And They Say Chy City

Kicking off #MWE 2024! One album a day that I’ve never heard before, all through February. At least one tweet about each. Here’s my list. As always, focusing on more archival gaps in my musical knowledge, with at least 50% artists who are non white/male. Happy listening!

Extraction. Nonstop, disgusting levels of extraction is the final goal of tech-infused capitalism.

In no time flat, we’ve gone from “AI and robotics will help you upskill and do more meaningful work” to “we’ll pay you pennies to teach robots how to put 70% of the country out of a job.”

@Jdcocojr61 @JamesAFurey The hell are you talking about? You’re looking at a chart that shows up until 20 years ago things were doing relatively well. This isn’t a systemic problem with social democracies. It’s a series of intentional changes, ill-informed policies, and misalignment that can be reversed.

@JamesAFurey They should; but in social democracies, they won't. My point is government education in a diverse social democracy will never deliver what you desire. The system is broken and unrepairable. It is best to leave it than attempt to reform it. Majority rule is working against you.

Teachers have simultaneously: A) been stripped of the ability to do anything about poorly behaved students B) been pressured to pass students no matter what C) been tasks with taking on more and more responsibilities that used to belong to parents D) been vilified and blamed for every problem in society. So…why the job dissatisfaction? It’s a mystery!

@livebyvalue @ABC7 People are waiting a lot longer to start trying.

@ABC7 Why is everyone having trouble having babies?

Costco is launching a new program that aims to make IVF treatment more affordable for couples hoping to start a family. Medications typically can cost thousands of dollars out of pocket, but Costco says the program could help cut the price by up to 80%. spr.ly/6010B6KImg

@thealepalombo This was really interesting but it also got so weirdly bland once I realized it was written with AI.

I'm Italian. I just got back from Rome. Over dinner, old friends and I started arguing about the same thing we always argue about: which cities in Italy are genuinely incredible but nobody ever talks about? We went back and forth for hours. By the end of the night, we had a list. 7 hidden cities that most people, including most Italians, will never think to visit, let alone move to. No crowds. No tourist markup. Insane quality of life. Thread 🧵

We gotta stop talking about these as “album sales”. Folks are getting all the wrong ideas.

@Acyn Where are all my DOGE enthusiasts?

@drealbigvirg I understand why folks think this way! Take it with a grain of salt, but based on the way Spotify talks about their ad-supported tier, there’s actually very little demographic difference between paid and ad/supported listeners in terms of income.

The concept of YouTube and Spotify ads will never make sense to me. The people who can actually afford the things being advertised are already on Premium. No ads. No interruptions. Just music and videos in peace. Meanwhile, I’m on the free plan and you’re showing me ads for iPhone 15 Pro, forex trading masterclasses, online MBA programmes, luxury real estate in Dubai, and some car I will only ever see in music videos. Who is the target here? Because the rich guy you’re trying to reach is on ad-free Spotify listening to smooth jazz. I’m the one here being forced to watch two unskippable ads about investment apps while checking my account balance before buying data. You’re advertising wealth to the financially stressed. Make it make sense.

@billybinion @local_cinnamon Basic economy without seat selection is a tier that shouldn’t exist in the first place. It’s maximization of profit over customer experience.

@local_cinnamon This is what I find most confounding—it's clear at checkout that basic economy doesn't allow for seat selection. If that's an issue (and I get why it is for parents) then you shouldn't buy it. It doesn't make sense to purchase one offering while demanding the benefits of another.

It's not weird. Airline profit margins are *tiny.* I find it frustrating too. But if you want an aisle seat—or if you want to sit with your kids/friends/whoever—you aren't entitled to it for free just because you want it.

I cannot wait until the White House changes hands and all of you ghouls switch back from "you're a traitor unless you bootlick so hard your tongue goes numb" to "the government asking any questions about my offshore fentanyl casino is vile tyranny and I will throw myself in the San Francisco Bay in protest", like werewolves at the last ray of the setting moon.

Crazy how much of 2026 innovation is “we can help you steal shit efficiently”

@SenKatieBritt Which ones specifically are unrealistic and why?

Democrats’ newest proposal is a ridiculous Christmas list of demands for the press. This is NOT negotiating in good faith, and it’s NOT what the American people want. They continue to play politics to their radical base at the expense of the safety of Americans. DHS, FEMA, Secret Service, and the Coast Guard run out of money in 9 days. Democrats don’t seem to care one bit.

@ThePoliticalHQ I like him too, but let’s not act like the generational storms keeping everyone inside for two weeks hasn’t had an effect on this number.

🚨BREAKING🚨 Under new Mayor Zohran Mamdani, New York City just recorded its safest January ever, with the number of shootings and murders plummeting to new lows. The number of homicides plunged 60%, while shooting incidents were down 20% compared to January 2025, data shows. Source: @nypost

@aakashgupta How long sleeping 8hrs until you can get it back?

This is one of the most important studies in sleep science. Van Dongen et al. ran the experiment that changed how we understand chronic sleep restriction. They had subjects sleep 4h, 6h, or 8h nightly for 14 days, testing cognitive performance every 2 hours. The 6h group’s reaction time deficits by day 14 matched subjects who had been awake for 24 hours straight. The 4h group? They performed like someone awake 48 hours. But here’s what makes this study terrifying. The Stanford Sleepiness Scale ratings in Panel B plateau after day 3-4. Subjects stopped feeling more tired even as their cognitive performance continued deteriorating through day 14. Your subjective experience of fatigue is a lagging indicator that eventually just… stops updating. This explains why chronic undersleeping feels sustainable. You’ve adapted to feeling tired. Your prefrontal cortex hasn’t adapted to being impaired. The PVT (Psychomotor Vigilance Task) in Panel A measures lapses in attention. These are the moments where you’re staring at a screen and your brain simply checks out for 500ms. Every additional day of 6h sleep adds more lapses. The curve never flattens. Panel C and D show working memory and processing speed. Same pattern: continuous degradation with no subjective awareness. The practical implications: If you’re sleeping 6h and think you’re functioning fine, you’ve lost the internal calibration to know you’re not. The subjects in this study would have told you they felt “okay” while performing like they’d pulled an all-nighter. For anyone doing cognitively demanding work, this means you cannot trust how you feel. You need to track objective markers: error rates, decision latency, problem-solving throughput. Sleep need is biological, not negotiable. Most adults require 7-9 hours, and the research shows no population-level adaptation to chronic restriction. “I only need 6 hours” is almost always “I’ve forgotten what baseline cognition feels like.“

@epsteingross of course! glad to be able to read 2000 words about a cool band that also has a POV about where they fit into the wider world. getting increasingly rare around these parts, thanks for the piece

@chychychy oh wow thank you so much!!! “philosophically digressive but in a way that always comes back around to illustrate her point” is probably the best, funniest description of my writing i’ve heard in a long time — can you tell i was an insufferable political & cultural theory major😭

Just read @epsteingross’ excellent new profile of Westside Cowboy and had to post it. Fantastic writing… philosophically digressive but in a way that always comes back around to illustrate her point. I’ll be stealing the phrase “doom-induced apathy”. avclub.com/westside-cowbo…

@broccoliboygreg @MrVibedup Who is this?

@MrVibedup FR

Jamaican scam rap is diabolical 🔥

Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal said she would arrest ICE agents who commit crimes in the city, calling them “fake law enforcement” and warning, “You don’t want this smoke.”

Brilliant article by @profplum99 - I don’t think this could have been articulated anyway possibly better. yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-li…

The funniest thing Drake ever did on wax was only use the hashtag flow once on Take Care, with the lyric “all your flows bore me, paint drying”.