From 9998b84b94a49dba5664c7c8099fb464661a1f50 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: David Eisinger Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2026 00:07:34 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Add links --- .../journal/dispatch-38-april-2026/index.md | 61 +- static/archive/daringfireball-net-fjywii.txt | 67 ++ static/archive/defector-com-3tadhg.txt | 482 ++++++++ static/archive/defector-com-jlgxd7.txt | 696 +++++++++++ static/archive/dirt-fyi-3hauqg.txt | 316 +++++ static/archive/paulgraham-com-9dskkh.txt | 1041 +++++++++++++++++ static/archive/stopsloppypasta-ai-lzdmgr.txt | 335 ++++++ static/archive/www-robinsloan-com-ebxc4s.txt | 615 ++++++++++ 8 files changed, 3607 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) create mode 100644 static/archive/daringfireball-net-fjywii.txt create mode 100644 static/archive/defector-com-3tadhg.txt create mode 100644 static/archive/defector-com-jlgxd7.txt create mode 100644 static/archive/dirt-fyi-3hauqg.txt create mode 100644 static/archive/paulgraham-com-9dskkh.txt create mode 100644 static/archive/stopsloppypasta-ai-lzdmgr.txt create mode 100644 static/archive/www-robinsloan-com-ebxc4s.txt diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-38-april-2026/index.md b/content/journal/dispatch-38-april-2026/index.md index 7aa7fcb..ae27a39 100644 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-38-april-2026/index.md +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-38-april-2026/index.md @@ -4,6 +4,35 @@ date: 2026-03-30T10:45:45-04:00 draft: false tags: - dispatch +references: +- title: "The Brand Age" + url: https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html + date: 2026-04-02T04:02:05Z + file: paulgraham-com-9dskkh.txt +- title: "Daring Fireball: 'The Brand Age'" + url: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/03/30/the-brand-age + date: 2026-04-02T04:02:07Z + file: daringfireball-net-fjywii.txt +- title: "The Kindness Of Familiar Faces | Defector" + url: https://defector.com/the-kindness-of-familiar-faces + date: 2026-04-02T04:02:13Z + file: defector-com-jlgxd7.txt +- title: "Digital culture and entertainment insights daily: The feeling of the old world fading away" + url: https://dirt.fyi/article/2026/02/the-feeling-of-the-old-world-fading-away + date: 2026-04-02T04:02:18Z + file: dirt-fyi-3hauqg.txt +- title: "Good trains" + url: https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/ + date: 2026-04-02T04:02:19Z + file: www-robinsloan-com-ebxc4s.txt +- title: "Why I Got Out Of The Gambling Business | Defector" + url: https://defector.com/why-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business + date: 2026-04-02T04:02:23Z + file: defector-com-3tadhg.txt +- title: "Stop Sloppypasta: Don't paste raw LLM output at people" + url: https://stopsloppypasta.ai/en/ + date: 2026-04-02T04:02:25Z + file: stopsloppypasta-ai-lzdmgr.txt --- - Warmer weather @@ -49,10 +78,30 @@ tags: ### Links -* [Title][5] -* [Title][6] -* [Title][7] +* [The Brand Age][5] ([via][6]) -[5]: https://example.com/ -[6]: https://example.com/ -[7]: https://example.com/ + > That's not why brand age watches look strange. Brand age watches look strange because they have no practical function. Their function is to express brand, and while that is certainly a constraint, it's not the clean kind of constraint that generates good things. The constraints imposed by brand ultimately depend on some of the worst features of human psychology. So when you have a world defined only by brand, it's going to be a weird, bad world. + +* [The Kindness Of Familiar Faces | Defector][7] + + > None of that happens if the internet exists. Instead of fleeing to Seattle in search of a purpose in life, Kurt Cobain would’ve joined a subreddit that made living in Aberdeen three percent more bearable, he would have expressed his jadedness with society on Thought Catalog, and he would have uploaded rough demos to his SoundCloud as his attempt at making it in the biz. He wouldn’t have met any of the people who either inspired his music or directly made it with him. More important, the Seattle scene itself never would have materialized. The internet disincentivizes people young and old from going out into the world, from making necessary human connections, and from forging a collective artistic voice together. That’s why there’s never gonna be another Cobain. + +* [Digital culture and entertainment insights daily: The feeling of the old world fading away][8] ([via][9]) + + > To be clear, this sorrow is not about nostalgia or “getting older”, this is about living in a moment when the question, “Has the world changed or have I?” is irrelevant because the separation of the self and the world no longer makes any sense. + +* [Why I Got Out Of The Gambling Business | Defector][10] + + > Though the damage I did while at the company cannot be undone, I can sleep a little easier now knowing I am no longer a part of that rotten business. I encourage everyone else working at these companies to do the same as I did, and quit. The job can be walked away from; the casino, on the other hand, follows you everywhere. + +* [Stop Sloppypasta: Don't paste raw LLM output at people][11] + + > slop·py·pas·ta  n.  Verbatim LLM output copy-pasted at someone, unread, unrefined, and unrequested. From slop (low-quality AI-generated content) + copypasta (text copied and pasted, often as a meme, without critical thought). It is considered rude because it asks the recipient to do work the sender did not bother to do themselves. + +[5]: https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html +[6]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/03/30/the-brand-age +[7]: https://defector.com/the-kindness-of-familiar-faces +[8]: https://dirt.fyi/article/2026/02/the-feeling-of-the-old-world-fading-away +[9]: https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/ +[10]: https://defector.com/why-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business +[11]: https://stopsloppypasta.ai/en/ diff --git a/static/archive/daringfireball-net-fjywii.txt b/static/archive/daringfireball-net-fjywii.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..86856fb --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/daringfireball-net-fjywii.txt @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +[zoom-spin-] +[spacer] +● +● ● +[1]Daring Fireball + +By John Gruber + + • [2]Archive + • + • [3]The Talk Show + • [4]Dithering + • [5]Projects + • [6]Contact + • [7]Colophon + • [8]Feeds / Social + • [9]Sponsorship + +[10] Material Security + +[11]Material Security: +Stop scaling headcount. Scale your workspace. + +[12]‘The Brand Age’ + + Paul Graham: + + So when you have a world defined only by brand, it’s going to be a + weird, bad world. + + Graham’s thoughtful essay focuses on the mechanical watch industry. But I + disagree with his conclusion. I think the market for mechanical watches has + never been more fun or vibrant than it is today. The action, for me at + least, isn’t with the high-end luxury Swiss brands. It’s with the indies, + from companies like [13]Baltic and [14]Halios. + + It’s also interesting to ponder Graham’s essay in the context of other + industries. I think it’s self evident that the entire market for + phones — the most popular and lucrative consumer devices in the world — is + defined by a single brand, and every competitor just copies that one brand + with varying degrees of shamelessness. That’s bad and weird. + + ★ Monday, 30 March 2026 + +[15][ ] [16][Search] +[17]Display Preferences + +Copyright © 2002–2026 The Daring Fireball Company LLC. + + +References: + +[1] https://daringfireball.net/ +[2] https://daringfireball.net/archive/ +[3] https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/ +[4] https://dithering.fm/ +[5] https://daringfireball.net/projects/ +[6] https://daringfireball.net/contact/ +[7] https://daringfireball.net/colophon/ +[8] https://daringfireball.net/feeds/ +[9] https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/ +[10] https://material.security/lp-cloud-office-security?utm_source=third-party&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20260330-daringfireball +[11] https://material.security/lp-cloud-office-security?utm_source=third-party&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20260330-daringfireball +[12] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html +[13] https://baltic-watches.com/en +[14] https://halioswatches.com/ +[17] https://daringfireball.net/preferences/ diff --git a/static/archive/defector-com-3tadhg.txt b/static/archive/defector-com-3tadhg.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c30442 --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/defector-com-3tadhg.txt @@ -0,0 +1,482 @@ +[1]Skip to Content +[2]Defector home +[3]Defector home +[4]Subscribe[5]Log In +[6][ ] +Menu +[9][ ]Search +Search + • [11]Crosswords + • [12]NFL + • [13]NBA + • [14]MLB + • [15]NHL + • [16]WNBA + • [17]Soccer + • [18]Podcasts + • [19]Arts And Culture + • [20]Politics + + • [21]About Us + • [22]Send Us A Tip (News) + • [23]Send Us A Tip ($) + • [24]Merch Shop + • [25]How To Pitch Defector + • [26]Defector Freelancer Policies + • [27]Crossword Submission Guidelines + • [28]Books By Defectors + • [29]Defector Hall of Fame + • [30]Masthead + • [31]How To Comment On Defector + • [32]RSS Feed + • [33]Terms of Use + • [34]Manage Your Account + +[35]Log In[36]Subscribe + + • [37]Defector Twitch + • [38]Defector Bluesky + +[39]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisement +[40]Gambling + +Why I Got Out Of The Gambling Business + +A +By Anonymous + +9:01 AM EDT on March 25, 2026 + + • [41]Share on Bluesky + • [42]Share on Reddit + • [43]Share on WhatsApp + • [44]Share on Email + +A hand holding a phone with a tapeworm coming out of itIllustration by Mattie +Lubchansky +[45] +341Comments + +There are broadly speaking two types of gamblers: valuable and not valuable. +All are referred to as customers. The latter group are dilettantes. These +people deposit maybe once or twice, usually to take advantage of a first-time +deposit promotion, but rarely or never again after that. Maybe they don't care +much for sports, or are turned off by the way betting on sports makes watching +sports miserable. Or maybe they tried the slots, and the slow drain of money +down to zero left them feeling empty. Whatever the case, they don't have the +itch. These customers are not valuable. + +I learned to sort gamblers into these categories during the years I worked for +an online sportsbook. I worked in customer service, at first directly with +customers and later in a more behind-the-scenes role. These jobs required a +little bit of detective work, and I often found myself wading through piles of +extremely detailed personal information about our customers. Names, addresses, +payment history, net losses, geolocation, remarks left during previous customer +service interactions; all of this was there for me to review any time there was +a problem with a customer that needed to be solved. Through this process I got +intimate looks into the lives of strangers.  + +What I came to understand while doing these jobs is exactly what kind of +customer is most valuable to an online gambling company. All gamblers fall +somewhere on a spectrum from habitual to compulsive to addicted. Addicts may be +technically valuable customers in that they deposit regularly, but they are not +desirable customers. You don't want your customers killing themselves or losing +all their money. How then could they continue to deposit? + +All companies have varying levels of safeguards in place to weed out this type +of customer, but most of these safeguards come into action when it is already +too late. Customers don't set limits on their accounts until after they have +done something bad, if they ever set limits at all. Customer service agents are +trained to recognize signs of addiction when players reach out, but most +customers never actually reach out to customer service, and therefore their +addictions can't be caught this way. Using too many different credit cards in a +row might trigger a temporary lock on your account, but this type of control +can't be too tight, lest it begin to interfere with the not technically +addicted but still habitual depositors. This all raises the question: How do we +separate the addicted from the habitual, ideal customer?  + +Maybe this ideal customer deposits 10 percent of his monthly earnings, and +still keeps up with his house and car payments. But he and his family will +suffer from that loss of income. And when an emergency comes, it will hit +harder and reverberate longer. Like tapeworms, these companies prefer a +consistent supply over time, and a dead host is no good at all. But the person +is still parasitized, and is weaker for it. Are these people not addicts?   + +The more time you spend thinking about these questions and watching and +interacting with gamblers, the clearer it becomes that the "ideal" customer, +who deposits every day, week, or month, is suffering from a compulsion of some +kind.  + +And we haven't even gotten to the darkest part of it all: the bonusing. All the +mobile gambling operators award bonuses in the form of free bets or bonus +money, which requires a certain amount of play-through before it can be +converted to real money and withdrawn. There are a number of psychological +tricks being employed here, all for the purpose of keeping the player feeling +like they are getting to play for free. The ideal amount of bonus per player is +a certain small percentage of their net losses. The calculations used to +determine the right percentage and the methods used to award the bonuses vary +from company to company, but each aims to keep their customers' wagering steady +with the least amount of capital expended. + +I never worked on the backend, so I can't say exactly what lizard-brained +reward mechanisms any of these companies' algorithms prey on. But you can be +sure that they are extremely effective, and only get [46]more effective with +time. There are people at every one of these companies whose sole job is to +refine these systems, and they get paid the big bucks. + +And now, thanks to the miracle of mobile computing, we can carry these +parasites with us in our pockets. Not only can we, we must! If you want to talk +to your family and friends, use GPS navigation, or "authenticate" yourself for +your job or to visit your doctor, you will need a cellphone. As long as a +cellphone is a requirement for life, there is no complete escape. You will +always have a device on your person which can instantly transport you to a +casino, and it will beckon relentlessly. + +In the course of my job, I had to review many customer accounts, and certain +patterns emerged. I examined the type of gambling customers did, the amount and +frequency of their depositing, and the kind of neighborhood they lived in to +get an idea of how underwater they were. I could look closer and see if they +wagered first thing in the morning, or in the middle of the night, and see if +they had a history of setting and removing "responsible gambling" limits from +their accounts. I could see how often payments were declined, and how often the +individual came to customer service to try wheedling a bonus out of a +sympathetic agent. I could see the history of disturbing remarks they had made, +and how many chargebacks had been threatened and carried out. I could see the +remarks they made when closing out their accounts, and what they said when they +begged to have them reopened. With a little googling, I could put together an +even clearer picture of a life outside of the app. Obituaries, social media +accounts, and local news all contain a lot of information about individual +tragedy, pain, crime, and bankruptcy.  + +Many of the gamblers I dealt with stick with me, but two especially. The first +was an old friend of mine from high school whom I had not talked to in years. I +saw he had dropped about $10,000 in a few years before making a comment to +customer service that got him mercifully banned from the platform. I could see +from his geolocation pings that his location would move quickly from a gas +station to a parking lot while wagering. He gambled while driving, it seemed. + +The second was a young man I had never met, a decade younger than myself. He +had a history of saying genuinely disturbing racist and threatening comments to +customer service agents, and had eventually been banned for it. He had a +distinctive name; a quick Google search led me to a news report of his recent +arrest, and a social media account. The account had a history of sports betting +talk interspersed with racist and sexist comments. But many years before this, +when he would have been in middle school, there was an indication that he had +lost both his parents. A set of public obituaries basically confirmed it. I +could feel in my gut that this man, whom we had happily drained of what little +money he had before kicking him to the curb, had really never stood a chance in +this life. + +I've heard all the arguments both for and against legalizing online gambling. +What I think is missing from that conversation is the fact that it's not really +just gambling online that has been legalized. What has been legalized is +extraction, and the new methods of extraction that are possible using the +internet and mobile devices. These companies have identified a group of people +with a monetizable compulsion, and we have legalized the tools needed to +industrially harvest money from them. + +Our state governments are happy to comply as long as [47]they get their cut, +and this "windfall" comes without having to tax the billionaires and their +conglomerates who already own most of the country. It all functions like a +privatized tax, where people pay based on how bad they have the "itch," with +most of the revenue going to corporations. With mobile gambling, these +companies have not only been allowed to insert themselves into our sports +leagues and news organizations, but also into our homes. Formerly, gambling +executives had to build great temples to which the willing made pilgrimage, and +from which they were able to leave after taking their beatings. Now these CEOs +are in our living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, and cars. They sit on +your hip wherever you go, with a hand waiting over your wallets and purses. And +we have let them do it. + +In a given year, around 15 out of 100,000 deaths in the United States come from +suicide. Among gambling addicts, this rate is multiplied 15 times, [48] +according to studies. DraftKings reports [49]4.8 million users, and FanDuel +[50]reports 4.5 million. Among those millions of customers are a significant +number of customers whose lives are being steadily worsened by gambling, and +among those customers are people at high risk of suicide who might never have +been put in such a precarious position had they never had a portable casino put +in their pocket. Perhaps our gambling tech overlords have factored this in as +the cost of doing business, or perhaps they don't think about it all. I don't +know if any former customers of the company I worked for killed themselves, but +I do remember days when gamblers frustrated over a disputed payout or a bad +beat would threaten suicide, necessitating a quick locking of their account +followed by a call to their local police department for a wellness check. All +the cases I followed up on ended with police reporting an embarrassed and +annoyed but physically unharmed person. Knowing it was inevitable that one of +these cases would eventually have a much darker ending became too much, and so +I quit.  + +Though the damage I did while at the company cannot be undone, I can sleep a +little easier now knowing I am no longer a part of that rotten business. I +encourage everyone else working at these companies to do the same as I did, and +quit. The job can be walked away from; the casino, on the other hand, follows +you everywhere. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +If you have experience working in the gambling industry and would like to tell +us about it, email [51]tips@defector.com. + +Recommended + +[52]Journalismism +[53] + +How Bill Simmons Went All In + +[54]264Comments +[55]Danny Funt +January 21, 2026 +[56][Simmons-Fanduel-1] +[57]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisement + +A referral from a trusted source is the #1 way that people find new things to +read. So if you liked this blog, please share it!  + + • [58]Share on Bluesky + • [59]Share on Reddit + • [60]Share on WhatsApp + • [61]Share on Email + +Read More: + + • [62]fl, + • [63]Online Gambling, + • [64]phones, + • [65]sportsbooks + +Stay in touch + +Sign up for our free newsletter + +[66][ ]Email +Sign up +More from Defector + +[68]NFL +[69] + +Florida Picks A Stupid Fight Over The NFL’s Rooney Rule + +[70]129Comments +[71][ska] +[72]Samer Kalaf +April 1, 2026 +[73]James Uthmeier speaks at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington +D.C. +[74]Soccer +[75] + +Oops, Italy Did It Again, Again! + +[76]71Comments +[77][Ima] +[78]Luis Paez-Pumar +April 1, 2026 +[79]Players of Italy reacts at the end of the FIFA World Cup 2026 European +Qualifiers KO play-offs match between Bosnia & Herzegovina and Italy at +Stadion Bilino Polje on March 31, 2026 in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. +[80]Minor Dilemmas +[81] + +Rejoice, Tired Parents! Defector Will Raise Your Children Now + +[82]270Comments +[83][DSC] +[84]Justin Ellis +April 1, 2026 +[85]A silhouette of a baby with Minor Dilemmas written over it +[86]NBA +[87] + +A Basketball Team Can Be Sold, But Who Owns Its History? + +[88]127Comments +[89][rat] +[90]Ray Ratto +April 1, 2026 +[91]Houston Rockets Kenny Smith (C) gets squeezed out on a screen play by +Seattle Supersonic Detlef Schrempf (R) as his teammate Gary Payton (L) dribbles +past during game one of their Western Conference semifinal series on May 4 in +Seattle. +[92]The Machines +[93] + +Go Ahead And Use AI. It Will Only Help Me Dominate You. + +[94]170Comments +[95][R1b] +[96]Hamilton Nolan +April 1, 2026 +[97]An ad for Claude by Anthropic +[98]MLB +[99] + +C.B. Bucknor Fucking Up All Over The Place + +[100]108Comments +[101][IMG] +[102]Tom Ley +April 1, 2026 +[103]C.B. 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+[39]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisement +[40]Funbag + +The Kindness Of Familiar Faces + +[41][dre] +By [42]Drew Magary + +12:59 PM EDT on March 10, 2026 + + • [43]Share on Bluesky + • [44]Share on Reddit + • [45]Share on WhatsApp + • [46]Share on Email + +Commuters waiting for a trainJustin Tallis / AFP +[47] +467Comments + +Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your +mind? [48]Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at [49]SFGATE, and [50] +buy Drew’s books while [51]you’re at it. Today, we're talking brackets, +bartenders, hot people with shitty taste, and more. + +Your letters: + +Chuck: + + I go to a gym on a regular weekday schedule, as do most of the people there + at 5 a.m. One guy, who usually takes a shower right before me, has the best + smelling body wash. Like, the entire shower smells great when he gets out. + I've briefly talked to him before, but how weird is it for me to ask him + what the name of it is? + +Can’t you just see what body wash he’s using without having to ask? If you see +this guy at the gym every morning, surely you’ve seen him carrying his magical, +cedarwood-scented bottle of Old Spice 2-in-1 on the way to/from washing up. If +you haven’t, then why not just leap into his shower while he’s lathering up so +that you can get a direct look? + +If you’d never seen this guy before in your life, I’d tell you to hold your +tongue. Having a complete stranger be like You know, I’ve been smelling you +isn’t just weird, but also strangely personal. But in Chuck’s case, we’re +talking about another gym regular he’s already had small talk with. That counts +as “knowing” the guy, even if barely. So I think it’s OK to broach the subject. +You can say, “I know this sounds weird, but I have to know what kinda body wash +you’re using. Mine doesn’t smell anywhere near that good, bro!” and have it +work. Don’t ask him while you’re both IN the shower. That would be inopportune. +But in the relative safety of the locker area? Feels safe to me. + +I haven’t belonged to a gym since the pandemic, and yet I still remember a lot +of the regulars. Not only from that gym, but from the gym I belonged to before +that. I remember all of the hot members of course, but it goes way past that. I +remember a dude who looked and dressed exactly like a Sopranos extra, even +though we were in suburban Maryland. I remember a dude with big mop of curly +hair who always worked out with his glasses on. I remember this one squat lady +who could deadlift like 225. I never held a conversation with any of these +people. Not sure I even said a single word to them. But I saw them nearly every +day, so they were familiar faces. + +It’s always good to have familiar faces passing in and out of your life. You +graduate from school and all of the randos you used to see walking past you in +the quad are replaced with a new set of randos in the office, at your gym, in +your apartment building, and even at the grocery store. Even if you never speak +to these people, you interact with them. You notice them. You hear them. You +bump into them. You see them talking to someone else, and then you wonder about +that other person. They might do likewise, and now there’s a loose tether +connecting you both. It’s nothing you’ll think about for more than six seconds, +but it’s still there. + +Now that I work from home and work out at home, my current portfolio of +familiar faces is much lower than it should be. It’s only when I go out on my +bike that I get my RDA of not-quite strangers: the one weirdo who seems to be +running on the trail 24 hours a day, the old man who I know from experience +won’t be able to hear my bike bell as I come from behind, many cute dogs. These +are the people (and dogs) who keep you socialized, even if you never learn +their names. Lose them and you lose one of your tethers to the rest of the +world. Now I wish I belonged to a gym again. I bet I’d be using a +better-smelling body wash right now if I did. + +Jeff: + + I’m recently 40, and I think I had my first true old man thought! Back in + my day, there was at least some semblance of protest music in pop culture + and music. My old ass doesn’t feel like that exists anymore! Are there + actually pop musicians doing political/protest messages in the algorithm + age? + +I made this same old-man lament in this column a few weeks ago … and also +probably 78 other times over the past decade. Anyway, the chief culprit is that +darn [52]capitalism, in the form of consolidation, monopolization, private +equity, and David Zaslav’s taste in movies. But you know about all of that shit +already, so let me pull out ever more and pin this on the existence of the +internet. I’ve been on a tear reading oral histories of old music scenes: the +early days at MTV, the '80s glam scene in Hollywood, the '90s grunge scene in +Seattle. All of these scenes developed before the popular web, and that’s no +coincidence. + +Let’s use Kurt Cobain as an example here. The topline I’m about to give you is +WILDLY broad, so I apologize in advance. In the 1980s, Cobain was stuck in +Aberdeen, Wash., with no real prospects and no place where he felt he belonged. +So he packed up and went to Seattle, where he found a bunch of people who were +weird in the same way that he was weird: broke as shit, nowhere to stay, drunk +all the time, frequenting the same seedy music clubs every night because that’s +where they knew everyone else would be. A lot of these people, like Cobain, had +also migrated to Seattle. Some of them formed bands, and then formed different +bands with people from other bands they knew. That loose collection of faces +that were all in the same place, all for an extended period of time, and so a +culture germinated out of it: flannel shirts, Jackass-grade DIY stage antics, +and a form of music that wasn’t metal and wasn’t punk, but instead a ramshackle +melding of the two. By the time the '80s had ended… HEY PRESTO! Here’s the +grunge scene, ready to take over the world with Cobain’s Nirvana as the tip of +the spear. + +None of that happens if the internet exists. Instead of fleeing to Seattle in +search of a purpose in life, Kurt Cobain would’ve joined a subreddit that made +living in Aberdeen three percent more bearable, he would have expressed his +jadedness with society on Thought Catalog, and he would have uploaded rough +demos to his SoundCloud as his attempt at making it in the biz. He wouldn’t +have met any of the people who either inspired his music or directly made it +with him. More important, the Seattle scene itself never would have +materialized. The internet disincentivizes people young and old from going out +into the world, from making necessary human connections, and from forging a +collective artistic voice together. That’s why there’s never gonna be another +Cobain. That’s why the most visible protest music in 2026 comes from the likes +of [53]Bruce Springsteen and [54]U2: old rich white dudes who have nothing at +stake. + +Kevin: + + Do you have methodology for picking your bracket? My family tradition is to + always take Catholic schools. Some people go with mascots or team colors. + What’s the Magary way? + +I used to have a whole setup for picking my men’s bracket. I’d pick up the +print edition of USA Today, then sit down and pore over the team capsules like +a homicide detective sifting through evidence. I valued guard play in the +tourney (still do), so if I saw any highly seeded team that had at least two +guards average double figures in scoring, I gave them a little star. Then I’d +sit down with my bracket and begin carefully filling it out … until I fucked up +a line and had to print out an entirely new, clean bracket to fill out. Then +I’d pick a 12-seed to upset a 5-seed, thinking I was the only person alive who +knew that at least one 12-seed always win an opening-round game. Then I’d fold +up the bracket and keep it in my pocket all tourney long, checking off picks +that advanced and X-ing picks that didn’t. Then, by the Elite Eight at the +latest, I’d wad that bracket up and throw it out. I won my pool exactly one +time, back in 1999. This is why Khalid El-Amin remains my favorite college +basketball player in history. + +That was my methodology back then. Here’s my methodology today: I get a +reminder to fill out my bracket days before the tourney starts, then I head +over to ESPN’s Bracket Challenge Sponsored By Grok University, then I fill out +my bracket in less than two minutes, basing my choices on a random mix of old +prejudices and gut basketball knowledge, and then I forget who I picked until +they lose in the first round two days later. If the NCAA ever tinkers with the +68-team bracket anymore than they already have, I will accuse them of +destroying my childhood. + +Drew (not me): + + In the year of our Lord 2026, is the average American more likely to fall + in love with a bartender or a barista? + +Bartender. The answer is always bartender. If I’m dealing with a barista, it’s +probably early in the morning and I’m probably cranky. Also, I’m probably +standing in line at an airport. That’s no time to fall in love, not even in a +romcom. Conversely, when do you encounter a bartender? That’s right: when +you’re already drunk and already horny. Real horny, not birthday-party horny. +Then some saucy gal in a knotted dress shirt behind the bar asks you what +you’ll be havin’ and DAMN GIRL HOW BOUT I BE HAVIN’ THOSE DIGITS? I’ve never +slept with a bartender, by the way. + +Other Drew failed to include “dispensary gal” in his question, but you better +believe that every dirtbag guy living in the city has dealt with a cool +(stoned) dispensary gal and thought (stoned) to himself, “I’m never buying weed +anywhere else from now on. Elsie is the best of the best.” I’ve also never +slept with a weed dispensary clerk. + +HALFTIME! + +Bryan: + + Imagine you found the perfect girl (or partner) for you in every way. + Beautiful, thoughtful, kind, funny, all the things. However, she is + OBSESSED with the show The Big Bang Theory. Like, would default to watching + it when nothing was on, drop quotes, say "Bazinga" unironically, go to + cons, run a fan website... could you make that relationship work for you? + +Bryan, come on now. You have to give me harder questions than this. I have +never watched The Big Bang Theory, but no one is ever gonna be like, “Well I +love Marisa Miller, but her fondness for Chuck Lorre shows is a bridge I simply +can never gap.” Shit, you’re lucky in 2026 America if the person you’re fucking +isn’t a Nazi. So yes, I think I could tolerate a dream girlfriend who likes +that show. My wife has to deal with my football problem, and that’s +exponentially more annoying. She’s also roped me into watching shit like early +Grey’s Anatomy. At no point during any of those episodes was I like, “I have to +leave this woman.” All couples have their differences, it doesn’t matter. + +RIP McSteamy while we’re here. He was my favorite character on Grey’s Anatomy +by a mile. + +Ricky: + + If an NFL team was allowed to have the first 50 picks of the draft but no + other players, do you think they would make the playoffs? + +The first year? No. After that, it depends on if they play in the NFC South or +not. + +Jon: + + Heard that Metallica is getting set to do a residency at The Sphere in + Vegas. I like Metallica but not a huge fan. I’ve never had a strong urge to + see them live, but if a ticket for one of these shows fell into my lap I + would definitely go purely for the spectacle. Is there any band or perform + that you don't hate but would go and see purely for the experience?  + +Isn’t that basically how Taylor Swift was able to rake in billions for the Eras +tour? I’ve yet to meet a single parent—they’re all parents—who went to an Eras +show and thought they’d wasted their dough. And all of those people went as +wingmen for actual Swift fans. So while I could give half a shit about Swift’s +musical output, you better believe I would’ve hit that concert if someone had +given me a comp. That woman, like [55]Metallica, knows how to put on a good +show. + +Jon didn’t even mention the festival circuit in his question, and one of the +fun things about hitting a festival is falling for acts you wouldn’t have +thought twice about otherwise. And I’ve already attended plenty of concerts +where I only had a casual interest in the performer: Meatloaf, Bad-era Michael +Jackson, Cyndi Lauper. I had a good time in every instance. I check out opening +acts too, just in case I end up being pleasantly surprised (and I have been). +I’ll also go to a show if I have a history with the venue, a la 9:30 in D.C. If +you live near a club-sized venue that you like, it’s always fun to go to a +concert there even if you don’t know the act all that well. I resolved to go to +more concerts a while back, but I haven’t done a good job sticking with the +effort. Don’t be as lazy as me. You won’t never know what you’re missing +otherwise. + +Still Jon: + + Side question: How tempted are you by these Metallica at The Sphere shows? + James Dolan can get fucked with a broken hockey stick but from what I've + seen concerts at The Sphere look pretty epic. + +Oh I’m gonna ask SFGATE to send me to that show on assignment. I love +Metallica, and I think The Sphere is cool, even if the rest of the internet +despises it. I expect a concert planetarium in Las Vegas to be tacky; I’d be +pissed if it wasn’t. So don’t expect my review of that show to be a pan. + +Pete: + + I was making my daughter pancakes and noticed one of her reading + comprehension tests. She’s in second grade, btw. She hurried through, just + to be done and have time to relax. She picked up one of my worst habits. I + still do this. What habit or trait of yours have your kids inherited, + despite you trying to rectify it? + +That one, especially with our 13-year-old son. Like me, the boy rushes through +his homework so that he never has to deal with it again (and also so he can +front like the work was easy for him to do). But I’ve never tried to rectify +that, because DNA is DNA. Also, he’s still doing his homework and getting good +grades. It’d be one thing if he just bailed on ever turning his work in. That’d +be his ass. But he does the work, and then his teacher tells him whether or not +he did a sloppy-ass job with it. Just like my teacher told me back in the day. +AWWWWWW. + +Josue: + + I was in the produce aisle of the supermarket recently, perusing the + cucumber selection. When I had found the cucumber I wanted, I picked it up, + and proceeded to do that little one-handed end-over-end flip and catch of + the cucumber before putting it in my basket. When I happened to look back + over to my right, I saw another guy pick up a cucumber and do the exact + same thing. Then I realized that this is something that I like to do + whenever I'm holding a vaguely cylindrical item in my hands: vegetables, my + kid’s aluminum baseball bat, even hammers. The more top heavy and + unbalanced the item, the more satisfying it is to successfully pull it off. + Anyways, what's up with that? + +I do the cucumber flip too! Vegetables can be really sensuous, don’t you think? +I do all of that playdate shit. I stand a baseball bat on my palm and see how +long I can keep it balanced. I twirl my stick lighter like it’s a six-shooter. +I use a paper towel roll as an air sword. It’s fun, and if being fun is weird, +well then call me Pee-wee Herman. + +J: + + I have a friend who I haven’t talked to in over two years. I recently + applied for a job with the company he works for (though in a