Californication
w.240 | Palmer Luckey, EdTech Sector Update, Homeschooling, 10 Patterns from SXSW, Gen Alpha Brain Rot
Dear Friends,
Seeing Labor Day around the bend and hearing talk of college football again has me looking to enjoy the final weeks of summer. After seeing family in San Francisco, I made a quick trip to Napa and down around Palo Alto. While it might not be the Mediterranean coast, it is always wonderful to visit the Bay Area and enjoy time outdoors here before the sprint to the winter holidays.
I hope you all enjoy the last throes of summer and, for those of you with children, the start of “back to school” season and returning to a more regular rhythm to your days.
Today's Contents:
Sensible Investing: Trends
Song of the Week: Californication
Sensible Investing: Trends
EdTech Sector – Q2 2024 Public & Private Market Update from Oppenheimer. Similar publication on Professional Learning and EdTech Market from Harris Williams.
The Kindle: Reinventing the Book. Case study of the development of Kindle from CommonCog Case Library, a cool website with case studies on product development.
10 Patterns from 400+ SXSW '25 Talk Submissions. H/T SIC Weekly.
Commodification of Authenticity
Convergence of Mysticism + Technology
Convergence of Ecology + Technology
Success in the Post-Growth Era
Evolution of Human Sensory Experience
Reimagining Social Structures via Speculative Design
Evolution of Collective Intelligence
Redefinition of Human-Animal Relationships
Reimagining Death & Legacy
Rethinking ‘Me’
Parents and Gen Alpha Kids are Having Unintelligible Convos Because of ‘Brain Rot’ Language. Big, if true, I guess. H/T SIC Weekly.
Children born after 2010, Gen Alpha are the internet’s newest darlings. Though their separation from Gen Z is a matter of being born in 2010 versus 2009, many of their parents feel like there’s a chasm when it comes to understanding the way they speak.
Intergenerational conversations are getting less and less intelligible, some said.
Gen Alpha’s hyper online manner of speaking has been dubbed “brainrot,” mostly by older Gen Zer’s who share spaces like TikTok with them.
Why Parents Are Pulling Their Kids Out of School was the cover story in Newsweek. This trend is continuing to gain momentum even if the article doesn’t totally answer the question.
Profile of Palmer Luckey in Tablet Mag. Excellent read about one of the most interesting technologists of the current moment. Palmer was also homeschooled. I probably spent over an hour reading this article, and I suggest you do too.
But if he is perhaps the wildest misfit tech diva of his generation, with a torrid ambition and engineering prowess rivaled only by Elon Musk, Luckey is also, in a way Musk is not and cannot be, the product of something more familiar—the heir to a 100-year revolution in American society that made Southern California the techno-theological citadel of the Cold War, and a one-man bridge between the smoldering American past and an unknown future that may be arriving soon.
Song of the Week: Californication
Here on YouTube.
Why not highlight the top single on this iconic album? It was released in 1999, now 25 years ago. The artists say main point behind this album was to "tell tales of wandering souls who've lost their way searching for the American dream in California."
“Californication” is a song about the underbelly of American society. There’s deceit, plasticity, and desperation under the gilded face of the American Dream. The Red Hot Chili Peppers saw that California represented these extremes—the elaborate gilded nature of it all and the darkness underneath.
It’s amazing how ageless some of the sentiments are, but mainstream artists don’t put out this level of social commentary anymore.
“Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers
It's the edge of the world and all of Western civilization
The sun may rise in the East, at least it settled in a final location
It's understood that Hollywood sells Californication
Pay your surgeon very well to break the spell of aging
Celebrity skin: is this your chin or is that war you're waging?Selfie of the Week
While in California this week, I got to hang out with my high school friend and debate buddy, Eric Fish and his very cute son, Alejandro, aka ‘CoCo’.
Thanks for reading, friends. Please always be in touch.
As always,
Katelyn