🧠 #BrainFood 11.21.24

Shelby Erickson

Nov 21, 2024

If you don’t mind taking 3 seconds,

This new email intro:

To Whom It May Concern,

boring
cliche
devoid of real meaning

To Whom It's About to Concern,

exciting
innovative
a call to action

Saw this on Twitter, so not really sure who to credit for it, but I thought it was funny. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

How MF DOOM Redefined Hip-Hop Album Art Forever

An artwork by Jason Jägel for MM..FOOD's album cover shows the rapper eating

DOOM is the greatest rapper ever, and it’s not even close, fight me.

MF DOOM’s landmark album MM..FOOD celebrates its 20th anniversary, marking a pivotal moment in hip-hop album art and underground music. The original album cover, created by Jason Jägel, broke from traditional photo-based album art by featuring an intricate, commissioned painting that captured DOOM’s enigmatic world. For the 20th anniversary re-release, illustrator Sam Rodriguez created a new artwork that pays homage to Jägel’s original, using a Norman Rockwell-inspired diner scene that references DOOM’s lyrical food metaphors and multiple personas. The project highlights DOOM’s significant impact on music and visual art, celebrating his legacy of creativity, idiosyncrasy, and artistic innovation.

How Podcasts Inspire Positive Healthy Changes

A study has found that listening to health-related podcasts can positively influence listeners’ health behaviors and attitudes. The research highlights that podcasts are an effective medium for disseminating health information, potentially leading to improved health outcomes. The study suggests that the engaging and accessible format of podcasts makes them a valuable tool for public health communication, capable of reaching diverse audiences and encouraging proactive health management.

The Shopping Cart Theory

The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do.
To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do.
Because it is correct. A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it. The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.

A silly, but simple depiction of self-governing.

Pokémon Go Players Have Unwittingly Trained AI to Navigate the World

Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Go, has been using data collected from players to train a Large Geospatial Model (LGM), an AI system designed to help computers understand and navigate the physical world. This model is built using scans from over 10 million locations worldwide, with an additional one million scans added weekly. The LGM aims to enhance technologies such as augmented reality glasses, robotics, and autonomous systems by providing precise spatial intelligence. Although Niantic has been developing this model since 2019, it recently disclosed its use of player data for this purpose, raising concerns about privacy and the potential applications of this technology in areas beyond gaming, such as automated weapons systems

Harley-Davidsons pivot into electric scooters

Harley-Davidson has pivoted with the times. Once known for producing heavy, gas-powered, ear-splitting hogs, the company released its Livewire electric motorcycle in 2019; it then spun Livewire off as its own electric motorcycle brand. And Livewire is now reaching downmarket to target consumers you'd never associate with H-D: The scooter crowd.