LLMs are finally getting genuinely good at recommending things. I have no idea why the streaming platforms aren’t better utilizing AI for this, but you can talk to it yourself and get really good recommendations. It takes some time–you need to spell out what you like, don’t like and more importantly why. We just recently watched and loved The Detectorists, a thing I would never have found on my own. I’ve got a list of 10 things to watch next that I’m genuinely excited about. I asked Claude to sum up my taste in TV shows, and while it’s weird…
We deserve a better word than spatula. The kitchen is full of simple-sounding implements: tongs, knife, spoon, fork. Even spork. Single syllable. Concise. Precise. Spatula, on the other hand, sounds scientific, clinical, declinable, Latin (it is). It’s fun to say. But the term simply means a long handled implement with a wide flat end. A spatula could be a rubber tool used to scrape food out of a bowl (a pot scraper). It could be made of metal and used to flip a burger (a pancake turner). It could even be a wooden stirrer. If I’m holding a heavy hot…
After paying my fee, we stepped into the room. It looked like a cyber café from the nineties: long tables lined with computer terminals, but also a few overstuffed easy chairs where people sat reading. Through the windows on the far wall, afternoon sun fell in rectangles on the floor. A door off to the side was shut tight, a paper sign taped to it: QUIET. “Here you are,” the employee said quietly. “If you’ll notice, time has stopped.” I tugged back the sleeve of my dress and glanced at my wristwatch. The second hand hovered mid-tick, perfectly still. “Once…