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Rob Mitchum

@robmitchum.bsky.social

Science and music writer. EIC of @kellogginsight.bsky.social‬.

3,474 Followers  |  263 Following  |  2,070 Posts  |  Joined: 29.09.2023
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Posts by Rob Mitchum (@robmitchum.bsky.social)

The Cardinals apparently have a relief pitcher named Blewett, file that away for your baseball humor needs.

02.03.2026 22:40 — 👍 34    🔁 5    💬 2    📌 0
Lou Reed  Guess I'm Falling in love  live
YouTube video by Lund Peterson Lou Reed Guess I'm Falling in love live

velvet underground researchers have apparently confirmed that this audio from a random youtube user is genuinely the long-lost july '67 performance from upbeat, a cleveland teen tv show, doing the unreleased "guess i'm falling in love" complete with screaming girls. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU2U...

02.03.2026 19:17 — 👍 282    🔁 94    💬 14    📌 21
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The Recipe for Innovation? An Alliance Between Art and Science. Three tips to help organizations build bridges between creative and systematic thinkers.

Wrote about former Northwestern engineering school dean Julio Ottino's advice on merging art and science, for @kellogginsight.bsky.social insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/reci...

02.03.2026 16:02 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
Special image for this show designed by Adrian Shaughnessy, who designed (uncredited) the original Sun Ra Nuclear War 12" (Y Records 1982 UK).

Special image for this show designed by Adrian Shaughnessy, who designed (uncredited) the original Sun Ra Nuclear War 12" (Y Records 1982 UK).

“We’re Trying to Save Your Ass!” Sun Ra / Nuclear War Mega Mix (1982-1988)

🚨FIVE HOURS OF NOTHING BUT NUCLEAR WAR!🚨

Now archived @wfmu.bsky.social

STREAM ▶️ wfmu.org/playlists/sh...

01.03.2026 05:24 — 👍 90    🔁 37    💬 3    📌 6

Also I referred to him as Bill "Strings" Callahan in a text to a friend and he was NOT amused.

27.02.2026 22:01 — 👍 6    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Can't tell if this new Callahan is great or if it's just 60 degrees outside. Very dangerous time of year.

27.02.2026 22:01 — 👍 8    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0
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White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.

The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

27.02.2026 16:06 — 👍 1029    🔁 691    💬 21    📌 72

Along those lines, what baseball newsletters/podcasts are people jamming these days? I need a new one that's not too grumpy or overly focused on stats/organizational stuff. No Dunks but for baseball, basically.

25.02.2026 23:08 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 3    📌 0

We're doing baseball positivity in 2026.

25.02.2026 22:59 — 👍 6    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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The Allure of Magic: Discovering Joy in the Inexplicable When German sociologist Max Weber lamented over a century ago that the scientific, rational, and technical explanation ushered in by the Enlightenment contributed to the world’s “disenchantment,” he c...

Beautiful piece by Adam Waytz about the value of awe and "I don't know" to fight the disenchanting experience of AI.

25.02.2026 21:57 — 👍 5    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Smartphones, Online Music Streaming, and Traffic Fatalities
Vishal R. Patel, Christopher M. Worsham, Michael Liu & Anupam B. Jena
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Working Paper 34866
DOI 10.3386/w34866
Issue Date February 2026
Modern smartphones present new threats to road safety beyond talking and texting, but the real-world effects are difficult to study. One way to causally assess the impact of smartphones on road safety is to identify arbitrarily timed events during which smartphone-related distraction may exogenously increase – i.e., a situation that relies not on plausibly random variation in who uses smartphones while driving, but when smartphones are used. We investigated the impact of smartphones on road safety by examining traffic fatalities on days when smartphone use likely surges: the release of major music albums. Using event study analysis, we show that music streaming – an indicator for smartphone use, where streaming most often occurs – sharply increases, by nearly 40%, on dates of major music album releases, while U.S. traffic fatalities increase by nearly 15% on those same days. Mobile device use while driving is a known safety issue, but today’s smartphones present new and greater opportunities for driver distraction. Our study indicates how features of these phones may have important impacts on distracted driving and traffic fatalities.

Smartphones, Online Music Streaming, and Traffic Fatalities Vishal R. Patel, Christopher M. Worsham, Michael Liu & Anupam B. Jena X LinkedIn Facebook Bluesky Threads Email Link Working Paper 34866 DOI 10.3386/w34866 Issue Date February 2026 Modern smartphones present new threats to road safety beyond talking and texting, but the real-world effects are difficult to study. One way to causally assess the impact of smartphones on road safety is to identify arbitrarily timed events during which smartphone-related distraction may exogenously increase – i.e., a situation that relies not on plausibly random variation in who uses smartphones while driving, but when smartphones are used. We investigated the impact of smartphones on road safety by examining traffic fatalities on days when smartphone use likely surges: the release of major music albums. Using event study analysis, we show that music streaming – an indicator for smartphone use, where streaming most often occurs – sharply increases, by nearly 40%, on dates of major music album releases, while U.S. traffic fatalities increase by nearly 15% on those same days. Mobile device use while driving is a known safety issue, but today’s smartphones present new and greater opportunities for driver distraction. Our study indicates how features of these phones may have important impacts on distracted driving and traffic fatalities.

