Critical Nonsense

What does cake tell us about now?  This week, Jess, Aaron, and Joey talk about Cake Boss, Duff Goldman, Instagram cakes, Julia Child, wedding cakes, and enlightenment. They don’t talk about Daniel Craig.  references  Claire Saffitz on Instagram about the Cake Renaissance   Saveur:  How to Make Those Fabulously Unhinged Cakes You Saw on Instagram   Corrections Department: "Cake Boss" Buddy Valastro...

What do you think is going to be the next musical instrument solo in pop music?  This week, Aaron, Jess, and Joey talk about sax solos, the digitization of music, musicianship, sonic genre markers, Ice Spice, and background music. They don’t talk about  Raphael Ravenscroft .  references  Running to  your  circles of flame   Plain English podcast with Derek Thompson:  Why the Cult of Achievement in...

How do you feel about centaurs and what centaurs do you want to be?  This week, Joey and Jess talk about ChatGPT, Garry Kasparov, workplace production, individualistic augmentation, the Chinese zodiac, and mitochondria. They don’t talk about manticores.  references  Falkor the Luck Dragon   Revisiting  Critical Nonsense 191! AI Art and Hamsterstanistan   How To Become A Centaur   "Experimental Evi...

How do we reflect?  This week, Jess and Joey talk about rumination, perseveration, internal monologues, employee reviews, radical candor, and feedback. They don’t talk about  "2000 Seasons." references  Joey makes money moves.   "MotorSport"   LLM (Large Language Model)   Corrections Department:  RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback)  

How should we approach success?  This week, Joey and Jess talk about whales, personal comparison, persistence hunting, gender dynamics, emotional labor, and lunch prep. They don’t talk about fairyfly hearts.  references  Foxy Brown's  "Candy"   Corrections Department:  A blue whale's heart isn't actually the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.   Kajornwan Chueng's twitter thread about her kid "doing the...

Why are we so bad at packing?  This week, Jess and Joey talk about reducing travel expectations, The Uniform Project, embodying different personas, punting decisions, efficiency, and shoes. They don’t talk about Kevin.  references  The Uniform Project  

When or how or where are the places that we should be deploying pettiness and feel okay about it?  This week, Joey, Oliver ... er ... Aaron, and Jess talk about petty/offense pairings, berms, feedback loops, Karens, The Pettisphere, and FAFO. They don’t talk about  Jemelle Hill .  references  You don't know how it feels  ...  to set fire to the rain .  Arena Is Free on Mortal Kombat   Savannah Jam...

How do we navigate the tricky feelings?  This week, Jess and Joey talk about whistling, the Circumplex Model of Affect, anger in the workplace, navigating of negative spaces, being a squeaky wheel, and heightened emotional points. They don’t talk about  Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam .  references  "The circumplex model of affect: An integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development,...

How do you ask a good question?  This week, Jess and Aaron talk about 5-cent vs. 25-cent questions, tempo, performance question-asking, prioritizing curiosity over confidence, checking for clarification, and signposting. They don’t talk about  Gang Starr .  references  Aaron's Lullaby   Revisiting  Critical Nonsense 174! Askers vs. Guessers and Working Hours   Harvard Business Review:  The Surpris...

What's the best way to encourage people to own their confidence and speak their minds?  This week, Jess and Joey talk about flatness, self consciousness, modeling vs. metering, explicit conversations, confidence intervals, and pants-pants. They don’t talk about  Julie Andrews .  references  Six Thinking Hats: An Essential Approach to Business Management  by Edward de Bono  The New York Times:  A C...

What is "cool"?  This week, Joey and Aaron talk about kinetic energy, Obama, privilege and power, nerds, Blackness, and fish sauce. They don’t talk about  Freestyle   Fellowship .  references  The Joey Sleeps Alone Tonight  while  Aaron Learns   Damien Rice covering Sia's "Chandelier"   How do you do, fellow kids? (the not-black version)   Wondrium Daily:  Why The Word ‘Cool’ Has Stayed Hot For So...

What do you think are the right places to deploy euphemisms, or should we abandon them altogether? How harmful is it to use euphemisms, and why not err on their side just in case? And, if we took all the euphemisms off the table, what do we do with language next?  This week, Joey, Jess, and Aaron try out a new Exquisite Corpse segment where they pass along a conversation to each other one thought...

What are the things you are competent and interested in but constitutionally not disposed to engage with? And how do we deal with not ever being in control? [21:40]  This week, Joey, Aaron, and Jess talk about jazz piano, The Trifecta of Making Things Happen, The Overachiever's Dilemma, facilitators of fastidiousness, expectations, and purpose. They don’t talk about The Perks of Being a Wallflower...

