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Why was Courteney Cox dancing with Bruce Springsteen?

(One of many questions I have had watching 80's pop videos)

Courteney Cox danced with Bruce Springsteen in the music video for “Dancing in the Dark” (1984). She was cast to play a fan pulled onstage during a concert. Director Brian De Palma chose her for her girl-next-door look, and the moment—though staged—was meant to feel spontaneous. The video boosted her career significantly.

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I found an 80's music channel on Pluto TV for ambient background, but it's a bit too interesing to be ambient background. How good was Blue Monday by New Order? Such a lot in that video, and I'm in love with all the poses by the Weimaraner dog, balancing on chairs and catching tennis balls (via Blue Monday ’88 - YouTube Music)

Incidentlly the ad time isn't too bad.

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Do I want another bike? A cool, utilitarian Surly? Yup. This isn't the one I was looking at but this 90's splatter paint job made me very happy. Custom Surly from artist Tozer and Bristol Bike shop John Woods repairs (via MIYO Splat With Preamble: Bristol Style – Surly Bikes)

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long tumblr read (!?) i like this person.

Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.

It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.

One day I will end this ring light fad. It is my ultimate side quest.

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“For years, starting in the late ‘70s, I was taking pictures of hitchhikers. A hitchhiker is someone you may know for an hour, or a day, or, every so often, a little longer, yet, when you leave them, they’re gone. If I took a picture, I reasoned, I’d have a memory. I kept a small portfolio of photos in the car to help explain why I wanted to take their picture. This helped a lot. It also led me to look for hitchhikers, so that I could get more pictures.

“I almost always had a camera… I finally settled on the Olympus XA – a wonderful little pocket camera. (I’ve taken a picture of the moon rising with this camera.) One time I asked a chap if I could take a photo, and he said, “You took my picture a few years ago.” I showed him the album and he picked himself out. “That’s me,” he said, pointing…”

– Doug Biggert (via Riding With Strangers: California Hitchhikers in the 1970s - Flashbak)

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Another Round (2020)

Saw this and loved it: Another Round (Danish: Druk, meaning 'Binge drinking') is a 2020 black comedy-drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, co-written with Tobias Lindholm. A group of middle aged friends, lacking spark in their lives, decide to see what happens if you maintain a blood alcohol level of 0.05%.

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Curated realities: An AI film festival and the future of human expression

Links to the winners mostly provided. I quite liked the winner Pixel Space because of the chosen images.

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Controversies of ADHD

NYT deepdive on ADHD from earlier this year about history, diagnosis and medication.

In 2002, Russell Barkley, then a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School as well as the author of several popular books on A.D.H.D., drafted an “international consensus statement,” signed by 85 prominent researchers, that defended the validity of the A.D.H.D. diagnosis. It leaned heavily on early studies that suggested that there were indeed solid biomarkers for the disorder, asserting, for instance, that people with A.D.H.D. had “less brain electrical activity” in certain regions than those without the diagnosis; that a single gene had been found to be associated with the disorder; and that people diagnosed with A.D.H.D. had “relatively smaller areas of brain matter.”

In the years since the consensus statement was published, however, the evidence for each of these A.D.H.D. biomarkers has faltered. Attempts to replicate the studies that showed differences in brain electrical activity came up empty. And though scientists have identified complex collections of genes that together may be signs of greater risk for A.D.H.D., they have failed to find a specific gene that predicts the disorder. “There is no single-gene story,” John Gabrieli, an M.I.T. neuroscientist, told me recently. “Fifteen years ago, there was incredible optimism, and now we realize how far away we are.”

Also an old part one part two podcast special of Search Engine which discusses the branding and re-branding of melancholy and stimulants. Whether you have a connection to ADHD or not, it's a good listen for a broader perspective.

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I never thought I wanted enforced tab limiting, but I recently installed it and it is sooo good: not because I don't end up with a unmanageable mess of illegible tabs, but because it makes me think about what I am doing.

When I started using it, I would repeatedly click a link, and the browser would just sort-of blink at me. I, like a dumb monkey, would hammer on that link a few more times, before I think "ohhhh I see. I'm out of tabs" and then I step back, examine my mess and re-orient.

I do however, have a profile without it for unthethered exploration.

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I realise retro gaming is a very well explored hobby, but I'm making cautious steps in, via a cute handheld Miyoo Flip.

One of the menu items took me to some (wonderful) "Pico-8" games. They clearly aren't from the 80's, so I looked into it.

PICO-8 is an "imaginary console" with a strict set of limitations, deliberately designed to be simple, fun, and to encourage creativity. Its key limitations (its "hardware specs") are:

Display: 128x128 pixels.

Colors: A fixed palette of 16 vibrant colors.

Sprites: A 128x128 pixel sprite sheet (where you draw all your game's graphics).

Sound: A 4-channel chiptune synthesizer for creating sound effects and music.

Code: Games are programmed in Lua, a very beginner-friendly language, but you're limited by the amount of code you can write (a "token" and character limit).

Cartridge Size: A finished game must fit within a tiny 32KB "cartridge" file.

The magic of PICO-8 is that these constraints, which sound restrictive, actually make it easier to finish a game. You can't get bogged down with overly ambitious ideas; you have to focus on making a small, fun, and complete experience.

I really want to have a go at making a Pico-8 game!

(via PICO-8 Fantasy Console)

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I'm having a moment. I was vaguely aware of 'takeout' the google download-your-data functionality, but had never looked at it beyond my fitbit data.

If you've had a google account since the dark ages (and have hit an age of naval gazing and introspection), go see what you can find in your data!

There are 51 different service types including Gmail, Drive files, Calendar entries, Scholar searches, old Blogger posts and images, Google Voice and YouTube activity history.

As a side note, I did this with ChatGPT recently and was surprised to find ALL THE AUDIO FILES of me muttering into my app "Can cats eat insects?" or "Should I be jogging on a sore knee?". It's creepy to hear yourself, especially when you didn't know your recording was being preserved.

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Long read from wired.com. Bizarre true story about libertarian billionaires creating the Enhanced Games - an "Enhanced Olympics" where performance-enhancing drugs are encouraged, not banned. What starts as a Peter Thiel fever dream ("We're three gay guys," founder admits about the non-sports-fan investors) somehow produces actual world records when a Greek-Bulgarian swimmer breaks the 50m freestyle after "juicing to the gills." Features training in apartment complex pools with uninvited ducks, athletes literally bursting out of supersuits, and culminates in something reminiscent of the early days of UFC.

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Duster - Opening Title Sequence - Meat Dept

Good fun title sequence for a newish Max - soon to be 'HBO Max' again - show.

A JJ Abrams creation, set in 1972 Southwest, Duster follows the first Black woman in the FBI, hunting a crime syndicate. Josh Holloway from Lost plays a getaway driver.

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Cosmic Dawn (NASA+ Original Documentary) free on Youtube.

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Browser Dating

This is gold. If dating apps send you into spiralling anxiety, how about https://browser.dating? The Machine checks your internet activity and finds you someone to date/talk to or just avoid for the rest of your life, based on similar browsing patterns and websites.

I uploaded my browser history (yes yes I know, but life is short) and I have a match!

Nerdy, midnight sadness-shoppers, come find me.

Note: Remember to anonymise your full name, IT CAN'T BE CHANGED. Also, the AI will write cute summaries of the sort of things you both do, which hopefully won't include anything too shady but, you know, be a bit careful what you share.

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I never figured out how to extract an image from .webp format files. This is a nice tool. Takes URLs and more. Doesn't bombard the user with anything threatening.

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