PicoBlog

I divided the SQL knowledge into 6 stages. I’m not an SQL expert (you can read my mistakes in ‘How I destroyed the company’s DB’) and I probably missed some stuff, so take it as a generalization: Very basic - select, from, where. Basic - group by and having. Beginners - joins - left/right/outer/inner/self join Intermediate - subqueries Most people stop after learning this stage, and it’s a shame.

When James Caan makes his first appearance in 1974’s The Gambler, he’s wearing a form-fitting collared shirt buttoned only halfway down and opened up into a “V,” the great tufts of light brown chest hair popping out as majestically as a peacock’s plumage. Audiences were familiar with Caan’s linebacker frame, especially as he’d played football players in both Francis Ford Coppola’s lovely 1969 drama The Rain People and Brian’s Song, the 1971 TV weepie that won him an Emmy.

Hello, everybody. Wilco is back on our bullshit. We played Milwaukee on Wednesday and Chicago this weekend. It was such a beautiful night outside at Salt Shed on Friday, I couldn’t believe it. I’m conditioned to expect weather extremes. Thunderstorms, 100% humidity, scalding heat, etc. But it was what I’d call a perfect Chicago crisp (new apple?). The solo/family/Tweedy band rehearsed in Chicago earlier in the week. I thought you might like to see a short clip of our rehearsal.

In my last post, I opined that AI was already able to adjudicate complex cases. Some commenters were skeptical. For example, one commenter suggested that AI might be “deciding” cases by randomly choosing a brief and summarizing its contents. Taking this criticism to heart, I decided to do a little more empirical testing of AI’s legal ability. Specifically, I downloaded the briefs in every Supreme Court merits case that has been decided so far this Term, inputted them into Claude 3 Opus (the best version of Claude), and then asked a few follow-up questions.

When Glow On came out in the summer of 2021, Turnstile were already one of the more popular hardcore bands of this generation. In the two and a half years since, the band have been presented with more opportunities and accolades that maybe any other band in hardcore history: They’ve played every festival both expected (Coachella, Lollapalooza) and unexpected (Camp Flog Gnaw, Rolling Loud). They’ve performed on both Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

If you’ve never been in a rising band, there are things about the journey that no one ever tells you about. No one ever tells you that your life is about to be swallowed up whole, that your capacity to do almost anything else will be compromised. No one ever tells you about that awkward stage when the public perception that you’re “making it” clashes with the reality that you still can’t always make rent.

For as long as I’ve been making records, I’ve carried with me the uncomfortable feeling of making something “permanent.” It’s not just the songs—although that, too, plays a role—but the inspirations, the feelings, the conditions, and the physical places that also find themselves folded into the permanent shape of an “album.” Nothing puts that into clearer focus than a milestone anniversary. I approached Deafheaven founder/guitarist Kerry McCoy with the idea of exploring these “silent partners” with me as a way to mark the tenth anniversary of their breakthrough album, Sunbather, and in spite of those sometimes difficult memories, he showed no hesitation in his willingness to walk back into those places with me—even when the light was less than flattering.

I’ve decided that I will periodically shout out other music publications that I’m enjoying. This week I’m turning my attention to Sunlighter, a weekly digest that will keep you up-to-date on music news, artist discovery, and companies disrupting the industry. Here’s a little blurb from their latest issue: As digital audio workstations and streaming technology continue to lower the barrier of entry in becoming an artist or producer, oversaturation occurs. When you combine these problems with other music industry trends such as shorter listener attention span and Rob Abelow’s adroit observation of streaming becoming a zero-sum game for artists, you have to wonder … is this the beginning of the end for massively popular hip-hop headliners (just as classic rock, disco, jazz, and other popular genres eventually went out of style)?

I’m not sure if it’s uncouth to publicly air the grievances someone made concerning a Wilco song that were made in the safety and confines of a Wilco fan group. The better question is to ask, will anyone besides said Wilco fan group members care? I assume not nearly to the degree that I, or members of “A Shot in the Arm” do, but it does beg the general music fan questions that follow: