Upgrade Hugo to 0.160.1

.build.yml

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ triggers:
     condition: failure
     to: david@davideisinger.com
 environment:
-  HUGO_VERSION: 0.159.2
+  HUGO_VERSION: 0.160.1
 tasks:
   # Install Hugo + Bundler, and make all subsequent steps cd into site root
   - setup: |

.dictionary

@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ ciphertext
 cliophate
 commenters
 containsmultiple
+copypasta
 davideisinger
 declutter
 decryptor
@@ -110,6 +111,7 @@ pandoc
 pgpull
 playdate
 poppler
+popsicles
 preg
 projectname
 psgrep
@@ -158,6 +160,7 @@ treehouse
 typus
 unfocuses
 unfuddle
+unrequested
 upsell
 userland
 viget

bin/archive

@@ -1,11 +1,71 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
-require "cgi"
 require "uri"
 require "digest"
 require "time"
+require "optparse"
+require "nokogiri"
+require "ferrum"
 
-*urls = ARGV
+def absolutize_url(url, base_url)
+  return url if url.nil? || url.empty?
+  return url if url.match?(/\A(?:data|javascript|mailto|tel|about):/i)
+
+  URI.join(base_url, url).to_s
+rescue URI::InvalidURIError
+  url
+end
+
+def absolutize_srcset(srcset, base_url)
+  srcset.split(",").map do |entry|
+    parts = entry.strip.split(/\s+/, 2)
+    next if parts.empty?
+
+    src = absolutize_url(parts[0], base_url)
+    descriptor = parts[1]
+
+    [src, descriptor].compact.join(" ")
+  end.compact.join(", ")
+end
+
+def absolutize_links!(doc, base_url)
+  %w[href src poster].each do |attr|
+    doc.css("[#{attr}]").each do |node|
+      node[attr] = absolutize_url(node[attr].to_s.strip, base_url)
+    end
+  end
+
+  doc.css("[srcset]").each do |node|
+    node["srcset"] = absolutize_srcset(node["srcset"].to_s.strip, base_url)
+  end
+end
+
+def text_from_html(html)
+  IO.popen(["w3m", "-dump", "-T", "text/html", "-o", "display_link_number=1"], "r+") do |io|
+    io.write(html)
+    io.close_write
+    io.read
+  end
+end
+
+options = {
+  manual: false,
+  browser_path: nil
+}
+
+OptionParser.new do |parser|
+  parser.banner = "Usage: bin/archive [--manual] [--browser-path PATH] URL [URL ...]"
+
+  parser.on("--manual", "Open a visible browser window so you can complete anti-bot challenges") do
+    options[:manual] = true
+  end
+
+  parser.on("--browser-path PATH", "Path to the browser binary to launch") do |path|
+    options[:browser_path] = path
+  end
+end.parse!
+
+urls = ARGV
 clipboard = ""
 
 unless urls.any?
@@ -15,43 +75,70 @@ end
 
 puts "references:"
 
-urls.each do |url|
+if options[:manual] && options[:browser_path].nil?
-  page_content = `curl -s #{url}`
+  brave_path = "/Applications/Brave Browser.app/Contents/MacOS/Brave Browser"
-  text_content = `w3m -dump -T text/html -o display_link_number=1 #{url}`
+  options[:browser_path] = brave_path if File.exist?(brave_path)
+end
 
