humanitarian org, keeping in touch with real friends, or “mourning” over the loss of celebrities (read: cultural icon, artist, musician), it can’t all be important to you. You can’t donate to every disaster on every continent. You can’t keep meaningful relationships with 500 Facebook “friends”, and you won’t be able to stay sad over the deaths of more than 5-6 celebrities for more than a few weeks. There’s only 24 hours in a day.

Figure out what’s important and disregard the rest.

Nate Diaz is not worth $20 million.

Nate Diaz says he won’t answer UFC’s calls for less than $20 million:

In the midst of the latest UFC title saga, a familiar, yet unexpected name, resurfaced.

Inaccurate reports stated the promotion was targeting an interim lightweight title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Nate Diaz. However, according to multiple sources, that fight has not been offered yet.

As for Diaz, he told MMAFighting.com Wednesday night, that the UFC hasn’t called him about any upcoming fights. And if they’re planning on doing so, Diaz had a message for the brass:

“I’m only fighting at lightweight for a big fight or 20 million just to take the call,” Diaz told MMAFighting.com via text message. “Until then, I’m just living my life.”

Nate Diaz is out of his mind. He only started flexing like this after his two fights with Lightweight & Featherweight champion Conor McGregor. McGregor can and does command those kinds of numbers. It wasn’t until McGregor started speaking out on the value he brought to the UFC that Diaz also started speaking out.

While I think Diaz is an incredible fighter — he beat McGregor in their first fight — he’s not the showman McGregor is. Fighters like McGregor only come around once in a lifetime.

McGregor is worth $20 million per fight. Nate Diaz is not.

Categories:

Sports

“they wind up dangling on the outer cradle of my ear”

Apple AirPods review: wireless that wows, earbuds that don’t:

If you’ve had trouble with EarPods staying in your ears, there’s a good chance you’ll also struggle with AirPods. There are slight differences in the shapes, which you can see when you put them side by side — EarPods are a bit more round and AirPods are slightly more contoured, which makes them a bit more comfortable — and Apple says this means AirPods should fit more ears than EarPods.

That doesn’t mean AirPods stay in my ears, though. They don’t. Every time I wear AirPods it’s a constant battle to keep them in. They don’t fall out immediately, and when I first twist them in I can get what feels like a snug fit. But they inevitably slide out, especially in my right ear.

When this happens they wind up dangling on the outer cradle of my ear, where sudden or even not so sudden movements knock them loose. Standing up from my desk, turning my head too fast, chewing through a bag of pretzels, touching down on a runway in an airplane — these are all situations where AirPods popped out of one of my ears because I wasn’t constantly readjusting the fit.

I’ve never ever used Apple’s included earbuds with any of my iPhones over the last 9 years — or any of my iPods before that — specifically for this reason.

When earbuds don’t make a perfect seal around my ear, half the bass escapes and sounds like shit. I’ve never understood how people can enjoy using Apple’s earbuds.

For years I’ve been using $15 Sony earbuds. They sound decent and cheap enough that I keep one pair in my gym bag and one pair on my desk. Most recently the model I’ve been buying is the Sony MDREX10LP/BLK In-Ear Headphones.

Categories:

Music, Product

Tags:

 /  / 

My Dream From Last Night

Conor Mcgregor wanted to print up his own money for his next fight. He was looking for a volunteer to do it. I said I could do it, and suggested we print it up with the face of his opponent, not his face. I told him, “You don’t want to spend your own money, spend his.” He looked around at his camp and asked who the fuck I was. I calmly sat down next to him and said, “I’m Mike Mulvey.”

He told everyone they had to get up and train with him at 6 AM every day. He said he understood that it wasn’t for everyone but they would become better people for it.

Categories:

Pyschology

Universal Basic Income

Free Cash in Finland. Must Be Jobless.:

Now, the Finnish government is exploring how to change that calculus, initiating an experiment in a form of social welfare: universal basic income. Early next year, the government plans to randomly select roughly 2,000 unemployed people — from white-collar coders to blue-collar construction workers. It will give them benefits automatically, absent bureaucratic hassle and minus penalties for amassing extra income.

The government is eager to see what happens next. Will more people pursue jobs or start businesses? How many will stop working and squander their money on vodka? Will those liberated from the time-sucking entanglements of the unemployment system use their freedom to gain education, setting themselves up for promising new careers? These areas of inquiry extend beyond economic policy, into the realm of human nature.

Like climate change, we’re beginning to understand how robots and artificial intelligence will affect us and our employment on Planet Earth (at least those of us who don’t have their heads buried in the sand).

We can’t just automate every job, lay millions of people off, and expect things to just work themselves out. It may mean universal basic income and it may not, but countermeasures have to be made to ensure we’ll be ok.

And for all those people who say, “Sure, but a computer will never be able to do my job doing [insert your trade].”

Never say never.

Your Stuff, Your Responsibility

Apple will replace a lost AirPod for $69:

Following a slightly delay, Apple’s wireless AirPods are ready to order. They’re small and sleek, but the lack of cords has put a nagging thought in the back of my mind: I am guaranteed to lose one, if not both within a few weeks. If you’re equally forgetful, or happen to commute in jam-packed subway carriages, you’ll be happy to hear that Apple will replace a single AirPod for $69 (£65). Given a fresh pair costs $159 (£159), that seems like a reasonable fee. Similarly, a new AirPod charging case will set you back $69 (£65), for the inevitable “I threw it out thinking it was floss” stories.

I’m so confused by this story.

Why is Apple responsible for replacing something you lost?

Life has become way to easy for humans when this is the stuff we get frustrated about.

Categories:

Business

Tags:

 /  / 

It’s Already Here

You can hail a self-driving Uber in San Francisco starting today:

Starting today, anyone in San Francisco who hails an UberX could find themselves in the backseat of a luxury, self-driving Volvo XC90, complete with leather interior, spinning LIDAR sensor, and a trunk full of computing power. It’s where I found myself last week, after being invited out to the Bay Area for a sneak peak before the official launch.

“The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

Categories:

Technology, Vehicle