Phil Vogt

Articles of Interest is _so_ good. It's a great take on the 99% Invisible "design of everyday things". I was definitely blind to clothing and textiles and Articles of Interest is really enlightening. You may enjoy Search Engine by PJ Vogt[1], it's really well done. Its the quality of the original Gimlet Podcasts and a bit different than his previous show (Reply All). [1] https://pjvogt.substack.com

Worth a listen to this podcast: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/wait-should-i-not-be-drinking-airline

PJ Vagt (from Reply All) has a FANTASTIC episode about this. Give it a listen, it's one of the most interesting podcasts I've heard since the golden days of Reply All. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages

PJ Vogt (formerly Reply All) recently did an interesting episode on his new podcast about this exact topic[0]. It's worth a listen. It really helped to clarify some meta-thoughts about how attention works, how media consumption influences us, and how I think about Twitter (and people's relation to it). Like, at one point, PJ talks about how he's witnessed people at the bar talking to a friend (purportedly), but in a format that seems to be talking to an imaginary twitter audience. The way people talk, communicate, quip, etc on twitter is bleeding into discourse OUTSIDE twitter. I tend to agree as I've seen this. Worse, when I use things like twitter, I find myself being unintentionally obtuse, contrarian, quippy, etc. You are a product of what you consume. How deep of thoughts can be conveyed in 140/280 characters? And perhaps more importantly: does such a shallow medium give you a proper opportunity to explore your thoughts on a topic before you begin to formulate an opinion/response? [0] https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/how-do-i-use-the-internet-now

I'd like to shoutout PG Vogt (from Reply All podcasting fame) for this episode of his new show: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/how-am-i-supposed-to-find-new-music

I can't remember if it was specifically about Shwe Kokko but Search Engine did an episode about a city with compounds like these. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages

Unironically, folks are being triggered by trigger warnings now.[1] Imagine how “free” the beer in your hypothetical scenario is to an alcoholic struggling to stay sober. Capitalism commoditizes even protest against it and repackages it as a product or service. None of this is to assign blame to good faith actors in a so-called free market, nor is it to abdicate responsibility on behalf of so-called free agents. Just a counterpoint. [1] https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/what-do-trigger-warnings-actually

“Search Engine” podcast did a recent episode on this topic. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages

There was an interesting couple of episodes from the podcast Search Engine, asking the question “Why do dealers put fentanyl in everything?” [1] & [2] The grim conclusion was that dead clients are a calling card for dealers. People addicted to drugs don’t think “oh crap, this guy might kill me”, they think “oh wow, that must’ve been a hell of a high”. [1]: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-are-drug-dealers-putting-fentanyl [2]: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-are-drug-dealers-putting-fentanyl-97…

As did Search Engine: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/whos-behind-these-scammy-text-messages. That episode takes a really dark turn.

Try giving https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-are-drug-dealers-putting-fentanyl a listen. There are many reasons, some more plausible than others, but most surprising to me is that there’s a heavy amount of demand for it.

See also good podcast dedicated to this topic: Why can't we turn all the empty offices into apartment buildings? https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-cant-we-turn-all-the-empty-offices

This is very coincidental with PJ Vogt new podcast "Search Engine", they released a preview episode in the last days titled "How Sad Are Monkeys In The Zoo" [1] that tackles this problem of animal emotions. I was very surprised to learn that most animals in Zoos are on constant anti-depression and anti-anxiety prescriptions. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/welcome-to-search-engine Edit: typo

The first software I made that had users other than myself was a Lemonade Stand clone for the TI-83 Plus. I shared it with people at my school using a link cable and, as there wasn't much competition in the calculator game market, it was a big hit. The next school year, I attended a drivers ed class at our crosstown rival high school and found that my game had somehow spread to that school as well! I have no idea how it happened, but it was very satisfying seeing something I made have a life of its own. Ben Brode was on the Search Engine podcast recently and shared a very similar story.[1] I wonder how many other programmers of our generation had this experience. One thing that my game had that the original did not (and I don't know if I invented this or copied it from the version I played) was a hidden demand parameter that persisted between days. Advertising and word of mouth from satisfied customers would cause it increase, while customers going away empty-handed would cause it to decrease. That turned the game into a kind of clicker where the numbers could continue to go up and up. I also added the ability to save your game by serializing the game state to an image file, since that was the only way to save data on the TI-83 Plus that wasn't likely to be clobbered by another program. 1. https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/how-do-you-make-an-addictive-video