Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1511
Saint Etienne ending, Disney/Hulu deal, more Genius Act digging, revisinting my Home Depot boycott, a tree falling on a fence, a weird Mexican joint
Hello hello hello good morning hi how are you happy Wednesday. My head itches. I need to start using this dumb cream I got from the dermatologist. I am not tied! Sleeping in rules! My alarm goes off, I just sort of lollygag about, laying there, getting out of bed when I feel like it. It is divine, I tell you. Divine!
Saint Etienne is ending have I told you about this? How sad it makes me? They are going to put this last album out this fall and they are going to break up. It is unclear if they are going to tour or not, but I would not hold my breath, as an American. Man I loved seeing Saint Etienne live I would very much like to see that ring one more time, Frodo. Alas. We will miss you, Saint Etienne, you have had a lovely career.
We are listening this morning to a band called Heave Blood & Die, album is named Burnout Codes. Learned about it from Luke O’Neil. It is good. Very loud and raucus and noisy and hard. I don’t know anything about them. Discogs says they are Norwegian. Wouldn’t have guessed it.
We have a Mr. Airplane Man record to listen to after this. Discogs purchase. Made despite my New Year’s Resolution. Local Boston bands get an exception, I guess. Or bands of which I used to kinda-sorta know the members.
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And Disney bought the rest of Hulu finally. That’s been a thing for ages, since, like, Hulu was started. It has always been owned by more than one media company. It was a joint effort to battle YouTube at the beginning. And, you know… it did pretty good! Hulu is arguably the godfather of streaming television, pre-dated Netflix’s pivot to streaming (RIP Netflix Red Envelopes we loved you so much). They bought the last third of it, per their contract, a year or so ago, but there was a debate about the market value of that last third, so they couldn’t close the deal until an independent arbiter made a final calculation on the value of that third. And they have come to an end of that journey. They gotta pay another $400 million ish, but that’ll wrap it up, and Disney will then own Hulu.
The question now is: What now? I mean, it’s been weird having all of this mature content in Disney Plus. Having Poor Things in Disney Plus? Weird. Are they going to kill the Hulu brand and fold it into Disney Plus in the continuing quest for a super-streaming app? I feel like the bloom is off the rose a bit on these “super apps” in streaming with one billion different networks and content types all bundled in there — witness Warner Brothers’ face-palm-inducing retreat and re-split announced this week. And also it has just felt tacky to have all this non-Disney content in a Disney app.
AND YET. No one wants to pay for more streaming services, especially niche ones, when the entire industry has pegged the subscription cost to a floor of like $10-20 a month, no matter how little content is in the app. Giant apps make sense, all-in-one, the more you get for your money.
AND YET. I suspect most people just watch the shit that is on the home page. Though I think this is more an indictment to the absolutely unimaginative, sclerotic state of UX design in streaming apps.
I bet even Disney doesn’t know what they’re gonna do yet. Feels like the really-very-good Hulu Originals and FX originals are going to be the losers in all of this, which is a shame. FX has had some great stuff through the years.
And they have a real sweet Alien TV show coming up from Noah Hawley, who made Legion, which is also rad.
I have an update on the Genius Act and my confusion about it, for those who care, which is like, maybe three of you, boy my readership does not care about crypto at all that is pretty f’n awesome.
To recap, the bill puts a regulatory framework around stablecoins, which are currently legal and have no regulatory framework. And I cannot figure why people find that bad and crypto enabling.
Here is what I have learned:
People hate Trump and that dude is all in on crypto and they don’t want to help him, which makes sense to me no argument there. Trump has a stablecoin, and this would “legalize” it, which is not true, since stablecoins are legal now. But they don’t want to encourage him.
There is a line or two in the bill that imply that stablecoin companies could pay interest, which people do not like.
They also do not like this because it nominally/maybe/theoretically could give these companies access to certain financing options from the Fed, and banks are super not into this because they have a monopoly on this now. The big national bank lobbyists are bought by crypto (new members!) so they support this but several regional banking associations do not.
“Corporate takeover of the dollar!” But whatever: this is, as I keep saying, already legal, so, if that’s gonna happen, more regulation is not going to make it worse.
People say that this enforcement is way too weak. Which is… well, I cannot say. The rule itself is exactly what you want: a stablecoin is required by law to be backed by what it says it’s backed by. Which, again, mind you, is not the law now. So that is an improvement. But the punishment and enforcement is pretty light. Which, yeah. Maybe that could be more? But again, this is more than now, more than zero, and all banking regulation is comically light. But yeah, fair point.
