PicoBlog

Dear Friends, Undeniably, today’s web platforms impoverish the way we “experience” life. They render people catatonic and passive. They make readers into zombies, and they bankrupt our creative process But the problem isn't the tool, it's us. We're not alive to the world. Instead, we’re deadened to physical life and digital life. We should never consume books or articles or YouTube videos or podcast episodes. Instead, we should: Distill

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, from Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci.🧩 Our free weekday posts are made possible by paying subscribers, who also get exclusive access to our Saturday deep-dives into living better online. If you saw me accidentally post a blurry picture to my Snapchat Story this morning, no you didn’t. (No, really. You probably didn’t.) —Kate I came into this prepared to write a totally different piece.

It was an early crisp winter morning. I found myself in western Sweden. Not even the birds had found their way back from the land of the shadows. I got woken up by the classic ‘nobody can stand’ iPhone alarm, demanding me out of bed. My head was banging and the morning light piping through the curtain was shocking waves through my skull as had I by mistake touched an electrical fence.

Okay okay okay…. I read an Instagram message, and thank Gawd I did. OMG. Is Barbie getting choked out by Ken? Or vice versa…? As funny as that may sound, it’s probably not far from what’s happening. Humans learn by observing behavior and then of course, story telling. With little to no sex education in schools- the course curriculum is STILL pushing celibacy- just don’t do it!- meanwhile online porn is being marketed to our kids.

The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and this year Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates) have introduced a new blockchain-based payment system called BRICS Pay. This system operates on a distributed ledger and is not a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or electronic cash like bitcoin. Its main objective is to facilitate trade and financial transactions between the BRICS nations, enabling payments to be made in their respective national currencies rather than relying on the US dollar or the euro, which is often seen as a step towards dedollarization.

Please be warned…this is a bit of a philosophical meandering inspired by Adam Neumann. The meandering bit is the part I’m warning you about. I was talking to Liana (who works with me part-time and is just the best*) about the Netflix series WeCrashed, which chronicles the ultimate demise of the co-working space business WeWork. She flagged she’d also see… ncG1vNJzZmirkaeuqcPIpaqopl6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6aZKedp2K0s7HEpGSwp6KZerW01KamrA%3D%3D

Amazingly it’s the New Year – 2023, specifically – which means it’s time to put down the eggnog and pick up the free weights. This holiday season I tried to start my healthy eating pre-January so I wouldn’t feel like as much of a cliché, but the gesture was feeble at best.  And now here I am, doing the New Year thing along with everyone else.  New Year, New Me, etc etc.

Wow, so I guess I have a lot to say about this...I kind of can't believe we're still talking about this. I'm a boomer, so for my generation, embracing and normalizing gay marriage and gay families was a gigantic sea change, and something to be so proud of. We really helped moved the needle on it. This was definitely not the case when I was young. I believe my generation played a big role in taking on deeply rooted cultural beliefs about what is and what isn't a family.

Unless you live under a rock (everyone knows there is bad cell phone service under rocks), you likely heard that Kate Middleton (Catherine, Princess of Wales) released a video last week revealing she has cancer. This is not a post about conspiracy theories and public relations malpractice. I did speak with NBC News last week about the psychology of sharing memes when famous rich people are sick. But I want to focus here on the public health ramifications of all these news coverage of the princess’ cancer disclosure.