Five Things: Kottke.org, Influencer Parents, Poverty, Energy Consumption of AI, Ted Lasso

It's Sunday Morning. Grab a coffee and enjoy five interesting articles.

Mar 19

Thanks for reading this mail. I really appreciate it that this something you do on a Sunday Morning.

Hopefully you find the five articles in this newsletter as interesting as I do. What I try to do here every week is guiding you through a time with lots of change. Some of the change I dearly anticipate, some I fear - but we cannot neglect the change that is going on in the world if we want to understand what is happening with us and with our societies at large.

Since I have a background in tech, I started Five Things Tech yesterday as a new weekly newsletter more focused on tech, while Five Things will continue to cover what I think will be interesting for you. And also there’s Five Things Running, which I write because I see how running as a sport evolves at the moment and I want to be part of this development. Also I like running. If you don’t want to receive three wonderfully curated emails from me every weekend, you can individually choose to unsubscribe or subscribe to the three newsletters in your Five Things Account Settings. Ideally you just stay subscribed and invite other people to read this newsletter as well. It would mean the world to me if you could do that. Thanks!

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Kottke.org Is 25 Years Old Today and I’m Going to Write About It

When I started blogging 20 years ago, Jason Kottke’s blog was already a fixture. And he keeps on blogging. Also, he finds just the best stuff and deeply cares about the weird and wonderful interweb. Five Things even got an honorable mention a few years ago and yes, that does make me a bit proud. So go and read what Jason Kottke writes about blogging for 25 years!

Influencer Parents and The Kids Who Had Their Childhood Made Into Content

TeenVogue (sic!) gives an insight of what it is like to have a childhood that is influenced by parents who need to create visibility for the whole family on social media as part of their job. Our family has a clear social media policy that ultimately lets the kids decide what will be seen on social media and as they know that my wife has a private account, most stuff ends up on her Insta and I get to take pictures of our dog for my Insta.

Why Poverty Persists in America

This is a really powerful article about poverty in the US and how people stay in poverty even though lots of money gets spend on fighting the causes of poverty every year. This article in New York Times Magazine also features great photos from the last few decades that really move your heart.

Artificial Intelligence Is Booming—So Is Its Carbon Footprint

It’s probably not the biggest surprise that lots of computing power equals lots of energy consumption, but this article on Bloomberg shows how massively hungry for energy the new AI models like ChatGPT will probably be, but right now nobody knows for sure. Or as researcher Sasha Luccioni says: “It’s going to be bananas.” Well, that’s very promising for a planet that is already getting too warm.

How Ted Lasso Became A Multi-Million-Dollar Business

Joe Pompliano

writes about sports and business at

Huddle Up

and shares in this article how Ted Lasso became such a successful TV show. I didn't know that Jason Sudeikis worked as a comedian in Amsterdam and then later on did two very successful commercial for NBC with the Ted Lasso character. Also I didn't know anything about the background of the actor who plays Roy Kent. Really good stuff.