What's to come in 2023?  This week, Wild Prognostications (finally) returns! Joey, Aaron, and Jess reunite in person to make their annual predictions for the new year. They talk about the impending demise of influencers [4:31], a rise in video game super-franchises [19:18], extreme-weather clothing [35:00], chickens as the new unicorns [51:05], checkers [59:11], and a seismic shift in dating [1:03...

What makes video-game-to-film adaptations so damn hard to get right? And how do men make friends? [24:57]  This week, Aaron, Joey, and Jess talk about world building, gaming IP, media properties, masculinity, love, and social infrastructure. They don’t talk about  Whodini .  references  How Levain Bakery’s co-founders came up with their iconic super thick cookie   The Last of Us video game   HBO's...

How did our predictions play out in 2022?  This week, Aaron, Jess and Joey make a belated review of their prognogs from  Episode 156 , discussing the low-rise jeans revival, the stabilizing housing market, rollerskating and black culture, crashing crypto, the gap-year micro-trend, and dreaming pants. They don’t talk about nightmare snuggies.  references  Rest in Paradise, Coolio .  Who did it bett...

How do we identify phase shifts, and how do we deal with big changes that are happening much more quickly and in a punctuated fashion?  This week, Joey and Jess talk about going into work, social media, college, Web3, loose flaps, and vanilla. They don’t talk about math.  references  G.I. Bill   CPU vs. GPU: What’s the Difference?   Moore's Law   Ars Technica:  Is Moore’s law actually dead this ti...

Why should a good idea die? And how do you use concepts that you discover to make things better for yourself? [25:35]  This week, Jess and Joey talk about speed dating, engineers, iterative creativity, body doubling, ADHD, and Santa's narc. They don’t talk about  James Hinton .  references  Revisiting  last week's Nonsense: 201! The Paradox of Milk Math   Gary Gygax   @kelseydarragh on body doubli...

Why is milk math so silly?  This week, Jess, Joey, and Aaron talk about milk fat, music modes, the King's foot, scientific discoveries, wormholes, and polynomial equations. They don’t talk about  Wyatt and Gary .  references  Music modes   Pentatonic scale   How Physicists Created a Holographic Wormhole in a Quantum Computer   The Biggest Project in Modern Mathematics  

This week, our 200th episode!  To celebrate, Jess, Joey, Aaron, and Alex dish out a bunch of big thanks—on behalf of themselves and some of the SYLVAIN team—and show their appreciation to all of you, dear listeners, for riding with us over the years. They talk about plastic, grandpa strips, popcorn, warm legs, perspective that sticks, and aging. They don’t talk about herding pandas.  references  M...

How do you choose what moment in time represents somebody?  This week, Jess and Joey talk about death, recency bias, in memoriams, James Dean, one-hit wonders, and headstones. They don’t talk about  Beenie Man .  references  Corrections Department:  525,600  ... not 125,600.  Recompose   The Dots: Deconstructing Influence  by Sylvain Labs  James Dean   " Tubthumping " by Chumbawamba  " Closing Tim...

This week, Preponderance of Ponderances is back with Jess in the driver's seat. She talks with Joey and Aaron about Sax-a-booms, mushrooms, preserving the dead, aquamation, Fruit Loop hair, objectivity, and averages. They don’t talk about Harry Sultenfuss.  references  Jack Black performing his legendary Sax-A-Boom with The Roots   NYT Cooking:  Honey-Glazed Mushrooms With Udon   Boil your mushroo...

What is a better way for us to deal with our stuff in this new world we're living in?  This week, Joey, Aaron, and Jess talk about Takanakuy, intimacy, erruption of conflict, Love Island, hiding, and conflict languages. They don’t talk about cream corn or the International Adult Conspiracy.  references  Because we love you ,  here's our theme song   Gushers   Hey smiling strange   Takanakuy   Love...

Will competitive reality TV go back to what it used to be?  This week, Aaron, Joey, and Jess talk about pandemic "normalcy," earnestness, parasocial relationships, referees, social media, and taxons. They don’t talk about Ernest Borgnine or his amazing eyebrows.  references  Been around the world  and  we've been player-hated .  Parasocial Relationships: The Nature of Celebrity Fascinations   Rich...

Where should we draw boundaries around pranking "for the likes"? This week, Joey and Jess talk about the latest updates on the "fights", meme culture, when something stops being funny, the consent paradox of pranking, entertaining each other, and the oversaturated market of bad jokes. They don't talk about if sugar belongs in stew. references The Chocolate Bunny feud: Lindt v. Lidl Is this a prank...