Conrad

Conrad

@thelummer.bsky.social

Product & revenue at @foreignpolicy.com (not a journalist or SME). Ex- @bangordailynews.bsky.social. Board games, records, Detroit Lions. Fmr expat 🇬🇧 🇪🇪 🇯🇴 🇮🇹 🇩🇰, now in dt Grand Rapids, MI. Lauren's spouse. Passionate globalist. Zero patience for autocrats.

99 followers77 following436 posts

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

"Oh, don't worry, someone will engineer our way out of it"

AERE@aereorg.bsky.social

🌍 A new #JAERE study asks: does carbon removal replace cutting emissions? No. Modeling direct air capture, ocean alkalinity enhancement & iron fertilization shows the optimal carbon price barely moves — but net emissions can turn negative, easing peak warming. 📊 #JaereFigureFriday 📈 #Econsky

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@thelummer.bsky.social

"And the walls ran red around me, a warm arterial spray"

Wolfgang Blau@wblau.bsky.social

“News value criteria”, “news relevance”, “newsworthiness”? These are increasingly obsolete frameworks in an era of accelerating earth system changes. If the below isn’t “news” while it affects all “news” you’ll ever hear - what is?

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@thelummer.bsky.social

One possible theory of aesthetics in the age of AI: Marina Abramovic and performance art more generally were around half a century ahead of their time, but artists like them are about to get way more essential

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@thelummer.bsky.social

Study cited by @baekdal.bsky.social this week - "Homogenizing effect of large language models (LLMs) on creative diversity." Striking, but not shocking: "GPT-4 essays contribute significantly fewer novel ideas compared to essays written by human writers." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.comHomogenizing effect of large language models (LLMs) on creative diversity: An empirical comparison of human and ChatGPT writingGenerative AI systems, especially Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, have recently emerged as significant contributors to creative processe…
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@thelummer.bsky.social

If you're going to be a rich motherfucker, be like Jim Irsay - buy a bunch of cool stuff like Gilmour's and Cobain's guitars and Jack Kerouac's manuscript for On the Road; hire your buddy to curate; when you die, sell it all at a huge profit and donate the proceeds to mental health charities. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

10 favorite songs by Everything Everything 1. Suffragette Suffragette 2. Kemosabe 3. Kevin's Car 4. Leviathan 5. Spring/Summer/Winter/Dread 6. The Wheel (Is Turning Now) 7. NASA is on Your Side 8. Breadwinner 9. Torso of the Week 10. Fever Dream

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@thelummer.bsky.social

I have reservations about Mountainhead, Re-animator, and most of Fever Dream, but their worst album is better than most bands' best, so I guess I'm a fan. Four of their records are jaw dropping from end to end: Man Alive, Arc, Get to Heaven, Raw Data Feel.

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@thelummer.bsky.social

This band is so manifestly odd, and so devoted to their strange vision of obtuse but hyperverbose danceable indie rock with falsetto vocals, that I'm not sure whether to think it's weird that almost no one listens to them or that anyone at all does.

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

I got arthroscopic surgery! The surgeon cut away a layer of scarring that had developed around the ball of my shoulder, then manually loosened the knotted muscles that led to it. It hurts a lot, but it's worth it if I can sleep again. With Mom and Lauren's help, I'm taking days off to recover.

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@thelummer.bsky.social

@iancohen.bsky.social Inquiring minds want to know: Have you changed your mind on Everything Everything's first LP Man Alive since you panned it for Pitchfork? A lot of your criticisms land but I love it anyway, and I'm curious about how you think it (and that very odd band) have aged. Thanks!

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@thelummer.bsky.social

1/ I'm going to rant a little bit about the worst medical issue I've ever had, frozen shoulder, and how doctors deal with it. If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of one ailment, it would be this one, way ahead of the type 1 diabetes, for a few reasons. Frozen shoulder is when the tissue...

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Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

So for the foreseeable future, I can't get dressed by myself very easily, because stretching my arm to get it through an arm hole is rough and shrugging my shoulders to adjust how things sit on them is deadly. In the interregnum between Oxy and whatever else, you just live with it, I guess.

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

1/ I'm going to rant a little bit about the worst medical issue I've ever had, frozen shoulder, and how doctors deal with it. If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of one ailment, it would be this one, way ahead of the type 1 diabetes, for a few reasons. Frozen shoulder is when the tissue...

