Sunday: Weather Zeitgeist

The weather is perfect this weekend in Pittsburgh. It’s been cooler than normal for about the past week. I’m drinking my coffee on the back patio.

The Warhol Museum on Pittsburgh’s North Side was better than I expected. For this museum, start at the 7th floor and work your way down. Before he went Pop, Warhol’s art was very accessible. I think he had a knack for color. Some installations are just fun, like the black room with the floating Mylar “clouds”. Or doing your own screen test. Warhol’s idea about movie stars was that they have the kinds of faces we like to look at. So he filmed faces being themselves for three minutes. You can have your own 3 minute screen test and the museum will email it to you. Most of the iconic Warhol art, like the Campbell’s soup can, are at other museums. But there’s a series of Mick Jagger portraits that is not to be missed, and a two story wall covered in green Mao Tse Dong wallpaper. Good way to spend a few hours.

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In Florida, Irma’s eye wall is hitting the Florida Keys right now. To everyone’s surprise, Irma tracked more west than anticipated and is now threatening Naples and Tampa. So, the wrong coast was emptied, leaving residents scrambling to find shelter.

Meanwhile, it looks like it’s ok to talk Trump Mouth on TV during a weather update. Check it out:

Nice. Just what women want to hear more of on a daily basis.

I met someone the other day who said people don’t hold back and check their dark side thoughts anymore. They feel free to say whatever it is they think and feel about the people they regard as their inferiors. Because who’s going to stop them? And our commander in chief has set such a classy example.

Yes, these days it’s perfectly ok to defend Nazi’s or talk about pussies during a weather update.

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Franklin Foer writes about how Silicon Valley’s contradictory impulses towards libertarianism and collectivism are resulting in a culture that is less reflective and more reliant of tech monopolies to present pre-digested information that fits the categories we find ourselves in.

The monopolistic nature of the big 4 tech companies, Google, Amazon, Facebook and apple (GAFA) are reducing our choices and funneling us into cattle shoots based on algorithms that analyze our preferences. It’s cool profit making crossed with marketing and it’s difficult to resist. It’s hard to say which company is the worst offender but if I had to make a guess, it’s probably Facebook. I know that’s not what people want to hear because Facebook is convenient for finding out what your friends and family are doing. But it’s also way too easy to squash independent thinking. We all need to exercise more self restraint.