different + department). Do I reach out to him, or does that make it look like I view + our relationship as purely transactional? + +Fuck yeah, you reach out to him. It’s a jungle out there, man. You need to use +whatever connections you got to keep your head above water. Your old friend +knows that. Everyone knows that. So if you reach out to him, he’s not gonna be +like, “All this time, J was just using me to get an associate brand manager +position.” He’s gonna help. It doesn’t matter if you haven‘t spoken in two +years. Two years ain’t shit. I have friends I haven’t talked to in 10 years, +and I still wouldn’t think twice about hitting them up for something. And if +they reached out to me, I’d help them. That’s how the white-collar job market +has always worked. It’s also how the white-collar criminal sector has always +worked, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few antitrust laws. + +Not Michael: + + Do you think you could have performed better than Leonard Lawrence, aka + Private Gomer Pyle, during the Marine boot camp in Full Metal Jacket? I + like to think I would be one of the guys beating him with a soap sock. But + deep down, I have a feeling I probably would have been him in that + scenario. + +I would have been both. I got bullied in school, and I bullied other kids. +Stick me in the Marines and I’d be a schlub huffing and puffing his way through +the obstacle course, but then I’d still try to fit in with the platoon by +beating on any other recruit who was as lazy and out of shape as I was. +Frankly, this describes my entire football playing career. + +Side note: I spent the bulk of my pregaming days getting drunk/high and then +watching the first 45 minutes of Full Metal Jacket. I’ve only watched the +second half of that film one time, and I remember pretty much nothing of it. + +Michael: + + If you were the soldier that found Saddam hiding in his hole would you have + used the opportunity to say something really badass in front of all your + other soldier buddies? I feel like it would be a missed opportunity not to. + +That’s why we started bombing Iran just now. It wasn’t for any kind of valuable +strategic purpose (in fact, the U.S. [56]has kind of fucked itself by kicking +up this war). It was so that camera hogs like Pete Hegseth could get off [57] +saucy one-liners after blowing up a school. All of these shitheads want to play +the '80s action hero. Hence, you and I get World War III dropped into our laps. +It’s not the best way to run a government. + +Back to Michael’s question. Let’s say I’m the guy who finds Saddam Hussein in +his spiderhole during the Iraq War, or I’m the SEAL who puts a bullet in Osama +bin Laden’s dome. Do I throw down a killer line right after I’ve seized my +quarry? No, because I’d be in a state of shock. I reckon that going into combat +is like being in a permanent state of shock. You don’t talk. You don’t even +think. You just move. All of your faculties are put toward the purpose of +survival, and nothing else. I’m not gonna suddenly snap out of my fog in that +moment and be like, “Feelin’ comfy down there, Saddam?” Only a sociopath would +have that ability. Good thing our military is positively littered with such men +at the present moment. We even put one sociopath in charge of them all! Neato! + +Email of the week! + +Aaron: + + My Grandma is from a small town in Colorado and she has this tiger painting + that I love. I've been on a mission to find out who painted it, as it’s + only signed "J.K. 1910". She also has this incredible two-volume book of + micro biographies of nearly everyone buried in her town cemetery. So I read + the biography of every "JK" in the book—unfortunately, none were artists, + mostly just miners who died in snow slides or of black lung—and the tale of + Christmas Tree John was by far my favorite.  + + KUIVILA, JOHN "CHRISTMAS TREE" – Died 1939 + + No Marker - Died Dec 30, 1939 - Age 55 Years "Christmas Tree", who lived at + the Kentucky House, died of miners con at the San Juan Hospital as the year + of 1939 was coming to an end. He was born in Finland and had come to + Silverton about ten years previously from Rico, Colorado. He had also + worked at mines in Telluride and every other town in this section of the + country. + + In 1986, Annie Anesi Smith of Silverton recalled that "Christmas Tree" + earned his interesting nickname in a Telluride barroom brawl. It was the + Christmas season and the saloon keeper had thoughtfully provided a + decorated Christmas tree for the enjoyment of his patrons. John was getting + the worst end of a fist fight, and seeing the Christmas tree, picked it up, + decorations and all, and smacked the other fellow with it, knocking him out + cold. Annie also recalled that John was a tough "pure Finn", a real nice + man and used to baby sit for Annie's sister, Mary Anesi Dalpra. Survivors + of "Christmas Tree" were his mother and a sister in Finland. His funeral + was at the Maguire Chapel and burial was at Hillside. + +Oh man I’d love to assault someone with a Christmas tree. + +Recommended + +[58]Funbag +[59] + +What’s The Riskiest Thing You’ve Survived Eating? + +[60]375Comments +[61]Dave McKenna +March 31, 2026 +[62]Rows of raw rotisserie chickens +[63]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisement + +A referral from a trusted source is the #1 way that people find new things to +read. So if you liked this blog, please share it!  + + • [64]Share on Bluesky + • [65]Share on Reddit + • [66]Share on WhatsApp + • [67]Share on Email + +[68][dre] +[69]Drew Magary +[70]@drewmagary.bsky.social + +Columnist. Author of many [71]fine works of literature, including Point B. +Handsomest man in the world. + +Read More: + + • [72]brackets, + • [73]gym etiquette, + • [74]Music + +Stay in touch + +Sign up for our free newsletter + +[75][ ]Email +Sign up +More from Defector + +[77]NFL +[78] + +Florida Picks A Stupid Fight Over The NFL’s Rooney Rule + +[79]131Comments +[80][ska] +[81]Samer Kalaf +April 1, 2026 +[82]James Uthmeier speaks at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington +D.C. +[83]Soccer +[84] + +Oops, Italy Did It Again, Again! + +[85]71Comments +[86][Ima] +[87]Luis Paez-Pumar +April 1, 2026 +[88]Players of Italy reacts at the end of the FIFA World Cup 2026 European +Qualifiers KO play-offs match between Bosnia & Herzegovina and Italy at +Stadion Bilino Polje on March 31, 2026 in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. +[89]Minor Dilemmas +[90] + +Rejoice, Tired Parents! Defector Will Raise Your Children Now + +[91]270Comments +[92][DSC] +[93]Justin Ellis +April 1, 2026 +[94]A silhouette of a baby with Minor Dilemmas written over it +[95]NBA +[96] + +A Basketball Team Can Be Sold, But Who Owns Its History? + +[97]127Comments +[98][rat] +[99]Ray Ratto +April 1, 2026 +[100]Houston Rockets Kenny Smith (C) gets squeezed out on a screen play by +Seattle Supersonic Detlef Schrempf (R) as his teammate Gary Payton (L) dribbles +past during game one of their Western Conference semifinal series on May 4 in +Seattle. +[101]The Machines +[102] + +Go Ahead And Use AI. It Will Only Help Me Dominate You. + +[103]171Comments +[104][R1b] +[105]Hamilton Nolan +April 1, 2026 +[106]An ad for Claude by Anthropic +[107]MLB +[108] + +C.B. Bucknor Fucking Up All Over The Place + +[109]108Comments +[110][IMG] +[111]Tom Ley +April 1, 2026 +[112]C.B. 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2026 + +The feeling of the old world fading away + +“Undone by a string of clues” + +Heather McCalden on the struggle to articulate the present. + + • [12] + • [13] + • [14] + • + +For a long time, I’ve been experiencing something I can only describe as the +feeling of the old world fading away. It’s as if some deeply embedded internal +architecture is slowly dissolving and leaving in its particle wake a sorrow, +for which there is no name. The causes are spoken of: the global conflicts, the +ecological catastrophes, the social injustices—but the actual, visceral, +experience of losing a coherence that held reality together, remains under +examined. To be clear, this sorrow is not about nostalgia or “getting older”, +this is about living in a moment when the question, “Has the world changed or +have I?” is irrelevant because the separation of the self and the world no +longer makes any sense. + +∞ + +I can tell you exactly when it happened, the moment the world cracked away from +me, or rather I from it. I was standing inside a narrow café on Redchurch +Street in London, distractedly scrolling Apple News on my phone when my eyes +caught a headline my mind could not understand “Reality Winner, N.S.A. +Contractor Accused of Leak, Was Undone by Trail of Clues.” Maybe it was the +overcrowding of the room, and the resultant heat which created a sensation of +being squeezed into a corridor, but as I read the words I experienced a +syntactical meltdown. My synapses spasmed. “Reality Winner” as a name, could +not be processed. Instead, I understood that a contestant from America’s Next +Top Model was moonlighting as an N.S.A Contractor. After a nanosecond of +bewilderment, this not only seemed plausible, but felt correct. It was 2017. + +The composition of the headline, coming at me on a tiny screen, viewed +sideways, pointed toward a new way of existing: of information from other times +and places splintering the present moment into a mist of shards, fracturing it +open until all possible moments were all time. This time. The time of the +device I held in my hand.  + +∞ + +In 1923, Cecil B. DeMille built what amounted to a city in the wide, empty sand +dunes of Guadalupe, California. The so-called “City of the Pharaoh” was +designed to simulate ancient Egypt for his epic The Ten Commandments. Used in +the film’s Exodus scene, it was considered, at the time, to be the most +extravagant film set in the history of cinema.  + +Paul Iribe, a decorative artist and illustrator who precipitated the Art Deco +movement, was tapped for the production design, resulting in an Egypt of sharp +geometrical forms and the occasional sunburst. However, the stylish aesthetics +were secondary to the set’s sheer scale which included gates measuring 110 feet +high, four 35-foot-tall statues of Ramses II, an 800-foot-wide temple, and an +avenue of 21 sphinxes. Each sphinx weighed five tons and was assembled piece by +piece, as heads, paws, and legs arrived on trucks from Los Angeles 165 miles +away. + +Aside from these creature components, everything else was fabricated over the +course of six weeks on location by over 1,000 craftspeople. The location, owned +by the Union Sugar Company, was rented to the production for $10 and one +stipulation: no trace of the set could remain. The sand dunes had to be +restored to a pristine condition, as if nothing had ever happened. For the +responsible parties, the cost of dismantling the set was unappealing, so the +idea of abandoning it, intact, and fucking over Union Sugar was floated. To +this, DeMille objected. He assumed other filmmakers would flock to his creation +and use it for their own, potentially successful, projects. Rather than leave +the set exposed, he preferred to detonate it; according to legend, dynamite was +taken to the City of the Pharaoh, leaving it in ruins, eventually washed over +by sand.  + +Time passed, and other than the locals who lived near the site, knowledge of +this place evaporated from cultural consciousness.  + +∞ + +We know the old world was definitely not better, more functional, or even more +beautiful than the current one, but it held together. By the “old world” I mean +the 20^th century and slightly beyond but, this is less to do with time and +more to do with what was inside those years that carried us forward. + + We know the old world was definitely not better, more functional, or even + more beautiful than the current one, but it held together. + +∞ + +The phrase “undone by a string of clues” implies a betrayal, implies the +technology Reality used ratted her out. The famous printer signature, or the +tracking dots, are all anyone seems to remember, though this was old tech, +invented in the mid-80s by Xerox and then deployed worldwide as a failsafe +against counterfeiting. The real mistake, if it even can be called that, was +pretending the surveillance of certain types of documents didn’t exist, or +didn’t matter. That it could be overwritten, or outrun, which is to say she was +undone by the ethos of the previous decade: move fast and break things.  + +∞ + +The City of Pharaohs was briefly resurrected in a single line from Cecil B. +DeMille’s 1959 autobiography: + +“If 1,000 years from now, archeologists happen to dig beneath the sands of +Guadalupe, I hope they will not rush into print with the amazing news that +Egyptian civilization, far from being confined to the valley of Nile, extended +all the way to the Pacific coast of North America.” + +∞ + +Cultural theorist and writer Mark Fisher remarked in a 2014 lecture that, +“Smartphones shouldn’t be thought of as objects which we have, but as portals +into cyberspace, which means that when we carry them around, we're always +inside cyberspace.” By cyberspace, he meant a specifically capitalist +cyberspace, in which the nervous system is radially seduced/assaulted by an +uninterrupted flow of content. The consequence of this condition, of living +online and offline, simultaneously, is not just dysregulation, but a +recalculation of physical space. From Einstein, we know that if space changes, +so does time, the two components interwoven in a single geometric structure +called spacetime. So, as our spatial reality shifts, we find ourselves immersed +in a new temporality, which Fisher touched upon in his essay “The Slow +Cancellation of the Future.” + +Fisher writes, “In the last 10 to 15 years, meanwhile, the internet and mobile +telecommunications technology have altered the texture of everyday experience +beyond all recognition. Yet, perhaps because of all this, there’s an increasing +sense that culture has lost the ability to grasp and articulate the present. Or +it could be that, in one very important sense, there is no present to grasp and +articulate any more.” + +∞ + +Nighttime, late June, the strange lights of Hollywood melting through the +windows of my friend’s white Saturn Ion sedan. It’s 2009 and we are parked on +Ivar Avenue off of Hollywood, talking a mile a minute about music. Nowhere to +be. No one missing us. No money in our pockets. This is how we spend many an +evening, stationary in a vehicle, near the glamour, but always outside of it. I +am just back from London where a single song seemed to play across the entire +city, La Roux’s “In for the Kill.”  I keep trying to describe sound, and I keep +failing, “Imagine the voice of a wood sprite climbing over a jagged electronic +throb—” She cuts me off by shaking her head, and then pulls out her brand-new +iPhone, which is so jet black and sleek, I actually gasp. “Let’s download it,” +she says. + +“You can do that? From here?” + +She taps a thing, and very slowly, the album begins to materialize on her +phone. It feels like if we can do this, well, what can’t we do? + +∞ + +The feeling of the old world fading away comes from witnessing culture lose +“the ability to grasp and articulate the present,” but it is not, as Fisher +says, because the present no longer exists, it’s just that the present, now, is +so beyond what a human mind can hold. + +∞ + +Over drinks one night in the autumn of 1982, Bruce Cardoza tells his friend +Peter Brosnan about The City of the Pharaoh lingering, theoretically, somewhere +in the sands of the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes. Brosnan’s life has recently burned +to the ground, a fire having claimed his house, and wiping out all traces of +his professional, creative output. This is why he finds himself crashing at +Cardoza’s, and now, having a strange conversation about a lost replica of a +lost civilization. Eventually, DeMille’s autobiography is pulled off a shelf, +and the sentence about the city is read aloud. This incites a eureka flash for +Brosnan: he decides, then and there, to make a documentary about excavating the +film set.  + +The idea, though laser sharp in its hook, appeal, and simplicity, takes an +unexpected thirty years to execute, the production thwarted by almost every +imaginable circumstance including environmental concerns for the western snowy +plover and city politics. A reprieve comes in 2012, when a cash infusion paves +the way for exactly one archeological dig, during which, the plaster head of a +sphinx is gingerly unearthed. Brosnan has described himself as an “obsessive +lunatic,” but aren’t we all at this point? + +∞ + +Sometimes I think there is nothing more difficult than articulating feeling +because nothing is more true and more stupid and more brilliant than a simple +one scraped off the surface of the heart. + +∞ + +It is a cold night in December 2016, and instead of watching shadows spread +across my thoughts I’m streaming four ten-year-olds on bikes, frantically +peddling down a suburban street. On the back of one bike is an elfin-girl with +a shaved head wearing a Crayola blue jacket. She stares down a white van on a +collision course with her party, and with a narrowing glare, sends the van +airborne, flipping it in a somersault above their heads, and for reasons that +are quite difficult to explain, I’m crying like a motherfucker. Something +deeply buried in my brain is sending out a sonar ping; I know this autumnal +color palette, the synthetic textures of the kid’s clothes, the freedom of +getting lost on a bike. All of this looks like my childhood, or actually, it +looks like my fake childhood, the one I used to watch on TV. The show is about +the 80s, but it is also made to feel like it is from the 80s, without quotation +marks, and this very sincerity makes it appear benign. This is pure +entertainment, right? Not cultural commentary, except the pinging in my mind is +growing louder, and my heart is sinking lower, because somehow I understand +that the only way to address what is happening now is through the past. It +contains the thing we are currently missing: the wonder of the future.  + + It contains the thing we are currently missing: the wonder of the future.  + +∞ + +In order to relive the anticipation that the future once held for us, we +venture backwards in time, creating cultural artifacts cloaked in the +aesthetics of previous decades. A constant, obsessive regression in the face of +everything Now. The feeling of the world fading away is the same as the +sensation of losing a memory. We can’t quite remember how people once thought +about the future, so we search for it endlessly, and perhaps this is why +history repeats itself. + +∞ + +DeMille’s last motion picture was a VistaVision version of The Ten Commandments +shot partially on location in Egypt three years before he died. At the time of +its release, in 1956, it was the most expensive film ever made. Despite the +fact that it was not a remake of the 1923 film, the set possessed an enhanced +replica of The City of the Pharaoh built just outside Cairo, complete with a +series of alabaster pyramids positioned on stilts to create a more visually +striking horizon. However, the most impressive element of this déjà vu was the +Gates of the City Per-Ramses, standing 107 feet high and 325 feet long, or the +equivalent of a ten-story building and a standard American football field. + +At the conclusion of production, the Egyptian government offered to turn the +Gates into a museum. DeMille refused, preferring, again, to obliterate the +set.       + +Next Read + +[16]britney cover + +Dec 19, 2025 + +Tabloids predicted the future + +Jeff Weiss on Britney Spears and her scribes. +Read More + +Dirt is a daily(ish) newsletter about digital pop culture. + +[17][ ]Sign Up +[19] + + • [20]Pitches + • [21]About Dirt Media + • [22]Cancelling a subscription + + • [23]Website Terms of Use + • [24]Privacy + + • [25] + • [26] + • [27] + +© 2026 dirt Media, Inc. All rights reserved. +[Group_1] + +Scan to connect with our mobile app + +Coinbase Wallet app + +Connect with your self-custody wallet + +QR Code + + 1. Open Coinbase Wallet app + 2. 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Now people call it the quartz crisis, but in + fact it was a compound of three separate disasters + that all happened at about the same time. + + The first was competition from Japan. The Swiss had + been watching the Japanese in the rear view mirror all + through the 1960s, and they'd been improving at an + alarming rate. But even so the Swiss were surprised in + 1968 when the Japanese swept all the top spots for + mechanical watches at the Geneva Observatory trials. + + The Swiss knew what was coming. For years the Japanese + had been able to make cheaper watches. Now they could + make better ones too. + + To make matters worse, Swiss watches were about to + become much more expensive. The Bretton Woods + agreement, which since 1945 had fixed the exchange + rates of most of the world's currencies, had set the + Swiss Franc at an artificially low rate of .228 USD. + When Bretton Woods collapsed in 1973, the Franc shot + upward. By 1978 it reached .625 USD, meaning Swiss + watches were now 2.7 times as expensive for Americans + to buy. [[3]1] + + The combined effect of foreign competition and the + loss of their protective exchange rate would have + decimated the Swiss watch industry even if it hadn't + been for quartz movements. But quartz movements were + the final blow. Now the whole game they'd been trying + to win at became irrelevant. Something that had been + expensive — knowing the exact time — was now a + commodity. + + Between the early 1970s and the early 1980s, unit + sales of Swiss watches fell by almost two thirds. Most + Swiss watchmakers became insolvent or close to it and + were sold. But not all of them. A handful survived as + independent companies. And the way they did it was by + transforming themselves from precision instrument + makers into luxury brands. + + In the process the nature of the mechanical watch was + also transformed. The most expensive watches have + always cost a lot, but why they cost a lot and what + buyers got in return have changed completely. In 1960 + expensive watches cost a lot because they cost a lot + to manufacture, and what the buyer got in return was + the most accurate timekeeping device, for its size, + that could be made. Now they cost a lot because brands + spend a lot on advertising and use tricks to limit + supply, and what the buyer gets in return is an + expensive status symbol. + + That turns out to be a profitable business though. The + Swiss watch industry probably makes more now from + selling brand than they would have if they were still + selling engineering. And indeed, when you look at the + graph of Swiss watch sales by revenue, it tells a + different story than the graph of unit sales. Instead + of falling off a cliff, the revenue numbers merely + flatten out for a while, and then take off like a + rocket in the late 1980s as the surviving watchmakers + come to terms with their new destiny. + + It took the watchmakers about 20 years to figure out + the new rules of the game. And it's interesting to + watch them do it, because the completeness of their + transformation makes it the perfect case study in one + of the most powerful forces of our era: brand. + + Brand is what's left when the substantive differences + between products disappear. But making the substantive + differences between products disappear is what + technology naturally tends to do. So what happened to + the Swiss watch industry is not merely an interesting + outlier. It's very much a story of our times. + + + + + + Jaeger-LeCoultre's web site says that one of their + current collections "takes its inspiration from the + classic designs of the golden age of watchmaking." In + saying this they're implicitly saying something that + present-day watchmakers all know but rarely come so + close to saying outright: whatever age we're in now, + it's not the golden age. + + The golden age was from 1945 to 1970 — from the point + where the watch industry emerged from the chaos of war + with the Swiss on top till the triple cataclysm that + struck it starting in the late 60s. There were two + things watchmakers sought above all in the golden age: + thinness and accuracy. And indeed this was arguably + the essential tradeoff in watchmaking. A watch is + something you carry with you to tell you the time. So + there are two fundamental ways to improve it: to make + it easier to carry with you and to make it better at + telling the time. + + Obviously accuracy is valuable, but in the golden age + thinness was if anything more valuable. Even in the + days of pocket watches the best watchmakers tried to + make their watches as thin as they could. Cheap, thick + pocket watches were derided as "turnips." But thinness + took on a new urgency when men's watches moved onto + their wrists during World War I. And since thinness + was more difficult to achieve than accuracy, it was + this quality that tended to distinguish the more + expensive watches of the golden age. + + There is one other thing watchmakers have pursued in + some eras: telling more than the time in the usual + way. Telling you the phase of the moon, for example, + or telling the time with sound. In the industry the + term for these things is "complications." They were + popular in the nineteenth century and they're popular + again now, but except for one pragmatic complication + (showing the date), they were a sideshow in the golden + age. In the golden age, as always in golden ages, the + top watchmakers focused on the essential tradeoff. + And, as always in golden ages, they did it + beautifully. The best watches of the golden age have a + [4]quiet perfection that has never been equalled + since. And for reasons I'm about to explain, probably + never will be. + + The three most prestigious brands of the golden age + were the so-called "holy trinity" of Patek Philippe, + Vacheron Constantin, and Audemars Piguet. Their + prestige was mostly deserved; they had earned it by + the exceptional quality of their work. By the 1960s + they stood on two legs, prestige and performance. And + what they learned in the next two decades was that + they had to put all their weight on the first leg, + because they could no longer win at either of the two + things watchmakers had historically striven to + achieve. Quartz movements were not only more accurate + than any mechanical movement, but thinner too. + + The holy trinity at least had another leg to stand on. + Most of the other well-known Swiss watchmakers sold + only performance. None of those companies survived + intact. + + Omega showed what not to do. Omega were the nerds of + Swiss watchmakers. They made wonderfully accurate + watches, but they would have been ambivalent, at best, + about the idea of being a luxury brand. When the + Japanese got as good as the Swiss at making accurate + movements, Omega responded in the Omega way: make even + more accurate movements. They introduced a new + movement in 1968 that ran at a 45% higher frequency. + In theory this should have made it more accurate, but + the new movement was so fragile that it destroyed + their reputation for reliability. They even tried to + make a better quartz movement, but there was nothing + down that road but a race to the bottom. By 1981 they + were insolvent and were taken over by their creditors. + + Patek Philippe took the opposite approach. While Omega + was redesigning their movements, Patek was redesigning + their cases. Or more precisely, designing their cases, + because until then they hadn't. + + This is probably the point to mention what a strange + beast the Swiss watch industry was in those days. It + was a kind of capitalism that's hard to imagine today, + and even then could only have been made to work in a + country like Switzerland — a network of small, + specialized companies locked into place by regulation. + The companies that we for convenience have been + calling watchmakers were merely the consumer-facing + edge of this network. The holy trinity didn't design + their own cases, or even their own movements most of + the time. + + In 1968 (that year again) Patek Philippe launched a + new watch that shifted the center of gravity of case + design. This time they'd taken their own designs to + the casemakers and said "this is what you're going to + make for us." The result was a striking new model + called the [5]Golden Ellipse. Somewhat confusingly, + because it wasn't elliptical. The new case was more of + what UI designers would call a round rect: a rectangle + with rounded corners. And this new family of watches + was quite successful. But it was more than that: it + was the pattern for the future. [[6]2] + + How could merely designing a distinctive case be so + important? Because it turned the entire watch into an + expression of brand. + + The trouble with the best watches of the golden age, + from the point of view of someone who wanted to + impress people with the brand of watch he was wearing, + was that no one could tell what brand of watch you + were wearing. Until you got within a few inches of + them, the watches of all the top makers looked the + same. That's the thing about minimalism: there tends + to be just one answer. Plus the watches of the golden + age were small by present standards. Watchmakers had + spent centuries working to make them smaller, and by + 1960 they'd gotten very good at it. So the only thing + distinguishing one top brand from another was the name + printed on the dial, and dials were so small that + these names were tiny. The manufacturers' names on the + holy trinity's golden age watches are between half and + three quarters of a millimeter high. So by taking over + the case, Patek expanded the size of the brand from 8 + square millimeters to 800. + + Why did they suddenly decide to make their brand + shout, after a century of whispering? Because they + knew they weren't going to beat the Japanese on + performance. From now on they'd have to depend more on + brand. + + There's a cost to doing this, which we can see even in + this early example of case-as-brand. Golden Ellipses + are not bad looking. They must have looked even cooler + in the 1970s, when designers were turning everything + into round rects. But the Golden Ellipse was not an + evolutionary step forward in case design. Watches + didn't all become round rects. Watchmakers had already + discovered the optimal shape for the case of something + that describes a circle as it rotates. + + They had also discovered the optimal shape for the + crown, the knob on the side of a watch that you turn + to wind it. But to emphasize the distinctive profile + of the Ellipse, Patek made the crown too small, with + the result that they're distractingly hard to wind. [ + [7]3] + + So even in this early example we see an important + point about the relationship between brand and design. + Branding isn't merely orthogonal to good design, but + opposed to it. Branding by definition has to be + distinctive. But good design, like math or science, + seeks the right answer, and right answers tend to + converge. + + Branding is centrifugal; design is centripetal. + + There is some wiggle room here of course. Design + doesn't have as sharply defined right answers as math, + especially design meant for a human audience. So it's + not necessarily bad design to do something distinctive + if you have honest motives. But you can't evade the + fundamental conflict between branding and design, any + more than you can evade gravity. + + Indeed, the conflict between branding and design is so + fundamental that it extends far beyond things we call + design. We see it even in religion. If you want the + adherents of a religion to have customs that set them + apart from everyone else, you can't make them do + things that are convenient or reasonable, or other + people would do them too. If you want to set your + adherents apart, you have to make them do things that + are inconvenient and unreasonable. + + It's the same if you want to set your designs apart. + If you choose good options, other people will choose + them too. + + There are only two ways to combine branding and good + design. You can do it when the space of possibilities + is enormously large, as it is in painting for example. + Leonardo could paint as well as he possibly could and + yet also paint in a style that was distinctively his. + If there had been a million painters as good as + Bellini and Leonardo this would have been harder to + do, but since there were more like ten they didn't + bump up against one another much. [[8]4] + + The other situation when branding and good design can + be combined is when the space of possibilities is + comparatively unexplored. If you're the first to + arrive in some new territory, you can both find the + right answer and claim it as uniquely yours. At least + at first; if you've really found the right answer, + everyone else's designs will inevitably converge on + yours, and your brand advantage will erode over time. + + Since the space of watch design is neither unexplored + nor enormously large, branding can only be achieved at + the expense of good design. And in fact if you wanted + one sentence to describe the current age of + watchmaking, that one would do pretty well. + + Patek Philippe didn't know for sure that making + visibly branded watches would work. It was not even + their only strategy, at the time. They were finding + their way. But it was the strategy that did work, at + least as measured by revenues. + + For it to work the customers had to meet them halfway. + Patek knew that not all their customers were buying + their watches for the performance they delivered — for + their accuracy and thinness. They knew that at least + some customers were buying them because they were + expensive. But it was unclear how many, or how far + they could be pushed. + + To encourage them, Patek did something that none of + the holy trinity had done much of before: brand + advertising. And what they talked about was how + expensive their watches were. A 1968 Patek ad + explained "why you are well advised to invest perhaps + half a month's income" in an Ellipse. "Like every + Patek Philippe," the ad continued, "this thin model is + entirely finished by hand. Since a Patek Philippe is + the costliest watch to make, production is severely + limited: only 43 watches are signed out each day for + delivery to prominent jewelers throughout the world." + [[9]5] + + You can tell this is an early ad because they still + mention thinness. But there is no mention of accuracy. + Presumably Patek felt that battle was already lost. + + The next move was made by Audemars Piguet, who in 1970 + commissioned the renowned designer Gérald Genta to + design their own iconic watch, this one, daringly, in + steel. The result, launched in 1972, was the [10]Royal + Oak. And Audemars Piguet's ads (for they too now + started doing brand advertising) emphasized its high + cost even more dramatically. "Introducing steel at the + price of gold," one began. "You're looking at the + costliest stainless steel watch in the world — the + Audemars Piguet 'Royal Oak'. What makes it even more + precious than gold is the time that went into building + it, by a vanishing breed of master watchmakers." At + the bottom of the ad they turn the traditional formula + on its head and describe their watches as being + "priced from $35,000 and down." + + The Royal Oak was also a step forward in surface area + devoted to brand. The Golden Ellipse had turned the + watch face into an expression of brand, but it used + ordinary straps and bracelets. In the Royal Oak, the + watch face was integrated with a metal bracelet that + continued its design all the way around the wrist. + When it said "You're looking at the costliest + stainless steel watch in the world," it said it with + every square millimeter of surface area. + + Would customers buy this new approach? The initial + results were moderately encouraging. The holy + trinity's sales didn't take off, but they didn't go + down to zero either. There were at least some people + out there responding to the new message. Perhaps if + they kept at it the number would grow. + + So they did. Encouraged by the success of the Royal + Oak, Patek Philippe commissioned Gérald Genta in 1974 + to design a similar watch for them. The design of the + Royal Oak had been inspired by a ship's porthole, so + the design of this new watch would be inspired by... a + ship's porthole. It was called the [11]Nautilus, and + it launched at the Basel Watch Fair in 1976. + + In the Nautilus we really see the incompatibility of + branding and design. It was huge. The most expensive + men's watches at the peak of the golden age were + typically 32 or 33 millimeters in diameter. The + Nautilus was 42 millimeters. And as well as being huge + it had gratuitous knobs on either side of the face, + like a pair of ears. But you could recognize one from + across the room. + + Of all the watches Patek makes now, the Nautilus is + the most sought after. It's perfectly aligned with + what present-day buyers want — basically, the loudest + possible expression of brand. But in 1976 it was ahead + of its time. In 1976 it was still a little too much. + + The watch that finally turned Patek's fortunes around + was another iconic design, the hobnail calatrava. The + hobnail calatravas were so called because they were + decorated with tiny pyramid-shaped spikes. That was + enough to make them look distinctive. But except for + the hobnails they were basically golden age dress + watches. + + The hobnail calatrava was apparently the brainchild of + René Bittel, the head of Patek Philippe's ad agency. + It was not a new design. Many watchmakers had + decorated their cases with hobnails over the years, + and there had been a