-  begin
+browser = Ferrum::Browser.new(
-    title = CGI.unescapeHTML(
+  headless: !options[:manual],
-      page_content
+  timeout: 30,
-        .scan(/<title[^>]*>(.*?)<\/title>/mi)
+  process_timeout: options[:manual] ? 60 : 30,
-        .first
+  browser_path: options[:browser_path],
-        .first
+  browser_options: { "no-sandbox": nil }
-        .strip
+)
-      )
+page = browser.create_page
-  rescue => ex
+
-    warn "Title error (#{ex}; #{url})"
+begin
-    exit 1
+  urls.each do |url|
+    begin
+      page.goto(url)
+
+      if options[:manual]
+        warn "Manual mode: finish any challenge in the browser window for #{url}"
+        warn "Press Enter here once the page is fully loaded."
+        $stdin.gets
+        warn "Capturing page..."
+      else
+        page.network.wait_for_idle(timeout: 10)
+      end
+
+      html = page.body.encode("UTF-8", invalid: :replace, undef: :replace, replace: "")
+      doc = Nokogiri::HTML(html)
+      absolutize_links!(doc, url)
+
+      title = doc.at("title")&.text&.strip
+      raise "No title found" if title.to_s.empty?
+
+      text_content = text_from_html(doc.to_html)
+    rescue => ex
+      warn "Archive error (#{ex}; #{url})"
+      exit 1
+    end
+
+    hash = Digest::MD5.base64digest(url + text_content)
+      .scan(/[a-z0-9]/i)
+      .first(6)
+      .join
+      .downcase
+
+    filename = "#{URI.parse(url).host.gsub(".", "-")}-#{hash}.txt"
+
+    File.write("static/archive/#{filename}", text_content)
+
+    yaml = <<~STR
+      - title: "#{title}"
+        url: #{url}
+        date: #{Time.now.utc.iso8601}
+        file: #{filename}
+    STR
+
+    puts yaml
+
+    clipboard += yaml
   end
-
+ensure
-  hash = Digest::MD5.base64digest(url + text_content)
+  browser.quit
-    .scan(/[a-z0-9]/i)
-    .first(6)
-    .join
-    .downcase
-
-  filename = "#{URI.parse(url).host.gsub(".", "-")}-#{hash}.txt"
-
-  File.write("static/archive/#{filename}", text_content)
-
-  yaml = <<~STR
-    - title: "#{title}"
-      url: #{url}
-      date: #{Time.now.utc.iso8601}
-      file: #{filename}
-  STR
-
-  puts yaml
-
-  clipboard += yaml
 end
 
 IO.popen("pbcopy", "w") { |pb| pb.write(clipboard) }

content/journal/dispatch-38-april-2026/index.md

@@ -1,58 +1,119 @@
 ---
 title: "Dispatch #38 (April 2026)"
-date: 2026-03-30T10:45:45-04:00
+date: 2026-04-08T09:40:13-04:00
 draft: false
 tags:
 - dispatch
+references:
+- title: "D.C. Just Experienced Its Largest 24-Hour Temperature Drop Ever"
+  url: https://secretdc.com/dc-largest-24-hour-temperature-drop-ever/
+  date: 2026-04-08T04:55:18Z
+  file: secretdc-com-qmsrfn.txt
+- title: "3D Print Your Way Out of Chaos With Gridfinity Modular Storage Systems: All You Need to Know | All3DP"
+  url: https://all3dp.com/2/gridfinity-simply-explained/
+  date: 2026-04-08T05:22:41Z
+  file: all3dp-com-1skmik.txt
+- 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
+Finally warming up around here (though we did get hit by the [largest 24-hour temperature drop in recorded history][1] while we were up visiting my folks). We took the kids to a [Holi][2] celebration, which was a huge mess and a ton of fun. The colors don't come through here but I think the joy does.
-- Biking
-- Holi
-- DC
-  - Snow
-  - Sold car
-- Baltimore
-  - Pendry
-  - Ken show
-- Solo weekend
-- [Double trailer][1]
-- Running going well
-- Vegas
 
-[1]: https://burley.com/products/honey-bee
+[1]: https://secretdc.com/dc-largest-24-hour-temperature-drop-ever/
+[2]: https://durhamcentralpark.org/upcoming-event/holi-the-festival-of-colors/
 
 <!--more-->
 
 {{<dither IMG_0004.jpeg "782x600">}}Face-first into the color chaos.{{</dither>}}
 {{<dither IMG_0009.jpeg "782x600">}}Blue faces, red popsicles, and the kind of chaos that means the afternoon went well.{{</dither>}}
 
-> Look at us! We’re the luckiest kids in the world!
+Then we drove up to DC, left the kids with my folks, and took the train to Baltimore to catch [my friend's][3] show and spend a little bit of time in the city. We stayed at the [Pendry][4] which was super nice -- we'll be back. Sold the old car while were up there -- 🪦 legend.
 
