how to cultivate your own taste…and how to protect your inner life while posting online

I’ve been reading very little this week and reconciling with nature instead—swimming, cycling, and applying large quantities of sunscreen—but I’m here to share 3 announcements and 5 recent favorites:Everyone wrote about taste this year, including meFirst—my essay on taste, Silicon Valley, and AI is now out! You can read “Why We Like Things” online or in print, as part of Asterisk’s Work issue (along with work from the social scientist , economics writer , and others).I was lightly terrified about whether I could pull off this essay, for two reasons:It’s the first magazine piece I’ve done that wasn’t a book or art review. Reviews are nice because you can relax into the form a little; for a book review, for example, there’s usually a paragraph where you’re supposed to explain the work being reviewed and who wrote it; and you need to do some deft plot summary (useful to those who have and haven’t read the book); and you need to perform some analysis…but writing an essay fully powered by…