We’re halfway through the second blizzard of 2024, with about 5-6 inches of snow so far with an estimated accumulation of 10ish for this event, on top of the 8ish from the last one. This Winter took the shit talk personally, and after a brown Christmas and New Year, decided to ring in the changing of the year with enough thick, wet, fluffy snow to turn the world into a frosted wonderland.
Inputs
1: Watched the Friday ep of Pablo Torre Finds Out, with guests Katie Nolan and Dan Soder. It served as a fantastic inside baseball follow-up to her Jeopardy performance earlier in the week, as well as a great recap of the New Year’s Urn drama down in ‘bama.
2: Also watched the Wednesday ep of Pablo Torre Finds Out, in which we learn that Duke all-timer JJ Redick turned down multiple offers to join or outright run coaching staffs for multiple NBA franchises to run his son’s 9-year-old traveling basketball team. An incredibly endearing story about fatherhood, maturity, learning how to lead, and learning the joy of following one’s true values.
I would never have imagined the scrappy Dukie who was easy to loathe in college would turn into someone I immensely respect, not only for his commentary work on his own podcast and on network shows, but as someone who has had to learn how to be the best version of himself, and is sharing that experience with us.
Pablo, I echo so many others in observing, has found an incredible voice on his own show, and these two episodes give a small slice of that larger, laudable whole. You can see, even in his joviality, how much he cares, not just about the topics or the effort of his journalistic instincts, but about the people with whom he spends his hours each week.
3: Via Futurism, a story about Amazon selling products whose sellers have overseen so little that they include labels such as “I’m sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAl use policy. My purpose is to provide helpful and respectful information to users-Brown”
For a long, long time, Amazon has clearly not given a shit about the quality of products sold via its storefront, happy to be the fulfillment center for whatever from wherever to whomever. It screams out for oversight which seems to echo into the void. And I say this as a (very unsuccessful and to date not-compensated) Amazon “Partner” and as some one who has interviewed for roles at Amazon in the past.
Projects In Progress
No news is news of nothing, I suppose?