PicoBlog

Computers have changed a lot in 51 years. 51 years ago computers were so expensive that we had to have multiple users per machine to make it financially feasible. 51 years ago most multi-user operating systems were messy, inconstant, and in general a pain in the ass. So some dude at Bell Labs built a little OS to fix the pain in the assery of multi-user OS’s and they did a wonderful job.

First, hello to all of my lovely new followers! Thank you Substack for choosing me as a featured publication this week. I am honored to be here with all of you and excited to continue debunking diet culture myths. Here at Forkful, my mission is to inspire you to break up with your diet and pick up a fork. But today, I’m actually going to inspire you to pick up a spoon.

On March 6th, representatives Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman introduced the Living Wage for Musicians Act.  They're working with the United Musicians and Allied Workers union, and the Make Streaming Pay campaign. As a working musician as well as an advocate for other working musicians and the working class in general -- in its traditional as well as its more contemporary forms -- I'll just come out and say right up that I'd like to encourage anyone in the US to use the form on the UMAW's website to write your representatives, and otherwise to make noise about the importance of supporting this act.

Religion is full of things. Fancy people call this “material culture.” This is what it says on my CV, though I find the phrase annoying because it’s obscure without being helpful. I study material culture, but what I find interesting is…stuff. Objects. Things. Objects make their way into religion in many different ways. Sometimes the Bible or Talmud says that they’re important. Sometimes they’re borrowed from other cultures, or they just become important because they’ve been in use for a very long time.

Share Hello, in this issue we’ll look at… Why we won’t be getting U.S. state flag emoji Melania Trump has her own Christmas ornament collection What if an artist doesn’t want you to use their name in an A.I. art generator? Sorry to everyone who wants state flag emoji, it’s not going to happen. Today there are 258 flag emoji, the largest category, accounting for about 7% of all emoji. They’re also some of the least frequently used, and the Unicode Consortium, which approves new emoji, said it won’t accept any more new flag proposals.

Creative Fuel is a newsletter about the intersection of creativity and everyday life. It is entirely reader-supported and paid subscribers help bring it to life. Back in January of 2018 (you know, a lifetime ago), I picked up a copy of Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in that Order) by Bridget Quinn. It was bright pink and promised to reveal to me a world of women artists.

During the mid 2000s, my comedian brother Matt Balaker hosted a Tuesday night comedy show at a bar on LA’s Sunset Strip. Each week my wife and I helped spread the word, and I’d also assume the role of DJ—I use that term loosely.  Basically, I’d hang out in the back of the bar next to the A/V equipment. When I wasn’t disappointing patrons by telling them I couldn’t serve them a beer, I would tap my iPod Nano and shower comedians with vibe-appropriate intro and outro music.

Hey hopeful romantic, Happy holidays! Times are wild with COVID right now, so I hope you’re healthy, safe, and spending this time with people you love. Going off last week’s newsletter, let’s talk about a thing called scarcity mindset. Have you struggled with any of the following? You stayed in a relationship that made you unhappy. You dated someone you didn’t like that much for far too long. You worry you’ll never find someone who loves you.

Some opportunities worth checking out: Etched has built a chip that can run transformers >10x faster than GPUs. They’re currently hiring Machine Learning Researchers, Compilers Engineers, Verification Engineers, Firmware Engineers, RTL Design Engineers, interns, and more in Cupertino. Sponsored - Our friend Anthony recently announced the third cohort of NEXT, a curated (~10% acceptance rate) community of entrepreneurial mid-career and exec-level folks thinking about their next roles. NEXT offers events with top VCs, workshops with career coaches, and a collaborative search experience with well-networked peers.