⚡Elon Musk is building a whole neighborhood for his Boring Company employees 🕳️
☕Starbucks does numbers on NFT stales | 🤖 Calling all AI experts
Clayton Hester
March 10, 2023
- Elon Musk is building his own utopia with a Montessori education system
- family discovers the painting they thought was a copy is real - and worth money
- Reddit is pulling the plug on its Clubhouse competitor
- Starbucks is having a great time with NFTs
- Futurist Kevin Kelly encourages AI expertise as an open field
⛏️Who doesn't love a good old-fashioned utopia-building story? Elon Musk is developing a community named Snailbrook in Texas for his Boring Company employees, which will include affordable single-family homes and a Montessori school for up to 15 students. This is not Musk's first educational project, as he previously founded Ad Astra, a school that surpassed traditional metrics through project-based learning experiences. The new school is part of Musk's vision to create a Texas "utopia" where employees can live and work without having to travel far. The Austin Business Journal first reported on this in January.
🎨A family in northern France had a painting, which they assumed to be a cheap copy of the famous 17th-century painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. They called it "the Brueghel." However, during a routine appraisal trip, an auctioneer from Paris's Daguerre Val de Loire discovered that it is an original artwork named "L'Avocat du village" completed between 1615 and 1617. The painting is one of many versions of the same scene, with villagers in a lawyer's office. It is now set to be auctioned in Paris, with a presale estimate of €600,000 to €800,000 ($635,000-$846,000). The painting is significant because of its large size and exceptional condition.
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🗣️ Reddit has announced that it will shut down its live audio conversation feature, Reddit Talk, on March 21st, citing significant resourcing requirements to support it. The Happening Now page, which helps users find active Talks and Live Chats, will also be shuttered. Reddit launched Talk in April 2021 amid the popularity of audio chatroom app Clubhouse. The reason for the decision is that Reddit's third-party audio vendor is shutting down, which is not cost-effective for the company. Users will be able to download Talk archives hosted after September 1st, 2022, until June 1st, 2023. Despite the shut down, Reddit is focusing on video platforms like TikTok, developing separate video and text feeds.
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☕Starbucks has launched its first paid collection of NFTs, which it calls "Journey Stamps," at a price of $100 each. The collection comprises 2,000 digital stamps, and reportedly sold out in under 20 minutes. Purchasing an NFT gives customers additional "points" that they can use to level up their tier in Starbucks' membership program, Starbucks Odyssey. The company opened up Starbucks Odyssey, which promises to deliver new benefits and "immersive coffee experiences that [customers] cannot get anywhere else," in December 2021. The NFTs were reportedly launched to boost the membership program during tough times for rewards programs.
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When we think of living intentionally, we may imagine a life of purpose, focus, and clarity. But what if the act of making art could help us achieve these same goals? In this article, we'll explore the intersection of intention and art, and how creating art can be a form of intentional living in and of itself.
One of the key ways that art can help us live more intentionally is by requiring us to be present and engaged in the moment. When we create art, we need to be fully immersed in the process, focusing on the task at hand and letting go of distractions and worries. This kind of mindfulness can be a powerful tool for cultivating mental and emotional clarity, and can help us to approach other aspects of our lives with greater presence and focus.
Creating art can also be a form of intentional living because it requires us to set clear intentions and make deliberate choices. From choosing materials and techniques to making compositional decisions and conveying meaning through our work, every step of the creative process involves intentional decision-making. By practicing this kind of intentionality in our art, we can develop the habit of making intentional choices in other areas of our lives as well.
Another way that art can help us live more intentionally is by serving as a tool for self-reflection and personal growth. When we create art, we are often tapping into our own experiences, beliefs, and values, and using our work as a way to process and explore these aspects of ourselves. This kind of introspection can help us to gain greater self-awareness and develop a clearer sense of our own priorities and values, which in turn can inform our choices and actions in other areas of our lives.
Art can help us live more intentionally by giving us a sense of purpose and meaning. When we create art, we are often driven by a desire to express ourselves, to communicate something important to others, or simply to explore the world around us in a meaningful way. This sense of purpose and connection to something larger than ourselves can help us to approach other aspects of our lives with greater meaning and intention, and can provide us with a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction that goes beyond the act of creating art itself.
The intersection of intention and art is a rich and fertile ground for personal growth and creative expression. By engaging in the intentional act of creating art, we can cultivate greater presence, focus, and clarity, develop the habit of making intentional choices, gain self-awareness and insight, and find greater purpose and meaning in our lives. Whether you consider yourself an artist or not, exploring this intersection can be a powerful tool for living more intentionally and creating a life of purpose and fulfillment.
🤖 Futurist Kevin Kelly believes that this is a good time to enter the field of artificial intelligence, as there are no AI experts today from the perspective of several decades hence. Kelly thinks that what we currently refer to as AI will not be considered AI in the future. As millions of people start using generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E 2, Kelly thinks of them as "primitive AI agents," best thought of as universal interns. The first round of such agents is being used to write rough drafts, suggest code, summarize research, brainstorm, and more. However, getting high-quality results from these agents is not necessarily easy, as it takes an extremely close intimacy to get them to help produce great work. Prompt engineering is one way to get started in AI, and it is hardly an established field. According to Kelly, AI overall is in its infancy, and its full effects will take centuries to play out.
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