Weekly Links #2

This weekend approximately 2 billion muslims worldwide celebrate Eid al-Fitr, so happy holidays! And if you’re travelling by plane, do you know that you have a 1 in 3.37 billion chance of being in a fatal plane crash?

noteworthy news 📰

  1. Argentina is set to replace Indonesia as the host of 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup after Indonesia’s reluctant to host Israel national football team.
  2. The conflict in Sudan has been on the news lately. Hundreds have died and a lot of countries are planning to evacuate their citizen. Here is an article that explains what’s going on. Here is a brief history of the African country for those interested.
  3. SpaceX successfully launched their first orbital test of Starship, the future spacecraft that will carry humans to Mars, after an initial scrub earlier this week. The rocket reached an altitude of 39 km before its on board computer decided to blew it up. You can watch the livestream here, and a summary of what happened by Marcus House here.
  4. The Indonesian government has estimated that more than 123 million people will make their mudik (exodus) trip this year in accordance to Eid al-Fitr. If the prediction is correct, it will be the largest homebound journey in history.
  5. PDIP, one of the largest political party in Indonesia has officially announced the current governor of Central Java, Ganjar Pranowo, as their presidential candidate.
  6. BuzzFeed is shutting down BuzzFeed News because it is not able to turn a profit, according to a memo CEO Jonah Peretti sent to company staff Thursday. The digital publisher is laying off 15% of its employees, or about 180 people, across BuzzFeed News and other divisions.

things i’ve watched 📺

  • I rewatched the 2014 Godzilla movie. I did not realize Elizabeth Olsen was in the movie. Its one of those movies that I really like to rewatch from time to time even if its absurd like 2012 and Battleship.
  • I watched the movie Moxie that was produced by Netflix. I watched it because I was listening to a podcast from How Long Gone with their guest Lauren Tsai, and she had a role in it. She is an American visual artist that has a very unique style. You can see her work on her Instagram art account here.
  • In writing this newsletter I actually it kept bugging me why is there so many news and most of them are badly written and are not useful after 24 hours or so, then I remembered talks that were given by Alain de Botton around this topic. Here are the two I watched.
  • I watched a three-part video series also from Alain, on what makes a perfect home. Honestly I watched every video on the channel. I wish there was moreeee.
  • Since I’m still reading the book Blindsight, apparently there is a short film about the book that is so freaking good. You can watch it here. I wish it was longer.

stuff I read 📚

  • I was perusing Ted Chiang (one of the most amazing sci-fi writer) works the other day and stumbled upon his article in the New Yorker. It’s about the similarities between a photocopier and ChatGPT. It argues that the current form of this type of large language models are not necessarily as amazing as it seems.
  • With the rise of AI, especially large language models like ChatGPT, people have been getting more creative. Recently an AI-generated song that mimics the Canadian rapper Drake went viral on TikTok prompting copyright strikes from major label companies. I have listened to the song and it is unbelievably good. The ever increasing ability and utility of AI for creating art like this asks a very important reconsideration of what role does human play in the creation of art as well as how do we regulate art created from AI. Not long ago there were painting and photography awards that were won by AI, I think we’re living in a very interesting era given just how fast it’s progressing, the whole AI craze is counted in months now, not years.