Patek model with them since 1968. + But in 1984 Bittel told Patek president Philippe + Stern, in effect: make this your standard design, and + I'll create an ad campaign to identify it in people's + heads with your brand. [[12]6] + + It worked spectacularly well. The resulting watch, the + [13]3919, is known as the "banker's watch" because it + became so popular among investment bankers in New York + in the 80s and 90s. Up to this point Patek had been + hedging their bets, making quartz watches as well, and + arguing defensively in their ads that quartz watches + in fancy cases were almost as laborious to make as + mechanical ones. But the ibankers bought the full + mechanical story. They didn't even need self-winding + mechanical watches; the 3919 was hand-wound. So be it. + Patek stopped talking about quartz movements. And + their sales, which had been flat since the early 70s, + were by 1987 on a clear upward trajectory that has + continued to this day. + + It's hard to say for sure whether the critical + ingredient was Bittel's skill at advertising or a + receptive audience, but as someone who knew these + investment bankers, I'd lean toward the audience. + These were the people for whom the term "yuppy" was + coined. Living expensively was one of the things they + were best known for. If anyone was going to adopt a + new way to display wealth, it would be them. Whereas + if Bittel had sent the same message ten years earlier, + there might have been no one to hear it. + + Whatever the cause, something happened in the second + half of the 1980s, because that's when all the numbers + finally start going up again. Up till about 1985 it + was still not clear what would happen with mechanical + watches. By 1990 it was. By 1990 the custom of using + expensive, highly-branded, conspicuously mechanical + watches as status symbols was firmly established. [ + [14]7] + + Obsolete technologies don't usually get adopted as + ways to display wealth. Why did it happen with + mechanical watches? Because the wristwatch turns out + to be the perfect vehicle for it. Where better than + right on your wrist, where everyone can see it? And + more to the point, what better to do it with? You + could wear a diamond ring or a gold chain, but those + would have seemed socially dubious to investment + bankers. They might have been barbarians, but they + weren't mafia. Whereas nothing could be more legit + than a gold watch. The chairman of the company was + still wearing one his wife gave him 20 years ago, + before quartz watches were even a thing. If the + increasing pressure to display wealth was going to + emerge anywhere, this was the place. [[15]8] + + For men, at least. Women never really went for the + idea of wearing mechanical watches. Most rich women + are happy wearing a Cartier tank with a quartz + movement. Why the difference? Partly for the same + reason that most buyers of steam engines are men. But + the main reason is that expensive mechanical watches + now serve as de facto jewelry for men, and women don't + need de facto jewelry because they can wear actual + jewelry. + + It was critical, though, that mechanical watches were + accurate enough. A new 3919 would have been off by no + more than 5 seconds a day. That was nowhere near as + good as quartz. Even the cheapest mass market quartz + watches were accurate to half a second a day, and the + best ones were accurate to 3 seconds a year. But in + practice you didn't need that kind of accuracy. If + mechanical watches had only been accurate to a minute + a day they couldn't have made the leap from keeping + time to displaying wealth. It would have seemed too + manifestly unluxurious to have a watch that always had + the wrong time. But 5 seconds a day was close enough. + [[16]9] + + This is an important point about the relationship + between brand and quality. Quality doesn't stop + mattering when a product switches to something people + buy for its brand. But the way it matters changes + shape. It becomes a threshold. It no longer has to be + so great that it sells the product; brand sells the + product; but it does have to be good enough to + maintain the brand's reputation. The brand must not + break character. + + It was a lucky thing for the watchmakers that yuppies + arose just in time to save them. Or maybe not so + lucky. Because the evolution of the market that + yuppies represented has continued with a vengeance, + and watchmakers have perforce been dragged along with + it. If they don't make gigantic blingy watches for + buyers in Hong Kong and Dubai, someone else will. So + that is what they now find themselves doing. And what + began with a few comparatively subtle examples of the + conflict between branding and design is now an all out + [17]war on design. + + The present era of mechanical watchmaking doesn't yet + have a name. But if we need one, it's obvious what it + should be: the brand age. The golden age ran from 1945 + to 1970, followed by the quartz crisis from 1970 to + 1985. Since 1985 we've been in the brand age. + + + + + + This won't be the only brand age. Indeed, it's not + even the first; fine art has been in its own brand age + since the establishment of the Barr canon in the + 1930s. And since we'll probably see more of this kind + of thing, it would be worth taking some time to look + at what a brand age is like. + + How are things different now from the way they were in + the golden age? The best way to answer that might be + to imagine what someone from the golden age would + notice if we brought him here in a time machine. + + The first thing he'd notice, if he walked through a + fancy shopping district, is that all the prominent + watchmakers of the golden age seem to be doing better + than ever. They're not only all still around, but most + now have their own boutiques instead of depending on + jewelers to sell their products as they used to back + in the day. + + In fact this is an illusion. Only three watchmakers + survived the dark days of the 70s and 80s as + independent companies: Patek Philippe, Audemars + Piguet, and Rolex. All the rest are owned by six + holding companies, which reinflated them as it became + clear that mechanical watches would have a second life + as luxury accessories for men. Instead of separate + companies they're now more like the brands that got + rolled up into the big three American automakers: + they're ways for their parent companies to target + different segments of the market. So Longines, for + example, no longer competes with Omega, because the + company that owns them both has assigned it a lower + tier of the market. [[18]10] + + There's a reason the Vacheron Constantin boutique + looks so much like the IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre + boutiques, and for that matter the Montblanc and + Cartier boutiques. They're all owned by the same + company. It's similar with clothing brands, + incidentally. When you walk through a town's fanciest + shopping district, what seem to be the shops of lots + of different brands are actually owned by a handful of + conglomerates. That's one reason these districts seem + so sterile; like suburbs built by a single developer, + they have an unnatural lack of variety. + + When our time traveler peered into the windows of + these shops, the first thing he'd notice was how large + all the watches were. This would surprise him, because + in the golden age, as indeed in all the preceding + centuries, big meant cheap. An expensive golden age + men's watch might have been 33 millimeters in diameter + and 8 millimeters thick. An expensive watch today will + be more like 42 millimeters in diameter and 10 + millimeters thick — more than double the size. It + would astonish our visitor to look through the windows + of what were clearly very fancy shops and see what + seemed to be cheap watches. [[19]11] + + We know how this happened. When watches switched from + telling time to telling brand, they grew in size to be + better at it. And not just in size, but in shape too. + That's another thing our time traveler would notice: + the surprising variety of strange case shapes and + awkward protrusions that have been produced as the + centrifugal tendency of branding played out. What, + he'd wonder, is going on with the huge guards on the + crowns of those Panerais? What do people do with these + watches that makes the crown need such protection? And + why would a crown guard have a message engraved on it + saying that it's a registered trademark? It's obvious + to us what's going on here, but imagine how confusing + it would be to someone from the golden age, when form + followed function. [[20]12] + + As he puzzled over this strange assortment of bulky + watches, he'd notice a further pattern. He'd realize + that a surprisingly large number of them looked like a + specific brand of bulky watch he was already familiar + with. + + I haven't talked about Rolex so far, because Rolex + didn't have to do much to adapt to the new era. They + already had one foot in the brand age during the + golden age. Early in their history they put a lot of + effort into making their watches better, but they + "stopped taking part in competitions in Geneva and + Neuchâtel at the end of the 1950s," and from about + 1960 "largely abandoned research into mechanical + watchmaking." [[21]13] The reason was not that they'd + become lazy, but that they'd discovered they could + make sales grow faster by marketing their watches as + status symbols. So that became their focus during the + 1960s, and by the time the quartz crisis hit ten years + later, their customers were self-selected to be people + who didn't care that much what was inside a watch, so + long as it was recognizably a Rolex. + + And they were far ahead of other watchmakers in that + department. They already had in the 1940s what we saw + Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet struggling to + create in the 1970s and 80s: a case that immediately + proclaimed the brand of the maker. The Rolex look + seems to have evolved organically, but once it did, + they realized how important it was. In fact they + pitched it as one of the features of their watches. A + 1960s Rolex ad says "You can recognize its classic + shape, carved out of a block of solid gold, from the + other end of the conference table." + + Indeed Rolex was ahead of its time in both dimensions: + their cases were not merely recognizable, but big too, + at least by golden age standards. That was not the + result of clever marketing, though. It was a byproduct + of the founder Hans Wilsdorf's obsession with building + waterproof watches. + + As its name suggests, that was the raison d'etre of + the Rolex Oyster. Watches like the Oyster were + designed to be tough, like Jeeps. In the golden age + there were two poles of watch design. At one end were + tool watches, which were thick, tough, and usually + made of steel. At the other end were dress watches, + which were thin, elegant, and usually made of gold. + But Rolex blurred the line between them. When they + made thick, tough watches, they made them out of gold + as well as steel. The result was a sort of luxury + Jeep. And if that phrase didn't ring a bell in your + head, stop and think about it, because that is exactly + what everyone is driving now. That's what SUVs are, + luxury Jeeps. What happened to watches is the same + thing that happened to cars. And indeed if our time + traveler turned and saw a Porsche Cayenne pass by and + realized what it was — a huge, pseudo-offroad vehicle + meant to recall the Porsche 911 — he might have been + even more shocked than he was by the watches he'd been + looking at. [[22]14] + + If the time traveller walked into a Patek Philippe + boutique and actually tried to buy a Nautilus, he'd + get the biggest shock of all. They wouldn't sell him + one. Because at Patek he'd encounter the most extreme + brand age phenomenon: artificial scarcity. You can't + just buy a Nautilus. You have to spend years proving + your loyalty first by buying your way through multiple + tiers of other models, and then spend years on a + waiting list. [[23]15] + + Obviously this strategy sells more watches. But it + also supports retail prices by keeping watches off the + secondary market. A company using artificial scarcity + to drive sales can't allow too many of the scarce + models to leak into the secondary market, or they stop + being scarce. The ideal is the watch equivalent of + carbon sequestration: for the people who buy their + watches to keep them till they die. + + To push the market toward this ideal, Patek squeezes + from both sides of the sale. They weed out flippers by + making the path to the scarce models so costly in both + time and money — so inconvenient and unreasonable — + that only a genuine fan would endure it. The lower + tier watches sell for below retail on the secondary + market, because Patek doesn't restrict their supply, + so a would-be flipper should have to spend years + making money-losing purchases before he could even get + something he could flip at a profit. Apparently some + people still manage to beat this system though, so + Patek's countermeasures don't end there. They keep a + vigilant eye on secondary sales to see who's selling + their watches. Auction listings usually include serial + numbers, so those are easy to trace, but if necessary + they'll rebuy their own watches on the secondary + market to get the serial number and trace the leak. + They buy hundreds a year. And when they catch someone + selling watches they don't want them to, they don't + just cut off that customer. If a retailer's customers + are responsible for too many such leaks, they'll cut + off the whole retailer. Which naturally makes + retailers eager to help them police buyers. + + There will of course always be some leaks into the + secondary market. Even the most loyal customers die at + a certain rate. And in fact it's critical for Patek + that the secondary market continue to exist, because + it's one of the most valuable sources of information + they have about the most important question they face: + how fast to increase the supply of the top tier + watches. Their scarcity helps drive the purchases of + all the others, so those that do make it into the + secondary market should always sell for above retail. + And I'm sure Patek leaves a large margin for error + when increasing supply, because if secondary market + prices for these watches get close to retail prices, + you're getting close to a price collapse — which, + since people now buy these watches as investments, + would have the same disastrous cascading effect as the + bursting of an asset bubble. It wouldn't just be like + the bursting of an asset bubble. It would be the + bursting of an asset bubble. That's the business an + elite watchmaker is in now: carefully managing a + sustained asset bubble. [[24]16] + + This is an instance of what I call the comb-over + effect: when a series of individually small changes + takes you from something that's a little bit off to + something that's freakishly wrong. I'm sure Patek + didn't cook up this whole scheme in one shot; I'm sure + it evolved gradually. But look at what a strange place + we've ended up in. Back in the golden age the way you + bought a Patek Philippe was to go to a jeweler and + give them money. Now Patek is policing buyers to + maintain an asset bubble. + + The most striking thing to me about the brand age is + the sheer strangeness of it. The zombie watch brands + that appear to be independent and even have their own + retail stores, and yet are all owned by a few holding + companies. The giant, awkwardly shaped watches that + reverse 500 years of progress in making them smaller. + The business model that requires a company to rebuy + their own watches on the secondary market to catch + rogue customers. The very concept of rogue customers. + It's all so strange. And the reason it's strange is + that there's no function for form to follow. + + Up to the end of the golden age, mechanical watches + were necessary. You needed them to know the time. And + that constraint gave both the watches and the + watchmaking industry a meaningful shape. There were + certainly some strange-looking watches made during the + golden age. They weren't all beautifully minimal. But + when golden age watchmakers made a strange-looking + watch, they knew they were doing it. In fact they give + the impression of having done it as a deliberate + exercise, to avoid getting into a rut. + + That's not why brand age watches look strange. Brand + age watches look strange because they have no + practical function. Their function is to express + brand, and while that is certainly a constraint, it's + not the clean kind of constraint that generates good + things. The constraints imposed by brand ultimately + depend on some of the worst features of human + psychology. So when you have a world defined only by + brand, it's going to be a weird, bad world. + + + + + + Well that was dark. Is there some edifying lesson we + can salvage from the wreckage? + + One obvious lesson is to stay away from brand. Indeed + it's probably a good idea not just to avoid buying + brand, but to avoid selling it too. Sure, you might be + able to make money this way — though I bet it's harder + than it looks — but pushing people's brand buttons is + just not a good problem to work on, and it's hard to + do good work without a good problem. + + The more subtle lesson is that fields have natural + rhythms that are beyond the power of individuals to + resist. Fields have golden ages and not so golden + ages, and you're much more likely to do good work in a + field that's on the way up. + + Of course they don't call them golden ages as they're + happening. "Golden age" is a term people use later, + after they're over. That doesn't mean that golden ages + aren't real, but rather that their participants take + them for granted at the time. They don't know how good + they have it. But while it's usually a mistake to take + one's good fortune for granted, it's not in this case. + What a golden age feels like, at the time, is just + that smart people are working hard on interesting + problems and getting results. It would be overfitting + to optimize for more than that. + + In fact there's a single principle that will both save + you from working on things like brand, and also + automatically find golden ages for you. Follow the + problems. + + The way to find golden ages is not to go looking for + them. The way to find them — the way almost all their + participants have found them historically — is by + following interesting problems. If you're smart and + ambitious and honest with yourself, there's no better + guide than your taste in problems. Go where + interesting problems are, and you'll probably find + that other smart and ambitious people have turned up + there too. And later they'll look back on what you did + together and call it a golden age. + + + + + + + + + + Notes + + [1] The Bretton Woods agreement didn't fix exchange + rates between currencies directly. It fixed each + relative to gold. Obviously this also fixed them + relative to one another. + + [2] The Golden Ellipse isn't quite a round rect, + because the sides aren't quite flat. It's similar in + shape to the superellipses popularized by Piet Hein in + the early 1960s, and in fact that may be where they + got the name. But mathematically it's not an actual + superellipse. My guess is that Patek's designer just + experimented with French curves till he got something + he liked. And to be fair it is a good shape. + + [3] It was ironic that Patek Philippe of all companies + made this mistake, because Adrien Philippe was the + inventor of the modern crown. But they must have + realized what they'd done, because later Ellipses have + if anything excessively prominent crowns. + + [4] The high ratio of design space to practitioners in + fine art has combined with the practical importance of + attribution to give people the impression that + painting in a distinctively Leonardesque way is what + makes Leonardo good. The most dangerous problem faced + by curators, art historians, and art dealers — the one + that has the worst consequences if they get the wrong + answer — is attribution. So inevitably they spend a + lot of time thinking and talking about the features + that distinguish the work of one artist from another. + But those aren't what make artists good. What makes + the line of a woman's cheek in a Leonardo drawing good + is how good it looks as the line of a cheek, not how + little it looks like lines made by other artists. + + Because painting has such prestige, the myth that + having a distinctive style (rather than painting well) + is the defining quality of great artists has in turn + given cover to a lot of bad design in adjacent fields. + A brand that does something hideous to distinguish + their products can say "Like all great works of art, + ours have a distinctive style," and people will buy + it. + + [5] An ad that Patek Philippe ran in America in 1970 + famously described a Patek 3548 with a gold bracelet + as a "$1700 trust fund." Was it actually a good + investment? In the very best case a dealer might pay + you $20k now for one in unworn condition with its + original box and papers. That's about a 4.5% rate of + return, which is not absolutely terrible. But + apparently the average rate of return on S&P 500 + stocks over this period was more like 10%, if you + reinvested all the dividends after paying taxes on + them. The average rate of return would have been over + 9% if you merely bought a lump of gold that hadn't + been made into a watch. So, not surprisingly, the ad + wasn't very good investment advice. + + [6] Tania Edwards, who ran US marketing for Patek + Philippe in the 90s, said that Bittel literally + sketched the design of the 3919 on a piece of paper. + This sounds odd to me, because the 3919 looked exactly + like the existing 3520 with the addition of sub + seconds (a small dial with a second hand above 6 + o'clock). Why would you sketch a design almost + identical to an existing watch when you could just + point to the existing watch and say "that, with sub + seconds." What this story does show, though, is the + degree to which people within Patek felt their ad + agency was responsible for the design of the 3919. + + [7] If I had to date the turning point for mechanical + watches precisely, I'd say 1986. Unit sales of Swiss + watches rebounded in 1985, but revenue didn't, which + means what we're seeing is the boom in cheap quartz + Swatches. Indeed, sales of mechanical watches must + have been down if revenue was flat despite the sale of + all those Swatches. Whereas in 1986 revenue turns + sharply upward even though unit sales only increase by + a little, which implies a corresponding increase in + sales of expensive mechanical watches. + + [8] There is of course another reason some people are + into mechanical watches: because they're interested in + old technology. And if you are genuinely interested in + mechanical watches, there's good news. You don't have + to wear a billboard on your wrist or pay a lot to own + one. Just buy golden age watches. They still keep good + time, they're much more beautiful, and they cost a + fraction of what new watches cost. + + The key to buying a golden age watch is to find a good + dealer, and the best way to recognize one is by how + much they tell you about the watch. A bad dealer will + just have a lot of fluff about the prestige of the + brand and the sleek lines of the case. A good dealer + will tell you the model number of the watch and + movement, have lots of pictures, including some with + the case back open, give you dimensions, disclose all + damage and restoration, and tell you exactly how + accurately the watch is running. Good dealers tend to + be watch nerds themselves, so they're into this kind + of thing. + + (There are a few independent watchmakers trying + earnestly to make good mechanical watches now, but + their efforts show how hard it is to do good work when + the current is against you.) + + [9] Oddly enough it might have helped that the 3919 + was hand wound. If a watch runs for long enough, 5 + seconds a day starts to add up. After three months a + watch that gains 5 seconds a day will be 7 minutes + fast. But with a hand wound watch you occasionally + forget to wind it, and it runs down. And when you wind + it again you reset it — on average to a time about 30 + seconds behind the actual time. So if you forgot to + wind a 3919 every two weeks or so, it would rarely + have shown the wrong time. + + [10] There's one brand still waiting to be reinflated: + Universal Genève, which was one of the big players of + the golden age but since 1977 has been little more + than a brand name passed from acquirer to acquirer. + They're scheduled to come back to life later this + year, no doubt with stories about their long tradition + of watchmaking. + + [11] More precisely, a high ratio of size to accuracy + meant cheap. It's easier to make a larger movement + keep good time, but between two watches of the same + accuracy, the larger was usually the cheaper. + + [12] Their form did once follow function. They were + originally diving watches. But they're long since + obsolete for this purpose. Present day diving watches + (now called dive computers) are digital and tell you + much more than the time. + + [13] Rolex was awarded an average of 16.6 patents per + year in the 1950s, but only 1.7 per year in the 1960s. + + Pierre-Yves Donzé, The Making of a Status Symbol: A + Business History of Rolex, Manchester University + Press, 2025. + + [14] Rolexes also shared something more specific with + SUVs: aspirational manliness. An internal 1967 report + by Rolex's ad agency J. Walter Thompson explained the + idea they were trying to convey: "Because a Rolex is + designed for any situation, however rough or dangerous + or heroic or exalted, it implies that the man who + wears it is, potentially, a hero." + + Reprinted in Donzé, op cit. + + [15] This business model only works when purchase + decisions are driven mainly by brand. In a normal + market, if one manufacturer restricts production, + customers just buy from whichever competing + manufacturer offers something as good. It's only when + customers are seeking a certain brand rather than a + certain level of performance that you can manipulate + them by restricting its availability. + + [16] Of course the first question one has on noticing + a bubble is: will it burst? The reason ordinary + bubbles eventually burst is that speculators get + overoptimistic, but in this case the CEO of Patek + Philippe controls the "money supply" and can thus take + measures to cool down an overheated market. So there + are probably only two things that could cause their + specific bubble to burst: if his successor is not as + capable, or if the whole custom of wearing mechanical + watches goes away. The latter seems the greater + danger. People aren't going to wear three things on + their wrists, so all it would take is for there to be + two popular devices that were worn on the wrist, and + mechanical watches would start to be seen by the next + cohort of young rich people as an old guy thing. It's + hard to imagine a luxury watch brand surviving that. + + + + Thanks to Sam Altman, Bill Clerico, Daniel Gackle, + Luis Garcia, the people at Goldammer, Jessica + Livingston, Ben Miller, Robert Morris, John Reardon, + D'Arcy Rice, Alex Tabarrok, and Garry Tan for reading + drafts of this. + + + + ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +References: + +[2] https://paulgraham.com/index.html +[3] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f1n +[4] https://goldammer.me/products/vacheron-constantin-18k-white-gold +[5] https://collectability.com/learn/the-history-of-the-golden-ellipse/ +[6] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f2n +[7] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f3n +[8] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f4n +[9] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f5n +[10] https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2025/fine-watches-5/reference-5402st-jumbo-royal-oak-a-series-a +[11] https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2025/important-watches-2/reference-3700-11-nautilus-jumbo-a-stainless-steel +[12] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f6n +[13] https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2019/watches-online-6/patek-philippe-ref-3919j-a-yellow-gold-wristwatch/ +[14] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f7n +[15] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f8n +[16] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f9n +[17] https://www.patek.com/en/collection/grand-complications/6300-400g-001 +[18] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f10n +[19] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f11n +[20] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f12n +[21] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f13n +[22] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f14n +[23] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f15n +[24] https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html#f16n diff --git a/static/archive/stopsloppypasta-ai-lzdmgr.txt b/static/archive/stopsloppypasta-ai-lzdmgr.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f384225 --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/stopsloppypasta-ai-lzdmgr.txt @@ -0,0 +1,335 @@ +[1]Skip to main content + +Stop Sloppypasta + +slop·py·pas·ta  n.  Verbatim LLM output copy-pasted at someone, unread, +unrefined, and unrequested. From slop (low-quality AI-generated content) + +copypasta (text copied and pasted, often as a meme, without critical thought). +It is considered rude because it asks the recipient to do work the sender did +not bother to do themselves. +[2]A few examples [3]Why it's rude [4]Guidelines to do better + +You just got an unread message notification. + +Maybe it's on Slack (or Teams), a text message, or an email. Maybe you were +tagged in Notion or an Office doc. + +You open it to find several paragraphs of text - or perhaps a listicle - [5] +with all the hallmarks of AI-generated writing: headings, heavy formatting, and +"it's not X it's Y", with em-dashes sprinkled gratuitously throughout. + +The person who sent it probably spent about ten seconds on it. They asked a +chatbot and forwarded its response to you verbatim without validation or +critical review. + +But now you're expected to read, vet, and act on this wall of text. When +someone forwards text they themselves have not considered, they are asking you +to do work they chose not to do. The asymmetric effort makes it rude. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +A few examples + +❌ Example +#strategy + +The team is mid-discussion about whether to expand into the German market. + +👤: + +I asked Claude about this! Here's what it said: + +Expanding into the German market presents both significant opportunities and +notable challenges. Germany is the largest economy in the EU and offers a +robust consumer base. However, businesses should consider the following key +factors: + +1. Regulatory Environment + +Germany has strict regulations including GDPR compliance, local labour laws... + +[6 more sections follow. None mention your company, your product, your budget, +or reference the discussion already underway.] + +buries the live discussion · unrequested · generic + +The Eager Beaver + +A conversation participant wants to contribute to the topic at hand, so they +ask a chatbot and share whatever comes back. The intention is good - they +genuinely want to help - but the wall of generic AI text they contributed +blocks the discussion already underway. Now other participants have to scroll +past it to continue, or stop to read and validate it. + +It feels helpful to send. It creates work to receive. + +❌ Example +you: + +Does anyone know why our email open rates have been dropping? We changed the +subject line format last month. + +👤: + +ChatGPT says: + +Email open rate declines can be attributed to several factors. These include +changes in subject line strategy, sender reputation issues, list hygiene +problems, and deliverability concerns. Here are the most common causes: + +1. Subject Line Fatigue + +If subject lines have become too similar or predictable, subscribers may stop +engaging… + +[Provides 5 more sections of generic email open diagnostics. Does not mention +your subject line change, your audience, or your platform.] + +irrelevant to the specific question · generic + +The OrAIcle + +Someone asks a specific question. Another person puts it into a chatbot and +pastes the response as the answer. + +"ChatGPT says" is the enshittified LLM-era equivalent of [6]LMGTFY (Let Me +Google That For You). Shared as a link or a GIF, LMGTFY was easy to ignore, and +clear about what it was (sarcastic commentary). Sloppypasta is neither. +Recipients are left to figure out whether it's AI generated, whether it's +correct, and which part actually answers the question (if it's actually +relevant at all). If you ask a person a question, you're looking for their +perspective and expertise. In this sense, both LMGTFY and sloppypasta are +etiquette failures where sender disregarded the recipient the dignity of the +basic human reply. + +❌ Example +👤: + +Hey team - I did some research on our competitors this week. Here's a summary: + +Competitive Landscape Overview + +The market is highly competitive, with several established players and emerging +challengers. Key competitors offer distinct value propositions across pricing +tiers… + +[It's a 5-page essay with handwavy assertions and no concrete details. No +dates. No sources. No live pricing.] + +presented as personal work · no one knows to check · hallucinated details +possible + +The Ghostwriter + +The sender shares AI output as their own work, with no indication a chatbot +wrote it. Recipients have no reason to question it, and may act on information +that is out of date, incomplete, or simply wrong. + +Using AI as a ghostwriter borrows the sender's credibility. If the content +turns out to be wrong, that credibility is what gets spent. + +Why it's rude + + As a Recipient As a Sender Feedback loop + Previously, effort to read Writing requires Sender's skipped + was balanced by the effort effort, which effort becomes + to write. Now LLMs make contributes to recipient's added +Effort writing "free" and increase comprehension. LLMs effort, increasing + the effort to read due to increase cognitive debt frustration as + additional verification by reducing struggle. incidence increases. + burden. + LLM propensity for + hallucination and What you share directly + capability to bullshit influences your Eroding trust from +Trust convincingly mean that reputation. Sharing raw LLM sloppypasta is + "trust but verify" is LLM output - especially the modern 'Boy Who + broken. All correspondence unvetted - burns your Cried Wolf.' + must be untrusted by credibility. + default. + +Sharing raw AI output is like eating junk food: it's easy and may feel good, +but it's not in your best interest. You'll negatively influence your +relationship with the recipient, and do yourself a disservice by reducing your +own comprehension. + + "For the longest time, writing was more expensive than reading. If you + encountered a body of written text, you could be sure that at the very + least, a human spent some time writing it down. The text used to have an + innate proof-of-thought, a basic token of humanity." + + — Alex Martsinovich, [7]It's rude to show AI output to people + +Before LLMs, writing took effort. Authors spent time and effort considering and +selecting their words with intention; time and effort that was balanced by that +spent by the audience as they read. This balance is broken with LLMs; the +effort to produce text is effectively free, but the effort required to read the +text hasn't changed. [8]The increasing verbosity of LLMs further increases the +effort asymmetry. In some circumstances (like pasting raw LLM output into a +chat thread), the sloppypasta effectively becomes a filibuster, crowding out +the existing conversation and blocking the viewport. + + "Cognitive effort — and even getting painfully stuck — is likely important + for fostering mastery." + + — Anthropic, [9]How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills + +Writing is thinking. The writing process forces the author to work through +their thoughts, building their comprehension and retention. [10]Multiple [11] +studies have found that delegating tasks to LLMs creates cognitive debt. +Shortcutting thinking with LLMs ultimately reduces comprehension of and recall +about the delegated subject. + + "A polished AI response feels dismissive even if the content is correct" + + — Blake Stockton, [12]AI Writing Etiquette Manifesto + +Before LLMs, trust was the default. Authors wrote from their personal expertise +and perspective, and readers could judge an author's understanding of the +subject based on the coherence of their writing. LLMs generate the most +probable next token given an overarching goal to be helpful, which explains +their propensity for hallucination ([13]confabulation) and why many people feel +that [14]LLMs are bullshit generators. Modern LLMs are typically provided tools +to help them look up grounding information that reduces (but does not +eradicate) their likelihood to outright make up facts during their responses. +But that still doesn't solve the trust problem; the reader still has no way to +know what the sender checked and what they didn't. LLM responses, therefore, +cannot be trusted by default and compound the effort asymmetry on the reader by +adding a verification tax. + +Beyond accuracy, LLMs write authoritatively with the tone and confidence of an +expert. This adds further uncertainty to the reader's