~the-official-medium | Bookmarks (94)

I came across a story on Medium recently that does something all good essays do (I think): It says the quiet part out loud. And it concerns a topic we’ve discussed from multiple angles here in the Medium Newsletter: what the advent of AI means for people who make things with words, images, sounds, and ideas.Agustin ...

Image created by Jason CombsEvery person on the planet has wisdom to share. Stories are a way for us to connect with and learn from each other, and everyone has a story, whether or not we always realize it. And by “everyone,” I mean you.On Friday, April 25th, 9 AM to 7 PM ET, we’re hosting our second annual Draft Da...

On Monday, Katy Perry, Gayle King, and four others flew into space for 11 minutes and then promptly came back down to Earth. Perry sang Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” while staring down at all of us. Jeff Bezos and Oprah (King’s best friend) were among the small group of spectators in western Texas watch...

A few weeks ago, in issue #303, we mentioned Jim the AI Whisperer’s perspective on AI-generated art (particularly the Ghiblifiction of everything) and his vision of a hyperpersonalized future: “Don’t want to see the live-action Snow White?” he wrote, “Reanimate it as Studio Ghibli. Don’t appreciate Rachel Zegler? Wi...

Over the past several months, I’ve gotten questions from the Medium community asking if we’re planning to change our policies in reaction to recent political pressure against diversity, equity, and inclusion. As some companies dismantle their programs and walk back their commitments, we would like to state our stanc...

One piece of advice for you this week, from the Executive Director of Case Research at Harvard, Carin-Isabel Knoop: Bring your emotions to work.In an essay about the unspoken feelings many of us carry into our jobs (and throughout our lives), Isabel-Knoop asks: Is there something you’re carrying alone that you wish ...

Sometimes, I worry that my brain is pickled.In the 18 years since the iPhone launched, I’ve felt like my attention span has cratered, I’ve become much more easily distracted, and I am far more likely to ruminate on something I’ve read online. Taking into account the five years of a global pandemic and the natural ag...

Two of my good friends write under pen names. They do this for many reasons. Some are practical: They have relatively high-profile day jobs and want to maintain professional Google search results. Others are spiritual: When they write, they want to feel like someone else. They want to feel free. They don’t want to b...

Brain emulation, or mind uploading, is the idea that your brain could be scanned, simulated, and reanimated in code. It’s still speculative, but the idea is gaining traction in both tech and neuroscience circles. Two recent essays explore where it might lead.Rutgers professor Rick Mammone lays out the scientific cas...

“I remember standing in my father’s tofu factory as a child,” writes Microsoft engineering VP John Maeda on Medium, “watching him transform simple ingredients into something nourishing through both labor and artistry.” It’s a memory Maeda has returned to repeatedly throughout his career, particularly in his time as ...

Yesterday, I shared a few perspectives from Medium writers on ChatGPT’s new image generation feature — particularly the Studio Ghibli trend — and received a record number of responses. Here are a few of the most thoughtful ones we’ve come across, from all of you…The conversation veered from rejection to openness to ...

Hi! In case we haven’t met, here’s me, Ghiblified:(I sent this to a friend, who told me it made me look “too old” and “too sad.” I’m not this depressed IRL, I swear.)Two weeks ago, OpenAI released a new image generation feature within ChatGPT-4o. In the team’s release video, they explain that it took two years to bu...

Yes, it’s Friday, and it’s also the final day of “What I Wish I Knew” week. Today, we’re sharing a few stories that didn’t quite fit any of our earlier themes (doing a good job; building a creative career; writing for other people; parenting).First up: Trudy Horsting list of pointers for renovating your home (which ...

As a step-guardian of a 10-year-old, every day is awash in the feeling of: “wow, I wish I knew that!” More so because I had never anticipated becoming a guardian in the first place; falling in love with my partner was a package deal — a happy accident but also a bumpy ride.I’ve been drafting a Medium story about my ...

Here on day three of “What I Wish I Knew” week, we’re focusing on writing. Writing about writing is a classic genre on Medium (there are nearly 1 million stories published with the writing tag). As Jim Woods wrote years ago on Medium in I Wish I Knew These 8 Things When I Started Writing, most advice on writing real...

Welcome to day two of “Wish I Wish I Knew” week, where we’re sharing everything we’d tell our past selves if we could go back in time. Today, we’ve got a brief but worthwhile addition to yesterday’s topic (career wisdom) from a slightly different angle: Srinivas Rao’s list of 40 things he wishes he’d known about bui...

A few weeks ago, we spotlighted the very Medium genre of “what I wish I knew” — stories from people across all walks of life (therapists, data scientists, DIY home renovators, UX designers, parents…) who were using Medium as an opportunity to share hard-earned lessons with the world (and with themselves).While we we...

Next Tuesday marks the beginning of National Poetry Month here in the U.S., a holi-month that began in 1996, when the Academy of American Poets gathered a group of publishers and poetry lovers to strategize about how they might raise poetry’s profile in culture. One of their first initiatives involved giving away 10...

Most workplaces are (at least somewhat) hierarchical. Even flat org structures usually give rise to unspoken hierarchies, and prevailing wisdom for getting promoted tends to go something like this: Try your best and (generally) follow your boss’s directions.On Medium, Julie Zhuo (former VP of product design at Faceb...

In issue #282, we featured a story by product designer Ben Snyder, who used AI to build a rudimentary game in which you (an ostrich) must jump over a barrage of obstacles, and if you don’t you die. Snyder and his kids built the game with Replit and v0, two apps that let you “blink software into reality,” as Pete Sen...

A few weeks ago, while casually browsing the Medium app, I came across a story that made me stop drinking water from plastic bottles. (If you’d rather live in blissful ignorance about your plastic usage, maybe don’t read any further.) F. Perry Wilson, MD, associate professor of medicine and public health at Yale, co...

A tariff is a “tax placed on goods when they cross national borders.” Example: the “The Chicken Tax,” a term that confusingly describes tit-for-tat tariffs that partially remain in place today. In the early 1960s, European countries levied a tariff on U.S. chickens, so that European farmers weren’t priced out of the...

Here at Medium, there’s a type of story we sometimes refer to as the “Medium version.” Usually, it’s a personal perspective on news. Not a take; a story from a primary source — someone who’s lived through something most of us have only heard about second- or thirdhand.On Wednesday, Jasmine Mooney published one of th...

☀️ Today is the spring equinox, aka the first day of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere (and the first day of fall for our friends below the equator). The sun hovers directly above the equator, meaning equal parts day and night for all of us.When TV shows jump the shark + cleaning your windows (Issue #292)Pierz ...