And of course some people think currently-legal stablecoins should be illegal. So, yeah, they’re probably pissed about a law that does not make them illegal. but, then, you know, this law is the one law that puts more rules on them so you may as well just be pissed about every other law. I don’t know, man. It is very hard for me to get behind “IOUs saying I owe you a dollar” should be illegal in a free country. Or a formerly free one.
Elizabeth Warren is positively looney on this issue, and yesterday she said this law is a massive gift to Tether (a European stablecoin company) because of a “loophole” in the bill. I have legit no idea what she’s talking about, except that i THINK she means the loophole is: Tether is not American so they don’t have to follow the law? I mean.. I guess, us being big, bad America, we could do that thing we do where we try and regulate the finances of the entire world again. But a) we usually do that through soft power and laws like this? and b) by limiting access to American markets for those who don’t follow our laws? Which is the case here? I legit have no idea what she’s talking about here and she does not ever explain it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway the whole thing looks like it might go down in a blaze of glory because a sneaky senator tacked on a highly controversial amendment that, gasp, encourages competition in the credit card industry and senators don’t want to vote on that amendment, it’s toxic to them, because they like collecting money from both retailers, who support the amendment, and credit card companies, who do not. So now everyone thinks the bill might die. So, you know, whatever.
The end.
We went to a Mexican joint last night that was one of those sit-down ones that gives you chips and salsa right when you walk in, which Jane LOVES. And it has one of those big long menus with a million things including the whole “plates” sections which is just piles of meat and rice I love those sections.
But there are two weird things about this place:
1) No chicken fajitas. Like there is a whole section of fajitas, and you can get combo fajitas with chicken in them, but no chicken fajitas.
2) They have combos, love combos at sit-down Mexican restaurants. But the combos are FOUR DOLLARS MORE PER ITEM if you want chicken instead of beef. How is that a thing? Is chicken that much more? No! Even their kids menu is like “chicken or beef.” It very much seems like this small-print add-on is just fleecing people. And I like the place and I like the food, but this leaves a real bad taste in my mouth.
The music in the bathrooms was deafening. There were beer advertisements from four different beers and an alcoholic Jarritos. To pay with your phone you gotta walk to the server station because they do not have a remote payment machine.
Weird place.
Finally, I am considering lifting my boycott of Home Depot. Did some digging yesterday and… did you know there were five co-founders? So many fucking Home Depot founders. But none of them work there any more, none of them own any significant chunk of stock. BY FAR most of the stock now is owned by index funds. Several of the founders are democrats, one is one of those old-school Republicans who clearly dislikes Trump (and funds a bunch of NYC hospitals, his last name is Langone, ya know.
Then there is the one everyone hated, who was a malevolent Trump booster till the bitter end. But a) he is dead now, died in November of last year, another major Trump donor gone so sad, b) he signed the giving pledge and is giving most of his money to a bunch of children’s charities, c) it’s not clear his heirs are getting much nor is it clear they are Trumpers and d) he doesn’t own any of Home Depot any more anyway.
So, I mean, yes, it’s a company, but it literally has the same five largest owners as Lowe’s Hardware. So what is the fucking point. I will now move it to the “try and avoid big companies in general” category and out of the “Fascist enabling fuckers” category.
Not that there’s a Home Depot near me anyway.
Jane is behind me, playing Mini Motorways, saying “guess how many road times I have now! Guess how many bridges I have now!” over and over, it is a bit distracting. She is pretty good at the game, though, I am impressed. All that Real Civil Engineer watching has rubbed off on her.
Yesterday a rotting tree fell in the woods of Chore House and landed on the deer fence, so after the Mexican dinner, Emma, Jane and I headed over there to move the tree, repair the fence, and make sure any deer got out. Jane was helpful! That was nice. That fence got wailed on by that tree, it was huge. Jane handed me cable ties as I sewed it back together, and helped her mother get the lead wire untangled and woven back into the fence.
A whole family production. Very wholesome.
And no iPad at all yesterday, so she was an absolute angel. It is crazy how that specific screen just makes her a holy terror for the entire day. Nintendo Switch? Mac? Phone? All fine. But iPad? She is a beast.
We have a “W Hotel in a Better, Alternate Universe” paylist for you today. Wait didn’t these used to be titled “W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe”? When did I drop the “Lobby?” Weird. Anyway, I have talked about a lot of these artists recently: Alessandro Cortini, Pritchard/Yorke, Jon Bellion, Nilüfer Yanya. I like the new Black Moth Super Rainbow, don’t love the new Miley, like about half of the new Garbage. I like this old Choir of Young Believers album very much, new Sterolab is… well, it’s Sterolab, you know. I am excited to see them again in the fall (I think?). They are playing the big old mill in the woods. It is gonna rule.
Okay friend talk to you tomorrow. Adios.
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Thanks for reading.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.