As a bandleader, Ellington didn’t just write music and then find the perfect players to play it — he found great players first, and then he wrote music to take advantage of their strengths. https://austinkleon.substack.com/p/human-resources

On the brink of trial, the cable news channel Newsmax on Thursday reached a settlement with voting machine company Smartmatic, bringing an end to a defamation lawsuit that accused the network of spreading multiple false claims surrounding the 2020 election. https://abcnews.go.com/US/newsmax-reaches-settlement-smartmatic-claims-2020-election/story?id=114233659

I could shorten this to: ChatGPT-written prose has a smell.

If you don't have anything to say, ChatGPT won't say it for you. It'll make you THINK that it'll say it for you. The author's conference example captures this quite well.
https://www.ontestautomation.com/i-am-tired-of-ai/

New research is proving that youth activism, in the form of an organized movement of young men who called themselves the Wide Awakes, played a critical role in Abraham Lincoln's election.
I would not mind it if #WideAwake trended.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-wide-awakes-1860-election

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LAPD raid goes bad after gun allegedly sucked onto MRI machine
You think YOU had a bad day?

At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine. https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/lapd-cannabis-mri-raid-19789448.php

Michael Jackson Signed Fine Art "This spectacular online-only sale, organised by King’s Auction Inc., features a collection of 76 works signed by the King of Pop." https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/186840842_original-collection-all-lots-art-signed-by-michael-jackson-76-pieces-26-are-double

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It was on this day in 1957 that the musical West Side Story opened on Broadway....

https://thewritersalmanac.substack.com/p/the-writers-almanac-from-thursday-c19

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The coin is set in motion by a motor hidden inside it. A magnetic field generated between the motor and the specially designed base below then causes it to float in the air.
https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/02/08/polish-mint-creates-worlds-first-flying-coin/

Personal data from 3,000+ Capitol Hill staffers reportedly are circulating on the dark web. Some of them used their work email addresses to sign up for online sites including risky services like dating and adult websites. https://securityboulevard.com/2024/09/congressional-staffers-data-leaked-on-dark-web-report/

"It always struck me as strange that whilst your future employer can launch a private investigation into your past, you only get a glimpse into theirs. There’s only so much you can learn from rosy career pages and recruiter emails. Today, we’re going to run our very own background check on a startup. We’ll dive into funding rounds, scrape Glassdoor reviews, peruse court records and assemble our own dream team of lawyers, venture capitalists, and culture experts." https://www.careerfair.io/background-check

Timeline cleanser!

Whether you browse through birds familiar to you or daydream about the birds of distant regions, we hope you’ll enjoy these photos of birds and birders.

https://www.birdcount.org/bird-and-people-photos-gbbc-2024/

10 (non obvious) must-have security tips for digital nomads https://www.computerworld.com/article/1611460/10-must-have-security-tips-for-digital-nomads.html

The History Chronicle: daily historical facts in newspaper form https://pedrosbmartins.github.io/history-chronicle/

“The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person is to think that you know what you’re doing. Because once you think you know what you’re doing, you stop looking around for other ways of doing things and you stop being able to see other ways of doing things, you become blind…” at 31:22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4

Coolest thing I've read today (so far)
Every time a train rumbles to a stop, the energy generated by all that friction is converted to electricity, which is fed through inverters and distributed throughout the subway system. One-third of that powers the trains; the rest provides juice to station amenities and a growing network of EV chargers. https://grist.org/transportation/barcelona-is-turning-subway-trains-into-power-stations/

We don't serve faster-than-light particles here," the bartender says.
A neutrino walks into a bar.