☀️ Awesome Things, Volume 180 [It's Back!]
Another week of internet awesomeness. Awesome Things is read across 40 US states and 34 countries.
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The Awesome Things Newsletter Returns
After a brief hiatus (has it really been 8 months?) I’ve decided to bring the newsletter back.
Hey man, why did you pause the newsletter?
It became a chore that I had less and less time to spend on, thereby driving the quality down, and I wasn’t proud of sending something out that wasn’t good.
What has changed?
A whole lot. My life plan for the last few years was to pack up and move to Florida. Florida holds a special place in my heart, but between the bad politics, climate concerns, and just the general (and rather expensive) shitshow that the state has become, I’ve finally conceded and those plans are on hold.
What’s Next?
I left my corporate gig in July and returned to the wildness of freelancing. (“What, in THIS economy?”)
Yes, I’ll miss the steady paycheck and the health insurance, the rest of it I’m more than happy to leave behind. Corporate Life has never been for me.
Obligatory pitch: I’m once again seeking freelance gigs: in graphic design, illustration, social media marketing, and digital content creation. I’ll even edit your podcast. Check out my portfolio and give me a shout if you have any design needs in the near future.
I also have some other exciting creative projects in the works that I’ll share here as things progress. Stay tuned!
And finally, I’d love for you to share this newsletter with your friends and enemies. I’m certain they’ll love it.
On to this week’s Awesome Things:
Since Martha and Snoop have been in the news galavanting at the Olympics, here’s Martha Stewart’s 24 Essential Tips for Living Your Best Life
This guy opened a fake 5 star ramen restaurant and then this happened. [Twitter]
West Philadelphia man rents billboard to help him find a date
Sick of swiping dating apps, one West Philadelphia man is putting himself out there in a very public way.
One Million Screenshots
They rendered over 1 million of the web's top homepages. This is the result.
Picking out a lunchbox for the school year in 1980. [Twitter]
AI trained on AI churns out gibberish garbage
A study published in Nature put the AI-trained-on-AI scenario to the test. The researchers made their own language model which they initially fed original, human-generated text. They then made nine more generations of models, each trained on the text output generated by the model before it. The end result in the final generation was nonessential surrealist-sounding gibberish that had essentially nothing to do with the original text. Over time and successive generations, the researchers say their model “becomes poisoned with its own projection of reality.” [Link]
New Study: Cats Have 276 Facial Expressions
Cats may play it cool, but their true feelings are written all over their furry little faces.
A woman spent a decade trying to track down an obscure 2000s movie from her childhood. Then the internet saved the day.
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Like what you’ve read this week?
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