👻 Dead Chachra 💀

As of this weekend, I've been based in Vancouver, BC for a year. To celebrate, I wrote a newsletter about @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social's THE PACIFIC CIRCUIT, having a garden, and some of the things I've been up to this past while: buttondown.com/metafoundry/...

I would like the AI bubble to collapse soon because I really need a proper desk chair and I’d like to get a super-cheap refurbed Aeron from an office liquidator.

The pettiest hill that I will die on is that if your cool character in a historical novel is rolling their eyes at social conventions, no they're not, eye-rolling didn't become a widely described gesture in English literature until the *1980s* books.google.com/ngrams/graph...

I would like the AI bubble to collapse soon because I really need a proper desk chair and I’d like to get a super-cheap refurbed Aeron from an office liquidator.

Budgets represent our values, and crumbs are not enough for our public goods. Our friends at For The People have asked - what would it look like to fund public libraries the way we fund police depts? How would that transform our city? See the full zine: www.librariesforthepeople.org/snapshots

Change in Headline

Counterpoint: CEOs should look at their companies as if they needed to provide a service for every citizen, constantly renew their social licence to operate, and plan for the long term wellbeing of the whole country. www.ft.com/content/8255...

It's the wind blowing free it's the end of the slope It's a beam, it's a void it's a hunch, it's a hope youtu.be/E1tOV7y94DY?...

if you’ve never read kelsey lawrence’s awesome history of cheesecake factory’s interior decor, today’s the day. www.eater.com/2017/6/21/15...

your yearly PSA: want to do something positive wrt the ecosystem while saving yourself a bunch of time and effort? skip the bagging and just rake leaves into a pile wherever convenient (bonus points if you do it under a tree). www.nps.gov/articles/000...

As I've said before, it's only once I became a professor that I realized the entmoot, a meeting that goes on for three days and three nights, was a professor's joke about faculty meetings.

I have such a soft spot for wonky-eyed flatfish (instantly recognizable in that patch of roundlings on the left side).

It’s almost as though “gifts for men” (or “gifts for women”) is nowhere near as useful a classification as “gifts for readers”, “gifts for cooks”, “gifts for pet owners”, etc. etc. Perhaps we can infer something from this.

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (with Marvin the Paranoid Android and doors, elevators, and automatic drink dispensers with “Genuine People Personalities”) was a warning, not a manual.

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (with Marvin the Paranoid Android and doors, elevators, and automatic drink dispensers with “Genuine People Personalities”) was a warning, not a manual.

It’s almost as though “gifts for men” (or “gifts for women”) is nowhere near as useful a classification as “gifts for readers”, “gifts for cooks”, “gifts for pet owners”, etc. etc. Perhaps we can infer something from this.

stumbled on a set of incredible 1970s illustrations in some government reports, so had to spend a day collecting them into a website to share with my friends on the computer: nickseaver.net/paperwork

On the Caltrain headed up the peninsula to SF and the comedic/hostile nature of transpo here (and in the rain!) sent me back to @annaleen.bsky.social’s “A Modest Proposal for Funding Transit Instead of AI” www.coyotemedia.org/funding-bay-...

Peak application of dendrochronology. 10/10, no notes.

Bunker Hill Monument - Looking East, Boston National Historical Park #NPS #NationalParkService #BostonNationalHistoricalPark

“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin

All of that repairing and caring is (or could be) love. We don’t always say or see that the engineer loves the heating system as she fixes the leak or the farmer loves the hayfield as she spreads manure but we could. As Ursula Le Guin told us….

On the Caltrain headed up the peninsula to SF and the comedic/hostile nature of transpo here (and in the rain!) sent me back to @annaleen.bsky.social’s “A Modest Proposal for Funding Transit Instead of AI” www.coyotemedia.org/funding-bay-...

Forget the kids, I would be ashamed of *myself* if someone was on my doorstep asking for food, even candy, and I turned them away shamed and emptyhanded.

It turns out Jolly Ranchers are strongly fluorescent under UV illumination. Bottom image taken with visible light Top image taken with 395 nm UV flashlight www.aiweirdness.com/jolly-ranche...

Wonderful to see @r-emrys.bsky.social reviewing @debcha.bsky.social reactormag.com/seeds-of-sto...

Today in: “Cyberpunk was a warning, not a retail opportunity.“

“Inspired by a gothic cathedral partly built using human bones, this gleaming monument to recycling boasts 62,000 bricks derived from construction waste – each made by the public during a two-day brick-making festival” (Top notch) www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head. 🖊️🦑

> The earliest account of [the hazards of] asbestos was provided by Lucy Deane [in 1898], one of the first Women Inspectors of Factories in the UK. [T]hese laywomen might not have been categorised as [experts] but they were competent observers [& t]heir reports were not refuted but simply ignored.

A western car company puts thrusters on something that will not be street worthy, if it ever ships. Geely announced an EV that will charge in 4 to 8 minutes. That’s *three* Chinese EVs that have utra fast charging using two different technologies. 🧪💡🔌☀️💨💧🔋 electricvehicletalks.com/geely-4-minu...

I didn’t know much about about Abdul El-Sayed before watching this but I knew as soon as I’d seen it that he’d worked as a teacher — and sure enough he was an assistant professor in epidemiology. This is how you walk a student through a dumb take.

Go to your camera roll and search “boat” and post one that you like [Predictably, I have a lot of container ships.]

Current* conditions near Two Harbors, MN:

A soundtrack for living in the grey with Special Guest @debcha.bsky.social. www.jamesreeves.co/456am/ Features hits from Low, Alex Smoke, Jesus and Mary Chain, Massive Attack vs Mad Professor, James Ellis Ford, Radiohead, Elisapie, Jóhann Jóhannsson, David Sylvian, and some mangled Skinny Puppy.

mcintosh apples, painted by royal charles steadman, 1927

Fascinating read on how Delhi stabilized Its power grid and reduced blackouts, from the end-user up— the technical fixes were a part, but working at all socioeconomic levels was a key piece. (thanks, @clancyny.bsky.social !)

Peggy Parish: In my book I invented Amelia Bedelia as a cautionary tale AI agent company: at long last, we have created Amelia Bedelia from classic children's book Amelia Bedelia

We found that the most gendered experience wasn’t work-life balance, the focus of most retention efforts. It was feeling devalued, in formal evaluations, but particularly in everyday interactions. Unlike every other topic, the gender gap in devaluation was larger among more senior faculty.