The pope is so hot right now. Everyone is discussing the long-awaited Magnifica Humanitas papal encyclical from the Roman Pontiff. It makes sense. In a world where much of the responsibility for moral leadership has been abdicated, we are in much need of a figure who can provide that leadership with reach and authority. Enter Pope Leo XIV, who took his name when he ascended to the papacy from the previous Pope Leo XIII, who dedicated much of his time to helping the world come to grips with industrialization.
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There are some amazing photos of holy sites in France coming from @eastbrad. I was especially enthralled with Mont-Saint-Michel.
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Van’s yellow and black Half Cabs. The official shoe of Canned Dragons.
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Black Butterflies
Kupajo warns us to beware of black butterflies.
Male grayling butterflies prefer to mate with darker female graylings. When caged with a female grayling and a cardboard cutout of a grayling painted black, the male will choose the cardboard cutout over the female. Beyond being an example of bro falling for an unrealistic standard of beauty, such a preference reveals that even in matters fundamental to survival and reproduction, these creatures can be seduced by artificial models they’d never encounter in nature.
The analogy holds up when you read about people falling in love with LLMs and being rewired by impossible standards of beauty. Basic humanity is now subordinate to machine slick simulacrums.
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Star Wars The Product
The Acolyte poster via StarWars.com Buddy cop movie, The Mandolorian and Grogu, hit theaters this weekend. The film is expected to gross about $102 million dollars by the end of the Memorial Day holiday. Nothing to sneeze at. It’s probably fair to say those box office receipts, more than any other factor, drive the direction of the Star Wars series of films and television shows.
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Quick Hit
Clive Thompson has the story of how Phil Collins accidentally invented gated reverb, the drum sound of the 80s, by leaving a talkback microphone on.
Normally, the reverb on a drum hit is intense at first, then slowly fades away. But in the Phil Collins drum session, the accidental reverb behaved differently. It had a nice, loud, booming reverb for a moment — then the reverb abruptly stopped. This created a very cool new type of drum sound. It was boomy and huge, but wasn’t messy, because the reverb for each drum hit ended before the next drum hit.
Gated reverb was used to startling effect on “In The Air Tonight” (watch a first-time reaction video to the song if you haven’t already). Prince jumped all over the drum sound, and it was also used by Kate Bush, John Cougar Mellencamp, Hall and Oates, and Duran Duran.
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Don’t Panic
Despite seemingly being designed by a corporation to be mostly inoffensive, sometimes to the point of banality or worse, Coldplay launched into the world consciousness hot, with “Don’t Panic,” the song in the pole position on their debut album Parachutes. Though I personally feel more generosity towards Chris Martin and crew, some believe “Don’t Panic” is the band’s only good song.1 Whatever the case, the track was certainly a winning way for Coldplay to announce their arrival on the scene.
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