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Good enough

Wendy and I recently needed to replace our fridge-freezer. Usually, this would have sent me down a rabbit hole of researching, reading reviews, comparing prices, and finding the very best fridge-freezer for our specific needs.

This time, it didn’t: we picked one fairly arbitrarily. We knew the size we required, we knew the colour we wanted, we knew we wanted it to be energy efficient, and we knew we wanted it conveniently delivered. The whole exercise, from deciding we needed a new fridge-freezer to receiving an order confirmation email, took less than half an hour.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but Callum Booth’s latest post reflecting on his similar experience of buying earplugs caused me to reflect a little further.

It often feels like life involves countless decisions, most of which count for little. I have no doubt that we could have found a slightly cheaper model, or one that was better in one way or another. But sometimes, ‘good enough’ is good enough, and indeed preferable to a better outcome that takes longer to reach.


The image at the top of this post was generated by DALL·E 3. It looks nothing like our kitchen, but then, wouldn’t it have been far more disturbing if it did?

This post was filed under: Miscellaneous, , .

X-Twitter

Matt Levine has a good question:

I guess my question is, what was he paying for? Musk didn’t want Twitter for its employees (whom he fired) or its code (which he trashes regularly) or its brand (which he abandoned) or its most dedicated users (whom he is working to drive away); he just wanted an entirely different Twitter-like service. Surely he could have built that for less than $44 billion? Mark Zuckerberg did!

Casey Newton has an answer:

This framing misses the true shape of Musk’s project, which is best understood not as a money-making endeavor, but as an extended act of cultural vandalism. Just as he graffitis his 420s and 69s all over corporate filings; and just as he paints over corporate signage and office rooms with his little sex puns; so does he delight in erasing the Twitter that was.

I found myself challenged by this. Newton is among my favourite tech journalists, and I highly value his analysis. But can I really buy that Musk is openly engaging in an intentional, extended act of cultural vandalism?

Newton makes a good argument… but maybe Callum Booth is more on the money. Their suggestions aren’t really that far apart.


The image at the top of this post was generated by Midjourney.

This post was filed under: Post-a-day 2023, Technology, , , , , , , .




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