Words like this presents beautiful passages of poetry in a beautiful, contemporary way.
Akiya (vacant houses in Japan) “are becoming less like financial assets and more akin to natural resources, available to be harvested by those who wish put in the time and substantial effort to reclaim one from natural decay.”
A far-right attack on a community college reveals a blueprint for destroying higher ed
The problem goes far beyond a three-person majority on the trustee board of a small community college. NIC and many other institutions are in danger because, over the last decade and a half, a core group of extremists has slowly taken over the Idaho Republican Party in the same way that a parasitic wasp slowly takes over its host. This required no astroturfing or Koch-fueled cash infusions, just a regular, everyday indifference to hyperlocal politics. The tactic is underway elsewhere, but Idaho got a head start. This crisis is what happens when insurgency bears fruit.
Emphasis mine. Currently looking for more ways to be involved in my community.
Remind me later is a comic about “technological problems.”
it’s okay if you just pick one thing you really care about, and it’s okay if that thing is “being a good friend” instead of “maximizing your potential”
Walkcast is an ever-changing podcast generated as you walk, revealing the hidden layers that surround you.
I don’t need these people’s psychodramas in my head anymore:
“The closest thing to a political point I want to make is that I’ve dedicated far too much brain-space, in recent years, to marinating in the psyches of the angry, cynical and damaged men currently ascendant in our politics – which is basically what you’re doing when you spend time on Twitter, idly surf online media, or consume most TV news.”
This is a recent development in the history of human civilization: To wake up with the whole world in your bed
Private “homemade” docs > AI slop:
While Google Docs and Maps are easily shareable, some creators keep them close to their chests. “The docs I make are usually a curation of my friends’, lovers’, and personal recommendations of the cities I’ve been to,” Held says. “For this reason, they’re kinda sacred to me.” She appreciates the time, effort, and gesture of a good city doc, and tries to repay the favor: If anyone shares a doc with her, she’ll offer one of hers in return.
There seems to be this kind of richness of the tactile experience that’s afforded by pushing buttons. They’re not perfect for every situation, but I think increasingly, we’re realizing the merit that the interface offers.
Links for Week 45, 2024
#- An illustrated guide to science-backed mood boosters.
- A zine about reclaiming your life from digital technology.
- A tool for searching independent websites.
- A collection of the “best” marketing headlines on the internet.
- Over the Garden Wall’s 10th anniversary stop motion short.
- Max Vogel Gonzalez’s illustrations.
- An experiment with giving out potatoes to trick or treaters.
- A concept to break procrastination.
- Some objects I covet: Nike C1TY “Surplus” shoes, El Oso Bear Tee, the Kobo Clara Colour, and the book Assembling Tomorrow.
In 1976, a television crew filming an episode of the show “The Six Million Dollar Man” descended on a rundown funhouse in Long Beach, California. While filming, they accidentally broke the arm off a wax dummy. Except it wasn’t a wax dummy. It was a real body. The body of a notorious train robber from the early 1900s, named Elmer McCurdy
What a wild story from The Atlas Obscura Podcast!
Any code I’ve written, any glib digital creation, disappears into the infinite feed. But a playground will stubbornly stand for the next twenty years, pointing to big ideas in computer science. It’s something I think about often.
De La Soul opened a donut shop for their latest video “Oodles of O’s”. The video features cameos by artists, actors and personalities, all to honor the legacy of Dave, aka Trugoy the Dove.
IKEA Catalog from a Near Future
Some design fiction on the " …possible evolutions of home life, consumer trends and needs, and related topics in the categories of domestic life, food, urban life, travel, leisure, and entertainment."
Halloween by Bo Bartlett /via MLTSHP.
More things of the spooky variety if you are interested.
The networks we use to communicate across fields and distances, to find our friends and learn from people unlike ourselves—and to organize ourselves to respond to acute crises and long, grinding institutional failures—are the same networks that are making so many of us miserable and/or deranged.
Websites, Done Cheap “More convenient than a new hobby!”
“Most fields have a problem with ‘ghost knowledge’, hard-won practical understanding that is mostly passed on verbally between practitioners and not written down anywhere public.”
Not Built For This is a 6-part series from 99% Invisible. It explores how climate change is laying bare the vulnerabilities in the American built environment and how communities across the country have been left to bootstrap their own survival.
Flip through (YouTube) channels like the old days. /via bencrowder.net
Photo by Asako Narahashi from her collection half awake and half asleep in the water. /via notes.husk.org
“I like to describe my job in terms of “The Door Problem”. Are there doors in your game? Can the player open them? Can the player open every door in the game? Or are some doors for decoration? How does the player know the difference?”
A new edition of Things to Click! This edition covers an 8-bit lens, community connection, research as fun, suburbs' as horror movies, and more - all jam-packed!
American suburbs are full of ugly, empty, liminal spaces: spaces you are not meant to linger in or enjoy. They’re the creepy hallways of the built environment, and you can’t feel comfortable traversing them unless you’re zooming past them in a car.
American Suburbs Are a Horror Movie and We’re the Protagonists