It’s Monday. It’s January. And it’s been about a year since we learned TikTokkers will sing sea shanties. But let’s focus on the important question:
Did pirates sing sea shanties?
Disclosure: I’m pre-disposed to trust sources called “Rogue History” for reasons.
I’d seen this as a suggested video last month and, while it’s arguably more of a Halloween kind of thing, “Christmas Carol” guarantees that ghosts are still seasonal.
It might be time to re-watch Rashomon as well…
There are many ways to remember the “Day that Will Live in Infamy.“
Watching the 2001 film, Pearl Harbor, is arguably not one of them. Honest Trailers has my back on this.
I mean, it does inexplicably find a way to cram Spitfires in there, but come on!
In trying to figure out what all those rings of power in Middle Earth actually do, I came across some videos by the self-described “Tolkien Professor,” Corey Olsen, where he fields a number of questions.
This was evidently well received enough that they did another one, which I kinda like more:
There’s also an explanation about all the different peoples and creatures of Middle Earth.
So there you have it. A lot more Tolkien information which is sure to help you in any number of office jobs you seven or nine readers are surely engaged in.
Also, the Eagles aren’t coming. Sorry about that. Narrative reasons.
A holiday tradition for many people is cookie making, which is all well and good, but what to do about all those cookies once they’re made?
Here, we learn from the undisputed master of cookie eating.
Earlier this Fall, there was a flurry of posts, thought pieces, and assorted hand-wringing about “Quiet Quitting,” which sounded weird until I learned far too many people have been using the phrase to describe people doing their jobs, just not going above and beyond.
To reference The Princess Bride, I don’t think “quitting” means what they think it means. In fact, I rather side with the people pushing back at hand-wringing over people doing what they’re paid to do. Instead of “quiet quitting,” I’ve heard the entertaining phrase “acting your wage.”
Now, from the title image below, you may correctly conclude that Jon Favreau and his interviewee, Derek Thompson, agree that “quiet quitting” is a silly term, but the hour-long conversation has a whole lot more about the future of office culture, hard work and ‘soft’ work.
(Oh, and I should mention that this is from the Pod Save America family of podcasts which are, by and large, political. Favreau is a former Obama staffer, after all. So just be aware that spice is in the mix).
For my work, I’m often focused on continuous improvement — and the silver lining of broken processes means there’s always room for improvement. On the one hand have you ever met those people for whom 99.9999% just isn’t close enough to 100%?
Can more optimization be too much of a good thing?
Derek Thompson over at The Atlantic feels that might be the case, starting, with that most American of statistics obsession: baseball. If you know about Moneyball, from either the book or movie, his premise is that the “Moneyball-ization” of baseball has optimized the National Pastime into the National “Meh” time.
But what if you are one of the many Americans who doesn’t pass their time with baseball at all? Well, he doesn’t stop there. His premise is that this mechanical optimization has penetrated all sorts of aspects of American culture, including mass media in terms of music and films. And for those of us indie creators, that’s certainly a trend to study.
In fact, if you want to get into music, I’ve been watching musician/producer Rick Beato’s YouTube channel for the past few weeks and goes into a music theory version of why music doesn’t sound as interesting (briefly touching on the risk-averse nature of music labels these days).
All in all, stuff to ponder.
I was almost going to let Halloween go by without an appropriately thematic post, and then an old classmate shares something he’s narrated — and sharing is scaring!
I mean, if I’m going to post for the vikings yesterday, I might as well do this today:
I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole earlier this year, going through the various “experts in [X] talk about the treatment of [X] in movies.” When I saw this one, I knew it had to be this year’s Leif Erikson Day post. (Because of course I have to have a Leif Erikson post. Have you seen my name?).