--- Nev
+[3]: https://www.instagram.com/__carillon/
+[4]: https://www.pendry.com/baltimore/
+
+I did my yearly trip to Vegas to watch basketball with some old friends. Great times, and my one single bet hit (you can tell how much I like the actual gambling part of the trip). We had dinner one night at [Mott 32][5] at the Venetian, and I'm not really a fine dining guy but this was killer.
+
+[5]: https://mott32.com/las-vegas
+
+Claire went to visit a friend out in California, and I picked up a [double trailer][6] off CraigsList so I could take both kids around on the bike. We passed a couple as we were riding downtown and Nev yelled, "Look at us! We’re the luckiest kids in the world!" which I'm writing down here to remember forever.
+
+[6]: https://burley.com/products/honey-bee
+
+April's looking much calmer. I've got [a race][7] in a few weeks, feeling pretty good about that. I'd like to get to where I'm doing 3-4 big races a year; I struggle to get up off the couch without some kind of deadline. Otherwise, prepping that hackathon project I [mentioned last month][8] for our big reveal in early May, biking around town, and [Gridfinity][9]-ing my entire house.
+
+[7]: https://tarheel10miler.com/
+[8]: /journal/dispatch-37-march-2026/#pointless-palooza
+[9]: https://all3dp.com/2/gridfinity-simply-explained/
 
 ### This Month
 
-* Adventure:
+* Adventure: [Tar Heel 10 Miler][7]
-* Project:
+* Project: finish that hackathon project -- a teammate's doing incredible work on the hardware side; I need to make sure the software is equally compelling
-* Skill:
+* Skill: live music performance (that concert we went to in Baltimore inspired me to sign up for a talent show, which I better get serious about in short order)
 
 ### Reading & Listening
 
-* Fiction: [_Title_][2], Author
+* Fiction: [_The Strength of the Few_][10], James Islington (still loving this but it is a complex tale he is weaving; don't pull a Rothfuss on me man)
-* Non-fiction: [_Title_][3], Author
+* Non-fiction: I'm not reading much non-fiction these days; [open to suggestions][11]
-* Music: [_Title_][4], Author
+* Music: [_Tanto Tiempo_][12], Bebel Gilberto
 
-[2]: https://bookshop.org/
+[10]: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Strength-of-the-Few/James-Islington/Hierarchy/9781982141233
-[3]: https://bookshop.org/
+[11]: /about/#contact
-[4]: https://www.turntablelab.com/
+[12]: https://www.turntablelab.com/products/bebel-gilberto-tanto-tempo-25th-anniversary-vinyl-2lp
 
 ### Links
 
-* [Title][5]
+* [The Brand Age][13] ([via][14])
-* [Title][6]
-* [Title][7]
 
-[5]: 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.
-[6]: https://example.com/
+
-[7]: https://example.com/
+* [The Kindness Of Familiar Faces | Defector][15]
+
+  > 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][16] ([via][17])
+
+  > 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][18]
+
+  > 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][19]
+
+  > 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.
+
+[13]: https://paulgraham.com/brandage.html
+[14]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/03/30/the-brand-age
+[15]: https://defector.com/the-kindness-of-familiar-faces
+[16]: https://dirt.fyi/article/2026/02/the-feeling-of-the-old-world-fading-away
+[17]: https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/good-trains/
+[18]: https://defector.com/why-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business
+[19]: https://stopsloppypasta.ai/en/

