For some reason I keep being drawn to movies that are seeking to tell stories of loss from WWII. This humour-flecked story of a divorced 30-something journalist (Lena Dunham) and her Polish holocaust survivor father (Stephen Fry) who has invited himself along to her tour of key sites from their family history. Fry does an …
Author Archives: cafedave
an unlikely origin story of amazon
During the week where I finished listening to the audio book of the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk (an experience that makes you wonder how to best use your time), and listening to the kids talking about maths homework, I’m reminded of the moment that Jeff Bezos decided not to pursue theoretical physics.
Crossing the river
Already lost to me is the LinkedIn post that brought this to my attention, but searching for that story, I found an article that told some more of the background. https://mindmatters.ai/2024/05/a-man-a-boat-and-a-goat-and-a-chatbot/ The link between the original post and the classic non-fiction work “Gödel Escher Bach” is the icing on the cake. You’re familiar with the …
anhedonia and digital dopamine
i recently signed up to try the Opal app for which I’d seen many ads on my Instagram feed. The app essentially puts your own smartphone into parental guidance mode, and lets you lock yourself out of social media (or any other) apps for blocks of time. I had found that I was spending more …
pause
Spent some time this week slowed down and trying to reset. It was good going to a retreat centre for a couple of nights to spend some slow time. I probably rate myself a B- for my efforts at slowing down; what should have been a season of silence and solitude was interrupted with podcasts …
book: Fahrenheit 451
Reading a blog post from danah boyd I realised I’d never read Fahrenheit 451, so I borrowed the audiobook from my local library using Libby and worked through it during my holiday downtime (mostly dog-walking) over the last couple of days. The irony of listening to an audiobook while hearing about a world constantly distracted …
slowing
I’m currently in the middle of some annual leave, in the perhaps unwise situation of having a work meeting in the middle of my leave. It’s a familiar journey from being in the midst of work-mindset to being able to relax, but I find myself trying to score the level of relaxation that I’m achieving, …
A range of AI resources
So many different websites and newsletters jumping on “generative AI’s” hype cycle at the moment. A course I completed recently made a range of resources available and I wanted to put them in one place. The intriguing sounding “Hugging Face” shows a range of different approaches to high-speed use of AI tech, along with the …
competitive hotdog eating
Some of the horrors that professional hot dog eaters put themselves through. [via flowing data]
Convergence of digital marketing approaches
I woke up early today to dial into a webinar for a product that claimed to be able to revolutionise my productivity. It’s the season for such things, the Christmas to New Year lull, where approaches to work are up for review more than at other times of year. It was a ninety minute webinar …
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