Dry texting, em dashes, sheep/Kiwi ratio, and the c-word
Hey friends,
Here are 12 things I thought were worth sharing this week:
Consequences of abortion bans introduced in some states of America since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago are being felt by women and families. Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old pregnant woman in Georgia, was declared brain-dead (meaning she’s legally dead) after a medical emergency. Now, Adriana’s mother is being forced to keep her on life support to allow enough time for her baby to be born. The family should absolutely be given the choice, but anti-women politicians deny them that right.
Every couple of weeks I go down a late-night YouTube rabbit hole of live music performances and covers. This week I found Sam Smith’s somewhat-recent performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Jon Batiste’s groovy rendition of Für Elise (the one song I learnt how to play on the piano), musical mastermind Jacob Collier’s mindblowing improvisation with an orchestra and his (+ John Legend and Tori Kelly) remake of Bridge Over Troubled Water, and finally, an acapella groups rendition of such remake. All magical things.
I’m not really a long TV series guy. I love short series, but there a very few longer series that I’ve made my way through. I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with TV shows and movies in general over the past few years actually—I convinced myself I could be doing better things with my time. But recently I’ve let myself enjoy cosy, warm, calm time to myself (as all people should) and watched the recent season of Survivor AU! And it was a great show (and it’s probably the least brain-rot reality TV show there is).
As TikTok faces increasing scrutiny (and several lawsuits) for harming children’s mental health with addictive features and dangerous content, the app will start interrupting feeds of users under 18 with a guided meditation. If a teen decides to use TikTok after 10pm (as most teens do), their For You page will be interrupted by a guided meditation exercise, helping them wind down for the night. If a teen decides to spend additional time on TikTok after the first reminder, they’ll show a second, harder to dismiss, full-screen prompt. Is this anything more than a PR move?
Are phones making teens more conflict-averse? Teens are using behaviors like “dry texting” (short, noncommittal replies) as passive-aggressive ways to signal conflict without direct confrontation. While adults often blame phones for escalating drama, teens say ambiguous signals like leaving someone on read or muting them are actually the preferred way to express frustration without direct confrontation. Phones make it a lot easier to be passive-aggressive, and a lot easier to be sent into an anxiety spiral. Interesting story.
This quote from James Clear: "One way to stand out is to look for pockets of low competition. Wake up early—less traffic, fewer people. Go deeper or narrower in your field—less noise, more space. People are drawn to where it is crowded. Look for the quiet spaces inside your areas of interest. Excellence often hides at the edges."
New Zealand still has more sheep than people, but humans are catching up. With a population of 23.6 million sheep and 5.3 million people, there are about 4.5 sheep for each New Zealander. That’s down from 22 sheep per person in 1982, when farming sheep for meat and wool was New Zealand’s biggest earner. Now, years of falling wool prices prompted by a global shift to synthetic fibers have led farmers to change what they do with their land.
In case you missed it: em dashes are now seen as a "tell" for AI. Which is frustrating, because I've been using em dashes for a long time! I love an em dash—even though I use them incorrectly most of the time. For some reason I think it perfectly represents how I often use grammar when speaking a sentence. But now people are associating them with GPT writing. Hmm.
On that note, did you know that by adding "udm=14" to your Google search URL, you can strip away all the AI summaries, knowledge panels, and ads that clutter the results? It doesn't improve the actual search results, but it provides a cleaner, distraction-free interface reminiscent of Google's early days.
This simple map tool will tell you the human population from any point in the world, for whatever radius you select. Kinda cool.
Turns out there are as many intersex people in the world as there are gingers. Who knew. Intersex refers to a variety of natural variations in sex characteristics (like chromosomes, hormones, or reproductive anatomy) that don't fit typical definitions of male or female bodies. Variations are a natural biological event, estimated to happen in about 17 in every 1,000 live births. That’s 1.7 per cent of the population. A lot of people who are have no idea, especially if their intersex traits are not visible at birth or do not cause medical issues early in life. I found this video very interesting: I Learned I Was Intersex At 21.
As you might know (as it will be the media story of the year), Stuff journalist Andrea Vance referred to a group of female ministers from the coalition government as c-words in her Sunday newspaper column. Jesse Mulligan’s newsletter about it is really thoughtful and highlights some important aspects to this interesting situation. This morning, Andrea responded to the criticism and doubled down. And it is brilliant—articulated perfectly with so many important points.
Have a great week,
Ben xx