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/

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]
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+How Bill Simmons Went All In
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+[54]264Comments
+[55]Danny Funt
+January 21, 2026
+[56][Simmons-Fanduel-1]
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+April 1, 2026
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+[80]Minor Dilemmas
+[81]
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+Rejoice, Tired Parents! Defector Will Raise Your Children Now
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+[83][DSC]
+[84]Justin Ellis
+April 1, 2026
+[85]A silhouette of a baby with Minor Dilemmas written over it
+[86]NBA
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+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. Bucknor stands with his arms crossed
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+[27] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vsMt8kzQug6h9qe9B2LObcxUFt0T-ESp/edit
+[28] https://defector.com/books-by-defectors
+[29] https://defector.com/defector-hall-of-fame
+[30] https://defector.com/masthead
+[31] https://defector.com/how-to-comment-on-defector
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+[37] https://www.twitch.tv/defectormedia
+[38] https://bsky.app/profile/defector.com
+[39] https://defector.com/products
+[40] https://defector.com/category/gambling
+[41] https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business%20-%20https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business
+[42] http://www.reddit.com/submit/?title=Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business
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+[45] https://defector.com/why-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business#coral_thread
+[46] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460323000217#ab010
+[47] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2025/12/sports-betting.html
+[48] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/13/problem-gamblers-at-15-times-higher-risk-of-suicide-study-finds
+[49] https://ir.aboutdraftkings.com/overview/default.aspx
+[50] https://licensinginternational.org/news/78283/
+[51] mailto:tips@defector.com
+[52] https://defector.com/category/journalismism
+[53] https://defector.com/how-bill-simmons-went-all-in
+[54] https://defector.com/how-bill-simmons-went-all-in#coral_thread
+[55] https://defector.com/author/danny-funt
+[56] https://defector.com/how-bill-simmons-went-all-in
+[57] https://defector.com/products
+[58] https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business%20-%20https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business
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+[89] https://defector.com/author/ray-ratto
+[90] https://defector.com/author/ray-ratto
+[91] https://defector.com/a-basketball-team-can-be-sold-but-who-owns-its-history
+[92] https://defector.com/category/the-machines
+[93] https://defector.com/go-ahead-and-use-ai-it-will-only-help-me-dominate-you
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+
+The Kindness Of Familiar Faces
+
+[41][dre]
+By [42]Drew Magary
+
+12:59 PM EDT on March 10, 2026
+
+  • [43]Share on Bluesky
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+
+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
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+
+[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
+
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+[77]NFL
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+Florida Picks A Stupid Fight Over The NFL’s Rooney Rule
+
+[79]131Comments
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+[81]Samer Kalaf
+April 1, 2026
+[82]James Uthmeier speaks at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington
+D.C.
+[83]Soccer
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+Oops, Italy Did It Again, Again!
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+April 1, 2026
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+[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]
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+A Basketball Team Can Be Sold, But Who Owns Its History?
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+
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+April 1, 2026
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+[4] https://defector.com/products
+[5] https://defector.com/login?destination=%2Fthe-kindness-of-familiar-faces
+[11] https://defector.com/tag/defector-crosswords
+[12] https://defector.com/category/nfl
+[13] https://defector.com/category/nba
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+[17] https://defector.com/category/soccer