On days when major albums are released, people use music streaming services on their smartphone 40% more, and U.S. traffic fatalities increase by 15% www.nber.org/papers/w3486...

24.02.2026 23:55 — 👍 119    🔁 53    💬 7    📌 1
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Podcast: In Workplace Negotiations, Put the Relationship First It’s not just about salary. On this episode of The Insightful Leader’s “Ask Insight,” we hear how to approach some common work tensions by finding common ground.

We tend to associate the word “negotiate” with salary and home buying—but for Kellogg’s Leigh Thompson, the list should be much longer.

On an episode of “Ask Insight,” Thompson demonstrates how to negotiate solutions in tricky situations. #KelloggLeader kell.gg/10d8df

15.01.2026 15:52 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

I think about this bit almost every day.

24.02.2026 12:54 — 👍 10    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0

I was a little skeptical because the density is part of what I like about their sound, but they made up for it with the rearrangements/hybrids.

23.02.2026 18:38 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The Fiery Furnaces Setlist at Old Town School of Folk Music (Gary & Laura Maurer Concert Hall), Chicago Get the The Fiery Furnaces Setlist of the concert at Old Town School of Folk Music (Gary & Laura Maurer Concert Hall), Chicago, IL, USA on February 22, 2026 and other The Fiery Furnaces Setlists for f...

Delightful setlist from the Furnaces last night, all medleys except for "Evergreen," which sounded amazing played straight by comparison. And a new song debut!

23.02.2026 18:34 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
microphones at Grateful Dead show

microphones at Grateful Dead show

concertgoers hold boomboxes at Polish music festival

concertgoers hold boomboxes at Polish music festival

tapers sidestage at bluegrass festival

tapers sidestage at bluegrass festival

man in t shirt that reads Tape Master

man in t shirt that reads Tape Master

snow day news drop: last week, i turned in a draft of the book i've been working on for the past 6 years! right now, it's called "the invisible hit parade: a taper's history of music" & will be out in 2027 from da capo/hachette. much more to come, obviously!

23.02.2026 14:23 — 👍 315    🔁 34    💬 37    📌 8
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Deface the Currency, by The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis 7 track album

New Messthetics! After seeing them last year, Anthony Pirog immediately became one of my new favorite guitarists.

20.02.2026 16:02 — 👍 7    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
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Sure, AI Can Automate. But How Can You Use It to Innovate? A Kellogg professor’s experience deploying AI in the classroom shows how domain knowledge and experimentation can lead to true breakthroughs.

Professor Sébastien Martin's experience deploying AI in his classroom shows how domain knowledge and experimentation can lead to true breakthroughs. Learn how at Kellogg Insight. kell.gg/0adcd5

15.01.2026 15:52 — 👍 2    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
The cover of David Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name, with a close-up shot of Croz pondering the ocean.

The cover of David Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name, with a close-up shot of Croz pondering the ocean.

Thinking about that Jam Cruise...

19.02.2026 20:19 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

The jam world is much healthier with an active MMW, for sure.

19.02.2026 20:15 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

What flag does Jam Cruise fly?

19.02.2026 20:13 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

Is Jam Cruise a sovereign nation? Stay tuned for my working paper.

19.02.2026 19:47 — 👍 8    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

More jamband fan problems: When I log live shows on my listening diary, I use the format "City, State Date". I'm listening to one of the MMW Jam Cruise sets. What location is Jam Cruise? International Waters?

19.02.2026 19:44 — 👍 13    🔁 0    💬 8    📌 0

Ballad of the Sin Reader

18.02.2026 21:11 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

That is a *stiff* competition.

18.02.2026 00:27 — 👍 8    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

*Austin Powers voice*

17.02.2026 22:48 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Three Simpsons characters, one holding some paintings, with the dialogue "Ja, ja, ja -- mach schnell mit der art things, huh? I must get back to Dancecentrum in Stuttgart in time to see Kraftwerk."

Three Simpsons characters, one holding some paintings, with the dialogue "Ja, ja, ja -- mach schnell mit der art things, huh? I must get back to Dancecentrum in Stuttgart in time to see Kraftwerk."

Forgot about this real one!

16.02.2026 21:56 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Screenshot of the Germans who bough the Springfield nuclear plant saying "Beware -- we Germans aren't all Tangerine Dream and Amon Düül II"

Screenshot of the Germans who bough the Springfield nuclear plant saying "Beware -- we Germans aren't all Tangerine Dream and Amon Düül II"

16.02.2026 21:51 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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Calling All Angels, by Eggy from the album Eggy | Tree House Brewing Company | Deerfield, MA | 1.17.26

OK I feel bad not linking. Good band, good jam, good show, but jambands don't make it easy sometimes.

16.02.2026 21:34 — 👍 11    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I'd like to recommend an interesting jam by an up-and-coming band but it unfortunately happens 20 minutes into a Train cover?

16.02.2026 21:00 — 👍 22    🔁 2    💬 7    📌 0