I was out walking the dog when I got in a nice chat with a neighbor. When the chat was done, the woman noted the full poop bag I was carrying, and offered to take it from me and put it in her trash. “No thanks!” I replied, chipperly. “I’m good.”
That was years ago. I still think about it now and then and wonder what kind of message I was sending.
A woke map
The US voted against a UN resolution to replace the standard Mercator Projection map of the world.
The new map accurately shows the size of land masses in relation to each other. In the Mercator Projection, designed in the 16th Century, Africa and Greenland are shown as about the same size, but in reality, Africa is 14x larger.
The US explanation for its vote is just plain stupid. I feel 14X stupider after reading it.
164 nations voted in favor of the resolution. The US was the sole “no” vote. We’re the stupidest country in the world now.
This kind of thing makes me angry in the way that greater abuses don’t. It’s just so goddamn petty.
Via jwz.org
1969 interview with Don Rickles by WMAR-TV reporter Susan White. “Rickles had a reparation for not letting reporters get a word in edgeways, so Susan decided to hilariously turn the tables…”
Rickles has a reputation for being kind, gracious and charming in his personal life and that shines through in this video.
Rebuilding is brutally expensive in Los Angeles’s burnt-out neighborhoods, so instead homeowners are reviving the lost art of house-moving, transporting historic homes across town to be installed on lots that were recently made vacant by wildfires.
Nicola Twilley at The New Yorker:
In his prime, [George] Kress was a kind of P. T. Barnum figure, dazzling the city with his ambition and showmanship. He moved greenhouses without breaking a pane, entire high schools in one piece, and office buildings while workers remained at their desks. In 1924, his clients hosted a party–with the mayor in attendance–inside a nine-bedroom Queen Anne-style building while Kress moved it more than two miles west, on Wilshire Boulevard, from the newly commercial neighborhood of Westlake to the upscale Windsor Square.
If I had a time machine, that party would be one of the first places I’d go.
Marco Arment: “If I learn today that my neighbors have political views that my ‘side’ considers unacceptable and unforgivable, should I be able to have dinner at their house, shovel their snow, or even greet them outside?”
Columbia House: The First 12 Cost A Penny, But … Columbia House was a great way to get 12 CDs, tapes or records for a penny. But its business model set the stage for a lot of bad e-commerce.
We Are Living in the Fantasy World of 13-Year-Old Boys
Many of the tech billionaires who built our world have taken the wrong lessons from their favorite science fiction. They regard “humanness, and Earth itself … as a burden to be sloughed off.” Gal Beckerman contemplates the new book “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State” by Jill Lepore.
Like Musk, Thiel and Sam Altman, I grew up reading Heinlein, Asimov and Adams. I found the writing inspiring. But I stopped taking it literally a long time ago.
Romani-inspired “boho” and medieval European styles merged in 1960s hippie culture, with rock stars like Stevie Nicks, Mama Cass and Janis Joplin leading. “American youth were reading Tolkien, wearing their grandmother’s silk scarves, and dipping their toes in metaphysical philosophies.” By Avery Trufelman on Articles of Interest.
Chris Arnade rides the 22-hour bus trip from Darwin, Australia, to Alice Springs.