View full thread
Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

...an industrial blender, I am doomed to fail the test questions the medical professionals in my life are asking. There is something entirely fucked about the American medical systems approach to chronic pain. I'm just starting to understand it. They don't want to overtreat with meds and it means-

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

-they end up doing essentially nothing, and I get billed. The PTs I work with are really nice. I like them and what they do is helpful for a few hours, but when I go to sleep fifteen hours after seeing them, it's hard to tell the difference. If there is someone who addresses this better, it's...

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

1/ I'm going to rant a little bit about the worst medical issue I've ever had, frozen shoulder, and how doctors deal with it. If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of one ailment, it would be this one, way ahead of the type 1 diabetes, for a few reasons. Frozen shoulder is when the tissue...

View full thread
Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

I get a distinct vibe from doctors I talk to that they're primed for me to ask them for drugs, and to refuse that request. I'm actually just there for them to solve a problem (I really miss sleeping for more than 5 hours, I miss exercise, I miss putting my left arm around Lauren without thinking).

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@thelummer.bsky.social

Where I'm at is kind of the worst of all outcomes: No meds, treatment that's expensive and time consuming but does not address symptoms, no real prognosis besides "it might get better eventually... but maybe not." Unless I compare chronic throbbing with intermittent hideous pain to being stuck in...

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

1/ I'm going to rant a little bit about the worst medical issue I've ever had, frozen shoulder, and how doctors deal with it. If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of one ailment, it would be this one, way ahead of the type 1 diabetes, for a few reasons. Frozen shoulder is when the tissue...

View full thread
Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

And the question I heard most often was, "Rate the pain from 1 to 10." Wtf does this mean and why are these answers helpful? I don't know what it's like to be eaten alive by tigers or have my arm chainsawed off. Is it 10 *in my experience?* It wouldn't surprise me if the hormones your body dumps in

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

when your bodily integrity is fucked makes that kind of pain better than more boring but acute pain but I have no idea. I think it's worse to be surprised by intermittent pain than predictable, avoidable pain. But there isn't a number you can put on that. I genuinely do not know what they're asking.

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

1/ I'm going to rant a little bit about the worst medical issue I've ever had, frozen shoulder, and how doctors deal with it. If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of one ailment, it would be this one, way ahead of the type 1 diabetes, for a few reasons. Frozen shoulder is when the tissue...

Conrad
@thelummer.bsky.social

...inside the ball and socket of your shoulder becomes scarred and gradually starts to restrict motion and become painful. Diabetes is a major risk factor. You become prone to painful & unpredictable flare-ups, but it also interferes with sleep, & it becomes painful to raise the affected arm much...

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@thelummer.bsky.social

I've been dealing with it for 6 months. Recovery can take 6 months to 3 years; almost always physical therapy. Surgery is a last resort and comes with risks of its own. Getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night for years while also going through PT is... not ideal. I talked to a surgeon re options ...

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@thelummer.bsky.social

The Problem in a nutshell.

Ned Resnikoff@resnikoff.bsky.social

One way that social media has driven people insane is by convincing them that political outcomes are shaped by the net allocation of care points and so politics consists in attempting to shape the amount of caring everyone dedicates to your pet issue.

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@thelummer.bsky.social

Those of you who have never been to my beloved Grand Rapids, in case you assume I live in some dreary post-industrial hellhole where we all sit around cooking meth to bad Springsteen ripoff bands, this is my neighborhood

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@thelummer.bsky.social

This is Rosa Parks Circle where I walk my dog and a little bit of the Ecliptic, where everyone in town gets together when the weather is nice, a place I'm supposed to be utterly terrified of according to white people from the suburbs on Reddit

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@thelummer.bsky.social

Good to see Bluesky go immediately to "Don't say this one thing, say this other thing"-type media criticism, like if you're right enough on the Internet often enough, there's some kind of political jackpot where bell hooks wakes up from her slumber and is named president for life

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@thelummer.bsky.social

Saturday mood: Listening to the album Heartbeat by Chris and Cosey and doing fantasy mock drafts so I don't embarrass myself in any of the four leagues I'm drafting in this week. Heartbeat is this delightful blend of synth-y dance music, samples from radio, ominous noises, and horniness.