I know the answer to my question is "ego" but why would he do this show? I understand Ziwe is not considered a journalist but she is considered no bullshit! Santos is all bullshit!
TIL about the existence of OK Soda, a Coca-Cola failure from the early 90's that embraced nihilism and negative publicity in an attempt to reach a Gen X demographic. If that weren't weird enough, the can designs were done by Daniel Clowes (of Ghost World), Charles Burns (of The Believe) and Calef Brown. The soda even had a manifesto that consisted of eye-rolling catchphrases like "What's the point of OK? Well, what's the point of anything?" Brilliant.
Unsurprisingly, it flopped but it seems this "Coca-Cola Company" is doing alright despite that.
Of course, nothing is niche anymore so there's 20-minute deep dives on YouTube, exhaustive histories and plenty of think pieces - should you care to dive deeper. It's worth it to see the can art which, frankly, was legitmately great all around.
I've watched a great deal of Taskmaster, the British competition / comedy show hosted by Greg Davies and Alex Horne. And by "great deal" I mean I've seen every episode and enjoyed each of them. Even the weird Christmas one-off specials.
YouTube knows this and has now started urging me to watch Taskmaster New Zealand, the same show with different hosts and different comedians. I am not particularly sold on it yet but all that is just context to why I'm sharing this Paul Williams video.
Williams is the co-host of the New Zealand version of Taskmaster and his stinted personality on the show is certainly not that of a pop star singing falsetto and hitting some undeniably impressive choreography. Worth noting, some of those dance moves are shared with Rose Matafeo and Brynley Stent - both New Zealand comedians who have also appeared on Taskmaster.
No dots to connect here beyond that; just found it enjoyably interesting.
David Cross has a new podcast called Senses Working Overtime (inspired by the XTC Classic) in which he interviews guests at length about anything and everything. There's a conceit that he's going to interview these guests about their actual senses - i.e. "What's the loudest sound you've ever heard?" - but based on the two episodes I've listened to, that's nothing more than a safety net.
Anyway, David Cross interviewing Bob Odenkirk - that's really all you need to know. It's goofy. It's great. It's something you want to listen to.
The rest of the show, thus far, is also enjoyable. Put it in your podcast app.
The folks at Runway are pitching a new idea called General World Models which essentially boils down to training an AI on text, video, audio and other multimodal inputs. Pretty sure this was already happening anyway with GPT4 and others but they have packaged it up rather nicely. The video is really well made and makes a great case for them. Worth a watch to say the least.
if you ever wondered what the future would look like, here it is. there is a twinge of uncanny valley but it is mostly believable all around. text to news anchor. wild.
Back in June, Tower Defense released their single for "Running Out" (backed by a killer B-52s cover). They even shot a video around the same time! Well, the wait is finally over and I gotta tell ya, the wait was worth it!
Everyone in the band sings but it's rare that Jereme (drummer) sings lead. So, the band really pulled out all the stops for this one in celebration. The production is homegrown but entertaining as hell. It's clear the band is having a great time and I love to see it.
The video really kicks up around 45s and gets nuts at 90s. Treat yourself with this little gem. The single is available on Bandcamp and streaming everywhere, too.
YouTube has started recommending that I watch guitar pedal reviews. I don't know how to play guitar or even own a guitar but I can't disagree with the recommendation. Recently it steered me to this pair of reviews for the Generation Loss and Lossy pedals; both created by Chase Bliss.
I do not make music but I must admit that hearing the output of these two devices does make me want to start tinkering. The Generation Loss MKII emulates the sound quality loss from analog devices like VCR overdubs or cassette decks. The Lossy is the flip side of the same coin; emulating digital degradation like compressing an mp3 into oblivion.
If you're like me and not a musician, you can still appreciate the effect here. If you are a musician, consider picking one of these up and then send me what you make. I am sure it'll be lovely.
General Trust dropped two new songs over the weekend; "If I Could Change Your Mind" / "If I Could Read Your Mind." Both continue to evolve the dark, electronic sound that General Trust has been cultivating all year but both have new vibes previously unexplored. The former has a pop hook to it that is undeniably catchy and the latter has a sinister quality to it that I was not expecting!
nice rundown of a bunch of AI powered tools and their application in the real world. I have not heard of most of these but will correct that soon enough.