burden; they have no way +to gauge the sender's actual level of expertise with the subject matter. The +result is a further erosion of trust, because the AI's voice removes signal +that recipients previously used to distinguish expertise from +plausible-sounding slop. + + "I think it's rude to publish text that you haven't even read yourself. I + won't publish anything that will take someone longer to read than it took + me to write." + + — Simon Willison, [15]Personal AI Ethics + +Formerly, "Trust but verify" ruled. Readers would trust until that trust was +broken; the author was trustworthy or they weren't. However, shared LLM output +obfuscates the chain of trust. Did the prompter do the appropriate due +diligence to validate the LLM response? If problems or errors are discovered, +who is to blame, the prompter or the AI? Was it an oversight, a missed +verification step, or was verification skipped altogether? The uncertainty +means the recipient doesn't know what they can trust, what has or has not been +verified; they must treat everything as untrusted. Just like the Boy Who Cried +Wolf, once the trust is broken, the uncertainty spreads to all future messages +from the sender. + +Assumptions of balanced effort and presumed trust are no longer guaranteed in a +post-LLM world. Sloppypasta creates a compounding negative feedback loop where +the sender forfeits learning and credibility while the recipient burns effort +and loses trust. Receiving raw AI output feels bad due to the cognitive +dissonance of having these assumptions violated. + +Read the full essay + +Simple guidelines to do better + +Read. + +Read the output before you share it. If you haven't read it, you don't know +whether it's correct, relevant, or current. + +Delegating work to AI creates cognitive debt. Working with the results helps +run damage control for your own understanding. + +Verify. + +Check the facts before you forward them. Anything you forward carries your +implicit endorsement -- your reputation depends on managing the quality of what +you share. + +LLMs are trained to "be helpful", and will produce outdated facts, wrong +figures, and plausible nonsense to provide a response to your requests. +Further, an LLM is inherently out-of-date; their knowledge cutoffs contain at +best information on the state of the world when their training started (months +ago). + +Distill. + +Cut the response down to what matters. Distilling the generated response to the +useful essence is your job. + +LLMs are incentivized to use many words when few would do: API-priced models +have a per-token incentive to train chatty LLMs that use many tokens, and [17] +research shows that longer, highly formatted posts are often preferred as more +engaging. + +Disclose. + +Share how AI helped. + +If you've read, verified, and edited it, send it as yours -- preferably with a +note that you worked with AI assistance. If you're sharing raw output, say so +explicitly. In both cases, it may be useful to share your prompt and how you +worked with the AI to get the final output. + +Disclosure restores the trust signals that sloppypasta destroys and tells the +recipient what you checked and what they may be on the hook for. + +Share only when requested. + +Never share unsolicited AI output into a conversation. + +Remember that AI generations create effort asymmetry and be respectful of those +you share with. Sloppypasta delegates the full burden of reading, verifying, +and distilling to a recipient who didn't ask for it and may not realize the +effort required of them. + +Share as a link. + +Share AI output as a link or attached document rather than dropping the full +text inline. + +In messaging environments, a large paste takes over the viewport and crowds out +the existing conversation. A link lets the recipient choose when - and whether +- to engage, rather than having that choice imposed on them. + +AI capabilities keep increasing, and using it to draft, brainstorm or +accelerate you will be increasingly useful. However, using AI should not make +your productivity someone else's burden. New tools require new manners. + +Use AI to accelerate your work or improve what you send. +Don't use it to replace thinking about what you're sending. + +Further reading + + • [18]It's Rude to Show AI Output to People + • [19]Personal AI Ethics by Simon Willison + • [20]AI Manifesto + • [21]Using AI Responsibly in Development & Collaboration + • [22]AI Writing Etiquette Manifesto + +inspired by [23]nohello.net · [24]dontasktoask.com [25]open source + +References: + +[1] https://stopsloppypasta.ai/en/#main-content +[2] https://stopsloppypasta.ai/en/#types +[3] https://stopsloppypasta.ai/en/#why +[4] https://stopsloppypasta.ai/en/#rules +[5] https://tropes.fyi/directory +[6] https://lmgtfy.app/?q=what+is+lmgtfy +[7] https://distantprovince.by/posts/its-rude-to-show-ai-output-to-people/ +[8] https://epoch.ai/data-insights/output-length +[9] https://www.anthropic.com/research/AI-assistance-coding-skills +[10] https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/ +[11] https://www.anthropic.com/research/AI-assistance-coding-skills +[12] https://www.blakestockton.com/ai-writing-etiquette-manifesto/ +[13] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10619792/ +[14] https://machine-bullshit.github.io/ +[15] https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/27/wordcamp-llms/#personal-ai-ethics +[17] https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.10076 +[18] https://distantprovince.by/posts/its-rude-to-show-ai-output-to-people/ +[19] https://simonwillison.net/2023/Aug/27/wordcamp-llms/#personal-ai-ethics +[20] https://noellevandijk.com/ai-manifesto/ +[21] https://ai-manifesto.dev/ +[22] https://www.blakestockton.com/ai-writing-etiquette-manifesto/ +[23] https://nohello.net/ +[24] https://dontasktoask.com/ +[25] https://github.com/ahgraber/stopsloppypasta diff --git a/static/archive/www-robinsloan-com-ebxc4s.txt b/static/archive/www-robinsloan-com-ebxc4s.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3b51796 --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/www-robinsloan-com-ebxc4s.txt @@ -0,0 +1,615 @@ +[1]Home [2]About [3]Moonbound [4]Shop From: Robin Sloan +To: main newsletter +Sent: March 2026 + +Good trains + +A Carload of Strawberries from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell [5]A +Carload of Strawberries from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell + +Just back from Japan, my fifth sub­stan­tial trip in ten years. At this point, +we have iden­ti­fied Our Favorite Places, and we simply return to them. This +kind of travel always seemed the­o­ret­ical to me, some­thing people only do in +novels … yet now there’s a fancy ryokan where they remember us, and a homey bar +in the same town where the owner shrieks: “You’re back!!” + +It was my favorite Japan trip since my first. We went with friends and +dis­cov­ered that we travel well together, which I think really just means we +are all capable of enjoying things to the same degree. + +An under­rated capability, that one. + +Everywhere, there was such care, on scales ranging from the radius of a +cock­tail bar to the sprawl of the shinkansen. More than once, the +self-admonishment arose: “Robin, you need to pay atten­tion to this. It’s +remarkable, and it might not last forever. Pay atten­tion!” + +I’m Robin Sloan, a fiction writer with wide-ranging interests, which I capture +here in my newsletter. This is an archived edition, originally transmitted in +March 2026. You can sign up to receive future editions using the form at the +bottom of the page. + +As usual, this newsletter has a few dis­tinct parts. Here’s what’s ahead: + + • [6]Japan thoughts: trains, books, more trains + + • [7]Links and recommendations: com­puter sto­ries, street lettering, + dun­geon synth + +[8]Japan thoughts + +[9]The trains + +I spend a lot of time in the San Joaquin Valley of Cal­i­fornia, where this +country’s first high-speed rail line is coming together, very slowly. Huge +ele­ments of the route have been con­structed but not yet con­nected. These +gleaming new bridges and plat­forms are legit­i­mately beautiful; they loom in +the land­scape like ruins in reverse. I’m a fan of the project, even though +it’s plainly a tragedy — [10]Abundance tells the com­pre­hen­sive story. Actual +track goes down later this year, and all along the route, dirt is being pounded +into place, flat and smooth. + +Japan’s first high-speed lines opened in the 1960s, and its archi­tects have +had all the years since to press on: learning, extending, refining. Shinkansen +means “new trunk line”; it’s not so new anymore, yet riding those trains +remains legit­i­mately futuristic, def­i­nitely superfun. And it feels truly +shameful for the U.S. to be so many decades behind. + +It’s useful to note that in its ini­tial development, the shinkansen went way +over budget — more than 2X. Yet there was never any ques­tion that it would be +completed. Think of Keynes: “Anything we can actu­ally do, we can afford.” + +I don’t intend any false equiv­a­lence here; even granted major hand­i­caps for +U.S. dysfunction, the Cal­i­fornia line is a disaster. Yet there’s a hard, +grinding hope in the example of the shinkansen, which says: just finish it, so +you can really begin. + +[11]The books + +My Japanophilia is strongest in fic­tion. Here are some favorites: + + • [12]Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, trans­lated by Ginny Tapley + Takemori, is strange and hyp­notic — I can’t think of a recent U.S. novel + that’s simul­ta­ne­ously as uncon­ven­tional and captivating. It’s also fun + to read as coun­ter­point to the cult of the kon­bini that has arisen among + visitors. (This includes me: I bow down before the Japanese 7-11.) + + • [13]What You Are Looking for Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, + trans­lated by Alison Watts, is sweet but/and also subtly radical. I + reviewed it [14]for the NYT, and here I’ll just repeat, this book is an + emblem for some qui­etly pow­erful fea­tures of Japanese society. I’d also + like to claim it for the Extended Penumbraverse; there’s no ques­tion the + strange and pow­erful Mrs. Komachi has met Ajax Penumbra. + + • I’ve [15]written before about [16]Tokyo These Days, the manga series by + Taiyo Matsumoto, trans­lated by Michael Arias — his pro­found love letter + to all his editors. The story and char­ac­ters are won­derful, but/and so + is the ren­dering of the Japanese land­scape, Tokyo and beyond. + + • All of Banana Yoshi­moto’s books are sweet and stylish, a plea­sure to + read: tales of life in the city. Oh and they are short! WE LOVE A SHORT + BOOK. You can choose basi­cally at random, but [17]Kitchen, trans­lated by + Megan Backus, remains her most famous work. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +That’s all Japanese work trans­lated into English. Here are some books +orig­i­nally written in English: + + • [18]Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry is prob­ably a top-ten + work of 21st-century nonfic­tion. It’s pro­foundly haunting, and I’m so + impressed by Richard’s refusal to like, “collapse the wave function” of + pos­si­bility around the expe­ri­ences and encoun­ters reported by + sur­vivors of the 2011 earth­quake and tsunami. Here is reporting, in the + true sense: here’s what I saw, what I heard, what people told me. + + • On another wave­length entirely, but like­wise captivating, Richard’s [19] + People Who Eat Darkness is a hyp­notic account of a grue­some crime, + offering a view of sev­eral layers of Japanese society that tourists don’t + see or think about. + + • [20]How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart by Flo­ren­tyna Leow is a slim, pre­cise + memoir of living and working in Japan as a non-Japanese person — though one + who speaks fluent Japanese. It’s also simply about young life anywhere: + room­mates and jobs, hopes and disappointments. You could read Flo­ren­tyna + along­side Banana Yoshi­moto and imagine char­ac­ters from both books + meeting on a sidewalk. + + • [21]Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod weaves a per­cep­tive view of + Japan’s back­roads together with a quin­tes­sen­tially Amer­ican back­story + to pro­duce an effect that is totally new. One def­i­n­i­tion of + literature, or any art maybe, is that it defines a fresh genre of which it + is the only example; I believe this describes TBOT. (On Craig’s book tour + last year, I was his inter­locutor in San Fran­cisco, and [22]you can + listen to and/or read our con­ver­sa­tion here.) + + • [23]Embracing Defeat by John Dower is deep and thrilling. Even a reader + well-acquainted with the 20th-century his­tory of Japan and the U.S. will + dis­cover in this book whole new panoramas of the postwar period: rich + crunchy dynamics, cul­ture rewiring itself in realtime, and not with a + sense of erasure, but rather hyper­gen­er­a­tive reconstruction. This book + chal­lenges dull assump­tions about “victory” and “defeat”, what they mean + on the most basic level; and about “success”, too — of a country, a + society, a cul­ture. (The chapter on postwar publishing, the explo­sion of + pulp magazines, was of course par­tic­u­larly inter­esting to me.) + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +I love Japanese mys­teries for their wacky, frigid construction — as if these +authors looked at the cold clock­work of the Sher­lock Holmes sto­ries and +said, “Oh, that’s WAY too loose and squishy.” + +I’ve written before about [24]The Decagon House Murders, and more recently I +have enjoyed nearly every book in [25]this series from Pushkin Vertigo. (What a +name for an imprint — sounds like a char­acter from a novel.) + +I par­tic­u­larly enjoyed [26]The Honjin Murders and [27]The Devil’s Flute +Murders. The latter was trans­lated by [28]Jim Rion, who also trans­lated [29] +Strange Pictures, which has turned into a global bestseller. I haven’t read it +yet, but [30]Robin Rendle says it’s great! + +Jim has written about [31]the process of trans­lating a very strange book. + +One more: [32]Point Zero by Seicho Matsumoto, trans­lated by Louise Heal Kawai, +is like a Hitch­cock movie crossed with one of those story problems: “Train A +leaves Tokyo trav­eling 200 m.p.h. … ” + +[33]More trains + +The best trains in Japan are the JR Kyushu trains, and those are the best +thanks to designer [34]Eiji Mitooka. You can [35]browse a gallery here, or [36] +take a look at the col­lec­tion on Eiji Mitooka’s Wikipedia page. + +Here’s the luxe Seven Stars: + +Trains [37]Trains + +The Yufuin no Mori: + +Trains! [38]Trains! + +And the 36+3! I have been a pas­senger on this one. Every day, you receive a +bento lunch assem­bled from ingre­di­ents pro­duced in towns the train is +passing through: + +TRAINS!! [39]TRAINS!! + +It’s not just the cutesy trains that are great. Many dif­ferent models of +shinkansen roam the tracks in Japan, and, to my eye, JR Kyushu’s look the best: + +TRAIIINS!!! [40]TRAIIINS!!! + +And it doesn’t stop at trains! Until recently, JR Kyushu oper­ated a super­fast +ferry from Fukuoka to South Korea, also designed by Eiji Mitooka. Behold THE +QUEEN BEETLE: + +Not a train [41]Not a train + +(Sadly … [42]it leaked.) + +[43]Links and recommendations + +A Carload of Navel Oranges from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell [44]A +Carload of Navel Oranges from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell + +[45]Mr. President, please, I need a faster train …  + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +The latest edi­tion of [46]my pop-up newsletter is about [47]the limits of AI +automation. + +In this short argument, I draw on lessons from sewing and olive harvesting, and +invest all my hopes for a non-robotic future in the great and pow­erful PAPER +JAM. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here is David Oks on [48]why the ATM did not (as predicted) kill bank teller +jobs … but the iPhone did. What a great post — per­fect use of data and details +to deflate a story that “seems right”. + +David writes: + + But by talking about why ATMs didn’t dis­place bank tellers but iPhones + did, I want to high­light an impor­tant corollary, which is that the true + force of a tech­nology is felt not with the sub­sti­tu­tion of tasks, but + the inven­tion of new paradigms. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here’s another post that like­wise “takes the ques­tion seriously”, and in this +case, the ques­tion is an all-timer: [49]why is the sky blue? + +In my notes, I wrote: + + An ideal flavor of explanation. Serious and open. “Let’s figure this out + together.” + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +I loved [50]this rol­licking event at the Com­puter His­tory Museum on the +occa­sion of Apple’s 50th anniversary, 1976-2026. Chris Espinosa’s +recol­lec­tion of [51]a par­tic­ular ser­vice pro­ce­dure for the Apple III +made my day. There’s no escaping phys­ical reality! + +The CHM is a treasure; if you live in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area you MUST at +some point make your pilgrimage, just to gaze at the glo­rious hulks. Last +summer, I wrote [52]a quick dis­patch from the Vin­tage Com­puter Festival, +which is maybe a bit over­whelming for your first expe­ri­ence, but always +totally spectacular. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here is [53]a lovely memoir of a youthful career at Babbage’s, which fellow +old­timers will remember as the pre­em­i­nent soft­ware store. Yes: we used to +GO TO A STORE to pur­chase com­puter programs! + +The rise and fall of Babbage’s “rhymes” com­pletely with the +dema­te­ri­al­iza­tion of other media, and in all these cases, at least two +things are true: + + 1. The new arrangement produces breathtaking new forms of access: it has + become trivial for basically anybody to participate in these markets. + +And yet, somehow, + + 2. the old arrangement was tons more fun! + +[54]Read Lee Hutchinson’s recol­lec­tion and tell me you disagree. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +I am waiting patiently for the launch of [55]the Slate truck at the end of this +year. I’ve been leasing a Volk­swagen ID.4 since the summer, and the actual +dri­ving expe­ri­ence is won­derful — I just want to rip the screen off the +dash­board and throw it out the window. + +Come on, Slate! Give us the screen-free EV of our dreams! + +Bonus: Slate’s head­quar­ters is in the town where I grew up 😌 + +Bonus bonus: Slate’s first fac­tory is an old printing plant 😌😌 + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here is [56]the new type­face from Mass-Driver. Robin Rendle [57]notes the +confidence of this release, and I agree with him: it’s bracing and charismatic. +Also beautiful, of course. + +Mass-Driver’s [58]Lórien has become my house font for print productions, and +you’ll be seeing more of it later this year. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +My copy of [59]Pooja Saxena’s [60]India Street Lettering arrived! + +India Street Lettering [61]India Street Lettering + +It’s fab­u­lous — every spread glows: + +India Street Lettering [62]India Street Lettering + +Come on! + +India Street Lettering [63]India Street Lettering + +Pooja’s [64]incandescent compendium is a required pur­chase for anyone +inter­esting in typography, graphic design, and/or urban space. It exists +thanks to Blaft, the pub­lisher respon­sible for one of my all-time favorites, +[65]Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here is [66]a recent edi­tion of The Ani­ma­tion Obsessive that is, slantwise, +a man­i­festo about effort, skill, and the power of just making some­thing with +whatever’s before you: per­haps just [67]sand and a source of light. Great +stuff. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here’s [68]the sta­tionery from the Streamliner, a luxe train route that +oper­ated between Chicago and San Fran­cisco circa 1936-1972: + +We have retreated from the true pinnacle of coolness [69]We have retreated from +the true pinnacle of coolness + +“Enroute”!! + +That’s from [70]Stationery Object, a swoon­worthy project by [71]Robert +Stephens. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Oof … JetPens with a direct hit to the aes­thetic core, [72]this video pro­file +of a Japanese note­book maker … meltdown in 5, 4, 3 …  + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here’s the back­story of [73]a cer­tain shade of seafoam green you have seen if +you’ve spent any time in indus­trial spaces. I loved this post from Beth +Mathews — it’s beau­ti­fully presented, packed with pictures. I found my way +here [74]thanks to Drew Austin at Kneeling Bus. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here’s a good post by Drew, a few years old but new to me, arguing that [75] +tech’s indif­fer­ence to fashion is a con­tempt for the commons. That’s via +[76]Spencer Chang. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Spencer, by the way, is on a roll, with recent reports on a sub­stan­tial visit +to China: [77]part 1, [78]part 2. That second dis­patch focuses on the dig­ital +side of the expe­ri­ence: + + It all started to make sense when I dis­cov­ered that web­sites in China + are built on a com­pletely dif­ferent, insular sub­strate of + infrastructure. Mini-apps are made of custom forks of HTML, pro­pri­etary + ones for each major company, each with their own rules and syntax.3 From + the out­side (and as a foreigner), you can’t even access most of the apps + because they are gated behind login screens that require Chi­nese phone + numbers. + + Living in China means living in an alter­nate Internet. + + A weird hybrid between tra­di­tional mobile apps and web­sites, these apps + feel uni­form and imper­sonal, while stream­lining all the core parts of an + everyday app. They load fast, even on old hardware, con­nect + auto­mat­i­cally to your identity, and inte­grate directly with your wallet + for payments. + +You might have read ver­sions of “the China report” before, but it’s gen­uinely +dif­ferent and useful to encounter this expe­ri­ence fil­tered through +Spencer’s gaze, his ana­lyt­ical frame: humane and tactile, rather than +com­mer­cial and abstract. + +Spencer is one of the great inte­gra­tors of the dig­ital and phys­ical; [79] +his newsletter is absolutely worth following, a guide toward an alter­nate +internet of its own. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Looking at train-adjacent art for this edi­tion, I dis­cov­ered [80]this 1909 +photo of John Jacob Astor, and found myself really cap­ti­vated by his +expression: + +John Jacob Astor leaning from a train window, 1909 [81]John Jacob Astor leaning +from a train window, 1909 + +Maybe a stretch, but I detect a trace of [82]angel-of-his­tory energy there …  + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +[83]BEHOLD, GALVATRON! A few weeks ago I came across this clip from The +Transformers: The Movie, and remem­bered (or realized) that this scene in +par­tic­ular is a top-five for­ma­tive aes­thetic input of my life. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +I’m a fan of the music sub­genre called dun­geon synth, which tends to sound +like the sound­track to a video game you can only dimly remember. [84]Hole +Dweller is great as a starting point. Pos­sibly my #1 favorite is [85]this +album by Rhandir and Disparition, which was in heavy rota­tion while I wrote +[86]Moonbound. That playlist was 25% dun­geon synth, 25% [87]Håkon Kornstad, +and 50% every ver­sion of Seven Nation Army ever recorded. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +A think tank posted a link to [88]this chart …  + +USDA Charts of Note [89]USDA Charts of Note + + … [90]calling it “a slow, steady, easy-to-miss kind of progress.” + +Yet … you’d have to know a lot more to make that judgment, wouldn’t you? For +example, one might ask, is the food on the right side of the graph as +nutri­tious as the food on the left side? What’s the com­po­si­tion of the +average meal on either side? And what about the wages of the people pro­ducing +and pack­aging the food? + +An exercise: plot the trend in health­care costs on the same graph. + +My instinct tells me that about half of the change is indeed positive, +attrib­ut­able to plain old productivity, while the other half is malign, and +we’d be better off as a society if that trend­line tracked a little higher. + +Food is life’s foundation; it powers our mus­cles and our minds; who said it +ought to be cheap? + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here is an actu­ally-hilarious offering from SNL: [91]an inter­view with the +most- and least-used emojis. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here is [92]Dirt Books! Any­time any­body dares (or bothers) to launch a weird +new imprint in the 21st century, we cheer! + +P.S. I liked this recent Dirt piece: [93]The feeling of the old world fading +away + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here is [94]an inter­view with Astrid Eich­horn, a physi­cist working on +“asymptotic safety”, which might be sum­ma­rized as “the only way out is +through”: + + The apparent break­down of par­ticle physics at [the Planck] scale has + inspired some dra­matic theories. Some physi­cists argue that this failure + point in our under­standing tells us that the uni­verse is fun­da­men­tally + com­posed not of par­ticles, but of vibrating strings and membranes. [ … ] + + Eich­horn and her col­leagues are pur­suing a dif­ferent pos­si­bility. In + 1976, Steven Weinberg, a the­o­rist who would even­tu­ally earn a Nobel + Prize, pointed out that if you zoomed in far enough, you might reach a + place where the rules of physics would stop changing. New realms would stop + appearing; the inten­si­ties of the forces would stabilize; and gravity + would turn out to make per­fect sense after all. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Here is a fab­u­lous matchup: [95]Dwarkesh Patel inter­views Ada Palmer. +Dwarkesh is best-known for his inter­views of AI luminaries, but/and his side +quests into his­tory are reli­ably magnetic. Ada is a cel­e­brated author of +sci­ence fic­tion who is also a his­to­rian of the Renaissance. + +The seg­ment [96]discussing Guten­berg and the very early days of the printing +press is par­tic­u­larly compelling. I have read a lot — really a lot! —  about +this period, yet I found new fram­ings here; I love Ada’s focus on +dis­tri­b­u­tion networks. This is just extremely fun and inter­esting all +around. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +One of the pri­vate con­trac­tors building Cal­i­fornia’s high-speed rail line +graces us with the most William Gibson-ass name you’ve ever heard: [97]Dragados +Flatiron 😎 + +A Carload of Potato from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell [98]A Carload of +Potato from California, 1909, Edward H. Mitchell + +Here’s [99]a reminder, from Alan Jacobs, of the power of a phrase and an image +from Robert Mac­far­lane: + + A decade ago Robert Mac­far­lane pub­lished a won­derful book called + Land­marks [ … ] which argues for the preser­va­tion and exten­sion of the + accu­rate descrip­tion of our nat­ural environments. The book col­lects, + from a range of British places, local words for local things, and + Mac­far­lane calls that col­lec­tion his Counter-Desecration Phrasebook. It + occurs to me that we need many Counter-Desecration Phrase­books to help us + pro­tect and pre­serve what Gan­dalf calls “all worthy things that are in + peril as the world now stands.” + +Mac­far­lane’s focus is on the pre­ci­sion of local language, yet in Alan’s +endorse­ment I detect the pos­si­bility of broader application. For my part, I +think any and every little per­sonal newsletter or blog, if it’s con­structed +with sin­cerity and care, acts as a tiny CDP. Or per­haps it pro­vides one page +in the larger CDP: still meager com­pared to all the books of ruin on all the +shelves of the world … and so what? + +CAR­LOAD OF POTATO! + +From Oakland, + +Robin + +P.S. You’ll receive my next newsletter in mid-April, con­taining the +announce­ment of a new project and a new product. + +March 2026 + +I’m [100]Robin Sloan, a writer, printer, & manufacturer. The best thing to do +here is sign up for my email newsletter: + +[101][ ] [102][Subscribe] +This web­site doesn’t col­lect any infor­ma­tion about you or your reading. +It aspires to the speed and pri­vacy of the printed page. + +Don’t miss [103]the colophon. Hony soyt qui mal pence + + +References: + +[1] https://www.robinsloan.com/ +[2] https://www.robinsloan.com/about/ +[3] https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/ +[4] https://www.robinsloan.com/shop/ +[5] https://pdimagearchive.org/images/66f6eaa7-2369-47bf-a2d3-321e06af8514/ +[6] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#rooms +[7] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#links +[8] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#japan +[9] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#japan-trains +[10] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781668023488?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[11] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#japan-books +[12] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780802129628?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[13] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781335147158?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[14] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/books/what-you-are-looking-for-is-in-the-library-michiko-aoyama.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[15] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/double-pulse/#books +[16] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781974738809?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[17] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780802142443?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[18] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781250192813?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[19] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781250390585?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[20] https://theemmapress.com/shop/prose/essays/how-kyoto-breaks-your-heart/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[21] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780593732540?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[22] https://craigmod.com/books/things_become_other_things/tourpod/04-booksmith-robin_sloan/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[23] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780393320275?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[24] https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/decagon-house-murders/ +[25] https://pushkinpress.com/collection/japanese-crime/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[26] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781782275008?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[27] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781782278849?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[28] https://jimrion.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[29] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9780063433083?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[30] https://robinrendle.com/notes/strange-pictures/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[31] https://jimrion.com/2025/01/23/translating-strange-pictures/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[32] https://bookshop.org/a/541/9781913394936?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[33] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#japan-more-trains +[34] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiji_Mitooka?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[35] https://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/english/train/index.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[36] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiji_Mitooka?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[37] https://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/english/train/index.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[38] https://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/english/train/index.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[39] https://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/english/train/index.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[40] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishi_Kyushu_Shinkansen?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[41] https://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/english/train/index.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[42] https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15563130?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[43] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/#links +[44] https://pdimagearchive.org/images/ba5855cc-22d7-48ce-bcdd-0220700bf5d8/ +[45] https://cottonmodules.bandcamp.com/track/magnet-train?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[46] https://www.robinsloan.com/winter-garden/ +[47] https://www.robinsloan.com/winter-garden/magic-circle/ +[48] https://davidoks.blog/p/why-the-atm-didnt-kill-bank-teller?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[49] https://explainers.blog/posts/why-is-the-sky-blue/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[50] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCSNJgI2LFI +[51] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCSNJgI2LFI#t=32m30s +[52] https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/inevitable-technologies/ +[53] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/how-i-launched-3-consoles-and-found-true-love-at-babbages-store-no-9/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[54] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/how-i-launched-3-consoles-and-found-true-love-at-babbages-store-no-9/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[55] https://www.slate.auto/en?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[56] https://mass-driver.com/typefaces/md-ui/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[57] https://robinrendle.com/notes/reading-without-reading/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[58] https://mass-driver.com/typefaces/md-lorien/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[59] https://www.instagram.com/matratype/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[60] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[61] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[62] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[63] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[64] https://www.blaft.com/products/india-street-lettering?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[65] https://www.blaft.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/ghosts-monsters-and-demons-of-india?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[66] https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/sand-and-a-source-of-light?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[67] https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/sand-and-a-source-of-light?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[68] https://stationeryobject.com/posts/streamliner-city-of-san-francisco-train/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[69] https://stationeryobject.com/posts/streamliner-city-of-san-francisco-train/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[70] https://stationeryobject.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[71] https://www.robertstephens.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[72] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_UvVavl-eE +[73] https://bethmathews.substack.com/p/why-so-many-control-rooms-were-seafoam?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[74] https://kneelingbus.substack.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[75] https://reallifemag.com/worn-out/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[76] https://spencer.place/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[77] https://news.spencer.place/p/chinese-period-of-my-life-a-visit?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[78] https://news.spencer.place/p/the-chinese-internet?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[79] https://news.spencer.place/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[80] https://pdimagearchive.org/images/c5961d1a-89c0-4506-89a2-8c458935710b/ +[81] https://pdimagearchive.org/images/c5961d1a-89c0-4506-89a2-8c458935710b/ +[82] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[83] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzUU-aiDm-c +[84] https://holedweller.bandcamp.com/track/an-empty-tankard-of-ale-at-the-floating-log-inn?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[85] https://disparition.bandcamp.com/album/troika-ep?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[86] https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/ +[87] https://hakonkornstad.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-sarajevo?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[88] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=100002&utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[89] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=100002&utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[90] https://x.com/HumanProgress/status/2028636514414915783?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[91] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59CpJqCbxXs +[92] https://books.dirt.fyi/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[93] https://dirt.fyi/article/2026/02/the-feeling-of-the-old-world-fading-away?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me +[94] 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