Five Things: Congress, Feminist Foreign Policy, Silicon Valley's AI Obsession, J.Crew, Floppy-Disk
You really should read this email. Seriously. It's what Sunday is made for.
So it’s Sunday again and the last few days I have spent in a hospital together with our 11-year-old daughter who got minor surgery performed on Friday. She’s a tough cookie, taking it really well and is on a speedy recovery while binge watching a couple of seasons of Hannah Montana. Hospitals really lead to a weird lifestyle as you get up very early in the morning to have breakfast at 7 to then do exactly nothing except for waiting, then lunch is before noon and dinner is being served around 5pm. It reminds me of how my grandparents structured their day, which was modeled after living on a farm and they had lunch at 11 or so. And of course at around 9pm I feel totally tired as if I had a busy day. On the other hand, I really had a lot of time on my hands to read stuff somewhere on the interweb, which made curating five articles really hard this time. But I think I made some good choices. Enjoy!
A life in Congress: Lauren Underwood learns what it costs
This is a really wonderful portrait of Lauren Underwood, because it not only shows what politicians do all day, but also what they sacrifice in order to be a representative for their constituency. (Washington Post)
Annalena Baerbock’s ‘feminist foreign policy’ focuses minds in Iraq
When Annalena Baerbock started as German Foreign Minister, a lot of pundits agreed that she’d be unfit for the job and that feminist foreign policy is some woke bogus nobody needs. The opposite happened. We have a German Foreign Minister who shows compassion, who quickly redefined German foreign policy after the Russian invasion in Ukraine and who makes sure that people understand what feminist foreign policy means and why it matters now more than ever. (The Guardian)
The Real Life Consequences of Silicon Valley’s AI Obsession
After reading this article you’ll get the impression that a lot of people who build AI products are weird freaks with questionable values and access to too much money. Regulating AI will be an interesting endeavour for our lawmakers. (Bloomberg)
“The Bigger You Get, the Smaller You Act”: How a Downtown Liquor Store Supercharged J.Crew's Menswear Boom
Ok, I admit it, I’m a big fan of J.Crew and think Todd Snyder is one of the best menswear designers out there and whenever Michael Bastian starts a collab, I get really excited. I also wear a beige dad hat with jcrew.com on it that a friend brought me from a trip to NYC in the late 90s. I’m also known for ordering lots of stuff at J.Crew before I get on a business trip to the US. And I still regret that I tossed that rollneck-sweater I had in the late 90s. (GQ)
Why the Floppy Disk Just Won’t Die
Back when I was a teenager, the 5 1/4” floppy-disk was all the rage and all I could afford where some no-name disks that I had to manually perforate so that I could used them as a double-sided disk. When the 3,5” floppy was introduced, it was a huge step forward. I still remember how Steve Jobs got criticized for abandoning the floppy-disk when Apple introduced the iMac in 1998. What a bold move. And the younger generation thinks that this is the “save now!” icon, because they have no idea what a floppy-disk does. Amazing that those disks are still in use today. (Wired)
That’s it.