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Beauty Pageants for AI + Improving Soil
Plus, the parents preventing smartphone childhoods...
Adam Zulawski
May 02, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
A new misspelt logo by Dall-E
Hi,
Welcome to the Procrastilearning Newsletter, a guilt-free meaningful break before getting back to work.
3 things worth procrastilearning over
via Leonardo.ai
1. There’s a beauty contest for AI-generated women
The Miss AI contest has four judges, two of which are themselves AI-generated women that have made headlines over the last half a year or so, eg. here and here.
The Guardian, reliably, has a piece on why all this is so depressing.
2. Digital Wellness Day is tomorrow
Will having a date for it make you use your phone less? Probably not, but how about the recent news that a quarter of 5-7 year olds use smartphones?
There’s a lot of evidence that smartphone use has messed up Gen Z. So now Gen Alpha (I think it's called) is going to have even more mental health problems. There has been recent push back in the UK against this spiral, so maybe we’re not all screwed 🤷♂️
3. Farming soil a bit differently might help climate change
Healthy soil locks up a lot of the carbon in the atmosphere, while overused tired soil releases it. Over the last few years, many farmers are trying to keep this in mind and move towards more ecological ways of running their businesses.
But how can this become a widespread movement? Can carbon credits work as an incentive here? This Wired article takes a look:
If you want to go deeper on this topic, there’s a fascinating documentary about soil on Netflix. Yes, I did use the word ‘fascinating’.
2 quotes to keep in mind
Effective executives, in my observation, do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. And they do not start out with planning. They start by finding out where their time actually goes.
There are at least a billion people on earth at this moment who would consider their prayers answered if they could trade places with you.
1 tip that might slash your phone use
(In the spirit of Digital Wellness Day…)
Leave your phone on charge all the time when you're at home.
Ideally by the entrance to your house. If you need to check something, go over there and stay in that spot to do so, and the same with calls, texts, etc. The idea is that if you don't carry it around in your pocket all the time, you will naturally stop reaching for it mindlessly when you're bored.
This tip was originally recommended by productivity daddy Cal Newport a few years ago:
That's all for today. Many thanks for reading. Here’s a picture of a wombat.
Adam
Adam Zulawski
Procrastilearning on Beehiiv / More stuff
Currently reading: Good Inside by Dr Becky Kennedy
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