#454 - Miami tips, why the Queen wasn't great, and the Top Gun enemy
I'm back in California after a long weekend in Miami. What a place! It's so extra - every hour it outdid itself in extravagance and ridiculousness.
Here's my recommendations:
Club Space is the best EDM club and open until 11am weekends. LIV and Story are the ridiculous Miami celebrity spots, a la Vegas.
The Wynwood neighborhood is a must see, covered in street art year round from Art Basel, ground zero for NFT and urban art.
Little Havana is also a worthy stop, with Versailles restaurant as famous Cuban food, and a street studded with live salsa - preeminent being Ball and Chain
Vizcaya Palace and the Kamphong are good places to see tropical plants in beautiful surroundings
Ziome and the Center for Subtropical Affairs are Burner art galleries that host events every now and then
Lagniappes is a see and be seen wine bar
The Brickell neighborhood is also amazing, barely a decade old with dozens of high rise skyscrapers, gorgeous locals, and associated rooftop and ground level retail
Tech
Stable Diffusion is a really big deal — simonwillison.net
The latest AI art generator on the market is also the first one that's open source. And as such you can do a lot more with it.
Check out the 'sketch something and have it fill in the blanks to make it high contrast' feature - mind boggling!
Lifehacks
So Queen Elizabeth died, and the Internet dunked on her, and I asked Facebook why, as from my understanding and research to date she was nothing but a figurehead....so instead of helping they just dunked on me too. :(
But hey, I did get more research out of it! Haven't dug through it all yet, but here are several posts explaining why the Queen wasn't great. Always welcoming counterpoints.
What Is the Enemy Country in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’? An Investigation. — www.theringer.com
Eloquently written deep dive into who the unnamed enemy state in the new Top Gun movie might be, citing sources.
TLDR - it's Iran, because they're the only other country in the world that flew F-14 fighter jets, since the US gave them some before the revolution.
Fun
What Burning Man is all about, according to Malcolm in the Middle — www.youtube.com
"Burning Man is about creating, participating, contributing. Building a community that needs you, relies on you. Allowing yourself to become part of the whole, and coming away with more than you brought." - Malcolm in the Middle being sage in 2005
Cost n’ Mayor (@cost_n_mayor) — www.instagram.com
This IG couple helps explain why Tiktok style choreography is so popular - something about this audiovisual synchronization makes my brain happy. They made dances for iPhone ringtones and football theme songs!