Aha: a course for people who can program already! Good; Python is my Umpteenth language and I can just about bodge it together, but it'd be nice to know it better. Might hammer at this over some evenings.

"…he doesn’t strike me as someone that Hubertus Bigend would hire. He strikes me as somebody that Hubertus Bigend would trick an opponent or enemy into hiring.”

"While there has been plenty of fiction written about pandemics, I think the biggest difference between those scenarios and our reality is how poorly our government has handled it. If your goal is to dramatize the threat posed by an unknown virus, there’s no advantage in depicting the officials responding as incompetent, because that minimizes the threat; it leads the reader to conclude that the virus wouldn’t be dangerous if competent people were on the job. A pandemic story like that would be similar to what’s known as an “idiot plot,” a plot that would be resolved very quickly if your protagonist weren’t an idiot. What we’re living through is only partly a disaster novel; it’s also—and perhaps mostly—a grotesque political satire." Ted Chiang on what stories about change and revolution do (and what _actual_ change and revolution also do).

Cracking episode of EmbeddedFM, speaking to Amanda Wozniak. Although the topic is nominally embedded electronics, it turns into a wonderfully shrewd discussion of self-care and career-care: how to acknowledge and recognise your desires but also the things that will lead you to burnout (be it too much work, or too _intense_ work. I found so much to think on in this, highly recommended even if it's not your usual jam.

"We’re more willing to grant intelligence to things that we’ve built ourselves than to non-human species, even though it’s increasingly obvious that primates, cephalopods and trees have forms of intelligence that we should maybe be listening to. So how do we take this sudden decentring of the human with regard to AI? It’s like a Copernican moment when suddenly we have to acknowledge there are other forms of intelligence present. And then suddenly go, “Oh shit, there have been incredible amounts of intelligence here all along, and we’ve completely ignored them." This is very good.

Great interview with Teki Latex, whose mixtapes are always a ton of _fun_. Nice notes on clubs, playing records, and the technique videos are top fun. He thinks really hard about helping people enjoy themselves. Good questions, too.

"Making entertainment media is a bit like telling a joke; you really can’t tell whether it’s going be funny until you’ve told it." A really good synthesis of many years of work and process from Jack and Timo. Reading this I remember how I'm somewhat shaped by this thinking.

"…she asked me, cautiously, “Wouldn’t you say that anybody who thought as much about balance as I do in my work probably felt some threat to their balance?” After a long pause, she added, “Of course all adolescents are out of balance, and very aware of it. To become adult can certainly feel like walking a high wire, can’t it? If my foot slips, I’m gone. I’m dead.”" Wonderful profile and interview with/of UKLG.

What it says on the tin. Thoughtful and insightful.

A scan of a six-page conversation between De Palma and Coppola about "The Conversation" (which is, still, probably my favourite film).

Lovely interview with Sean Hellfritsch on music, sound, and process. Just great – inspiring in the warm, meaningful ways, not the flippant euphoric ones.

Great interview with Jeremy Greenspan about the new Junior Boys album, and getting back in the saddle. One of my favourite bands, and an pleasantly honest, ordinary perspective.

"What would be your dream setup?

If Maple could include a chemistry software, it would be wonderful. But indeed, I am not sure that this would change a lot. What I need is intelligence, kindness and time." That.