Basement Whatever

Escape the algorithm

advice aging ai algorithm Art biotech Chicago cities codes comics community corporations design fantasy France future games happiness history hollywood information Internet magic management media MTG music nerd organization perspective philosophy practice predictions reading reality social social media symbols technology travel ttrpg tv USA wealth work

about

Tag: media

  • One problem with social media intellectuals

    One problem with social media intellectuals is that they always need to be saying something new that’s optimized for drawing eyeballs. They can be a really smart person like Dwarkesh or Hanania that has worthwhile things to say fairly regularly, but of necessity so much of their product is marketing that it’s hard to tell…

  • a gen z guide to fixing your doom-pilled brain

    whenever i hear a young person confidently assert that humanity is cooked, my first instinct is to ask for their screen time report. because, yes, if you spend more time scrolling than you do participating in real life, it’s actually quite reasonable to conclude that we’re hanging on by a thread — Read on stephstiner.substack.com/p/a-gen-z-guide-to-fixing-your-doom

  • Old Hollywood’s Most Scandalous Secrets, as Told by David Niven

    “[It] was hardly a nursery for intellectuals, it was a hotbed of false values, it harbored an unattractive percentage of small-time crooks and con artists, and the chances of being successful there were minimal,” he writes. “But it was fascinating, and if you were lucky, it was fun.” — Read on www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/05/david-niven-memoir-scandals-old-hollywood

  • Stranger Things Was The Ultimate Vibe Show, Season 5 Is What’s Left After It’s Gone

    Stranger Things was a show people loved because of the vibe. Now, Stranger Things is a show people watch because they remember loving that season one vibe, and they figure they might as well finish the rest of it. — Read on www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/scifi/stranger-things-vibe.html

  • For Beat’s Sake: An Interview with Carolyn Cassady • Empty Mirror

    Despite Neal’s reputation as a frenetic hipster, “I just realized that there weren’t that many trips,” Carolyn said. “It sounds as though they were doing this all the time. Half of them were coming home again — people don’t realize that Jack was going home and Neal was coming home. There weren’t that many anyhow…Jack…

  • This life gives you nothing – Blackbird Spyplane

    when I was much more active on Twitter than I am now, I’d find myself, e.g., washing dishes and, without wanting to, thinking about various mundane things in the form of tweets. Some nascent half-kernel of an idea would come to me and, like a hack comedian for whom every banal thing is material, I…

  • How to manage social media

    How to manage social media

    How to get control of YouTube. Shut off the algorithm and get a better landing page. How to get control of Spotify. Escape the algorithm, expand your listening. How to get control of Twitter. “Onboarding to Twitter is challenging. It’s not a rewarding experience for most people; your posts barely get any engagement at all…

  • Three Ways to Use Social Media Better (so it helps you)

    Three Ways to Use Social Media Better (so it helps you)

    “The Serendipity Machine: Notes on Using Twitter.”Some guidelines for using Twitter as a superpower – meeting people, getting questions answered, learning. It covers how difficult it is getting traction at first. How to Be Found by Your People Online (YouTube) “Transform your Instagram Feed Into a Community Bulletin Board.” Make the Instagram algorithm biased to local…

  • How a myth gets created

    History tells us that the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer threw a woman down the stairs in a fit of anger that his thinking was interrupted when she insisted on talking in the hallway outside his door. The story is used repeatedly to help us understand Schopenhauer’s character. The problem is, it’s not true. So how did…

  • How to organize YouTube for maximum sanity

    YouTube is algorithmic whirlpool, sucking you into endless low-quality videos of Minecraft YouTubers, conspiracy theories and productivity gurus that leave you scrolling. Before you know it, you’ve learned nothing except the easiest way to mine diamond ore. You’ve given away your precious life essence to advertisers and gained nothing in return. There is a much…

  • My Instagram: We all die immediately of a Brazilian butt lift

    My Instagram: We all die immediately of a Brazilian butt lift

    “When you think, ‘Social media is terrible,’ which are you thinking of most?”