“The cool bike is a throwback to when time moved slower and bicycles were fun things meant to take you to a happier place. The extra-long custom lounge seat with room to fit another passenger brings the social back to bicycling. Available with drivetrain options that include one with an electric motor.”
UPDATE: Someone just pointed out this bike is priced at $1,000. Hardly the bike for everyman. Nevermind.
You know I love my Apple Music playlists. And have wondered aloud who puts these together. Steven Levy wondered the same thing:
“Who are those editors putting the playlists together? It turns out they are music nerds who might have otherwise been displaced by technology. People from radio; people who used to work at publications; people who used to work at record companies — hard core passionate music people. They check in to work at offices in Cupertino or LA (though a few work remotely) and perform curation tasks that include making those playlists, which they draft and discuss in meetings that must be more fun than the ones at your job. The important thing is that they are human beings. Apple believes that only flesh-and-blood music lovers can properly select and format these lists, artfully making the segues from one tune to the next.”
“They are very much like those cosmic deejays in the early days or FM, or today’s superstar spinners at Las Vegas casinos and high end clubs everywhere. But without a direct channel to communicate with the audience — no microphone to explain yourself between blocks of song — it’s a weird kind of communication they have with their audience. […] After listening to a lot of these playlists, I feel I almost know whoever it is at Apple who specializes in Americana, Blues, and 60s rock.”
Apple Music has a Connect feature where fans can ‘connect’ with their favorite artists. I have zero interest in doing that but would love to connect with the people who create the playlists.
“Americans are too focused on their glass screens to riot.”
“Most of the joy in your life is going to come from pleasant surprises.”
“The increased surface area for corporate capitalism is human attention. So we spend more and more of our time feeding the market place. Central currency and chartered monopoly — corporate capitalism — is not a condition of nature. It is an operating system that was invented by certain people at a certain moment in history and they’ve long since left the building.”
“It was such a good little thing”
“How much is our data worth if we don’t have any money?”
“If we’re all doing everything for advertising, what’s left to advertise?”
Douglas Rushkoff is the author of Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus – Douglas Rushkoff Link above to some of my favorite parts of the book (PDF).
As near as I can tell I am neither Ship A nor Ship B, nor any of the parts thereof. Rather, the process — the activity — of A becoming B. So, what seems to be more accurate than who.
“According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can’t read. That’s 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can’t read.[…] The current literacy rate isn’t any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a “below basic” literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a “basic” reading level.”
