I write music! I originally used the free program Finale Notepad where you can write sheet music with digital instruments “performing” it. I switched to Musescore which is also free but has better-sounding instruments and more versatility for things you can do within a composition

There’s also a sort of morbid fascination and curiosity that comes from a situation this unique. I definitely agree that of course the sinking refugee ship should have gotten far more help and attention, but I think the “morbid curiosity” element is certainly part of why this got so much attention. The whole situation of paying a fortune for visiting the Titanic in a janky unregulated submersible and then vanishing underwater is…bizarre, and surreal, in a way that captures attention

It does seem like Oceangate advertised in a misleading way, emphasizing claims of safety and compliance with safety standards. There’s also probably an unfortunate bias, of sorts, of “rich and powerful man saying something is safe in a confident and authoritative voice so it must be true”

I wouldn’t mind as much if half the websites out there didn’t have the trashiest ads I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve got an ad blocker on my desktop but not on my phone. Amazing that supposedly “professional” businesses are filling their sites with sleazy ads that look like they’ll lead you directly to installing a bunch of viruses.

One quote that jumps out: “It’s difficult to say with certainty what the causes are, but Facebook has made no secret about its intention to deprioritize news on its platform and give greater precedence to video content, which by nature results in less clickthrough traffic."

It does feel like my Facebook “algorithm” is constantly trying to push “shorts” on me…annoying little videos clearly meant to imitate, I assume, Youtube Shorts, Tiktok, Instagram short videos, etc…

Broadly speaking, with all that’s happening in the social media world, it feels like some sort of reckoning or change is coming, but where exactly things are heading is hard to say…