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FEATURES, BLOGS, & REVIEWS
The weather is starting to turn just a little bit. The music is starting to turn right along with it. Bring on those perfect pop-punk vibes.
It was a fun month that included a bowling outing with my sister to an old nostalgic haunt, getting the pool table felt fixed and refreshed, and some great beer and time with Hannah.
Can’t ask for much more. We’re healthy and happy.
April 2026
The People Do Not Yearn for Automation
Nilay Patel, writing at the Verge:
[S]oftware brain has ruled the business world for a long time. AI has just made it easier than ever for more people to make more software than ever before — for every kind of business to automate big chunks of itself with software. It’s everywhere: the absolute cutting edge of advertising and marketing is automation with AI. It’s not being a creative.
But: not everything is a business. Not everything is a loop! The entire human experience cannot be captured in a database. That’s the limit of software brain. That’s why people hate AI. It flattens them.
Regular people don’t see the opportunity to write code as an opportunity at all. The people do not yearn for automation. I’m a full-on smart home sicko; the lights and shades and climate controls of my house are automated in dozens of ways. But huge companies like Apple, Google and Amazon have struggled for over a decade now to make regular people care about smart home automation at all. And they just don’t.
A thought provoking article that I quite enjoyed.
Weird week. Apparently a lot of comfort food.
The Stats: 46 artists, 76 albums, 728 tracks (861 scrobbles)
It’s not officially “feeling like summer is around the corner season” until you break out ‘Take Off Your Pants and Jacket’ to watch a sunset.
The Stats: 32 artists, 64 albums, 606 tracks (761 scrobbles)
First time I don’t have a cover for an album, I think, but that’s Cartel’s new one in the second spot. 👀
Infinite Midwit
I agree with them. It’s cool that AI can fold proteins, create websites, fact-check journal articles, etc. but it can’t write anything that I am interested in reading. The problem isn’t that it hallucinates or makes mistakes. It’s that everything it writes vaguely sucks. I drag my eyes across the words and I feel nothing. That’s not quite right, actually—I feel like, “I would like this to be over as soon as possible.” When I see the ideas that the machines think are insightful, I wince. Talking to the computer is like taking a sip of scalding hot coffee: keep doing it and you’ll lose your sense of taste.
Things I think are worth checking out today: The Maine, I Am the Avalanche, and Holly Humberstone.