+[18] https://defector.com/category/podcasts
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+[20] https://defector.com/category/politics
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+[24] https://defectorstore.com/
+[25] https://defector.com/how-to-pitch-defector
+[26] https://defector.com/freelancer-policies
+[27] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vsMt8kzQug6h9qe9B2LObcxUFt0T-ESp/edit
+[28] https://defector.com/books-by-defectors
+[29] https://defector.com/defector-hall-of-fame
+[30] https://defector.com/masthead
+[31] https://defector.com/how-to-comment-on-defector
+[32] https://defector.com/feed
+[33] https://defector.com/terms-of-use
+[34] https://defector.com/?pn=manage_account
+[35] https://defector.com/login?destination=%2Fthe-kindness-of-familiar-faces
+[36] https://defector.com/products
+[37] https://www.twitch.tv/defectormedia
+[38] https://bsky.app/profile/defector.com
+[39] https://defector.com/products
+[40] https://defector.com/category/advice/funbag
+[41] https://defector.com/author/drew-magary
+[42] https://defector.com/author/drew-magary
+[43] https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=The%20Kindness%20Of%20Familiar%20Faces%20-%20https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fthe-kindness-of-familiar-faces
+[44] http://www.reddit.com/submit/?title=The%20Kindness%20Of%20Familiar%20Faces&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fthe-kindness-of-familiar-faces
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+[47] https://defector.com/the-kindness-of-familiar-faces#coral_thread
+[48] mailto:funbag@defector.com
+[49] https://www.sfgate.com/author/drew-magary/
+[50] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/232152/drew-magary/
+[51] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087HC32K2/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
+[52] https://jacobin.com/2024/06/tv-streaming-private-equity
+[53] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bruce+springsteen+streets+of+minneapolis
+[54] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y_aYsZDB2Q&list=PLxA687tYuMWiJ5flW9IWiiBiRsFSXaPCe&index=1
+[55] https://defector.com/metallica-is-forever
+[56] https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/09/business/oil-iran-strait-navy-economy
+[57] https://bsky.app/profile/laurajedeed.bsky.social/post/3mggmp5lhp22h
+[58] https://defector.com/category/advice/funbag
+[59] https://defector.com/whats-the-riskiest-thing-youve-survived-eating
+[60] https://defector.com/whats-the-riskiest-thing-youve-survived-eating#coral_thread
+[61] https://defector.com/author/dave-mckenna
+[62] https://defector.com/whats-the-riskiest-thing-youve-survived-eating
+[63] https://defector.com/products
+[64] https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=The%20Kindness%20Of%20Familiar%20Faces%20-%20https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fthe-kindness-of-familiar-faces
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+[69] https://defector.com/author/drew-magary
+[70] https://bsky.app/profile/drewmagary.bsky.social
+[71] https://www.amazon.com/Drew-Magary/e/B001JS8R52/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1
+[72] https://defector.com/tag/brackets
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+[77] https://defector.com/category/nfl
+[78] https://defector.com/florida-picks-a-stupid-fight-over-the-nfls-rooney-rule
+[79] https://defector.com/florida-picks-a-stupid-fight-over-the-nfls-rooney-rule#coral_thread
+[80] https://defector.com/author/samer-kalaf
+[81] https://defector.com/author/samer-kalaf
+[82] https://defector.com/florida-picks-a-stupid-fight-over-the-nfls-rooney-rule
+[83] https://defector.com/category/soccer
+[84] https://defector.com/oops-italy-did-it-again-again
+[85] https://defector.com/oops-italy-did-it-again-again#coral_thread
+[86] https://defector.com/author/luis-paez-pumar
+[87] https://defector.com/author/luis-paez-pumar
+[88] https://defector.com/oops-italy-did-it-again-again
+[89] https://defector.com/category/advice/minor-dilemmas
+[90] https://defector.com/rejoice-tired-parents-defector-will-raise-your-children-now
+[91] https://defector.com/rejoice-tired-parents-defector-will-raise-your-children-now#coral_thread
+[92] https://defector.com/author/justin-ellis
+[93] https://defector.com/author/justin-ellis
+[94] https://defector.com/rejoice-tired-parents-defector-will-raise-your-children-now
+[95] https://defector.com/category/nba
+[96] https://defector.com/a-basketball-team-can-be-sold-but-who-owns-its-history
+[97] https://defector.com/a-basketball-team-can-be-sold-but-who-owns-its-history#coral_thread
+[98] https://defector.com/author/ray-ratto
+[99] https://defector.com/author/ray-ratto
+[100] https://defector.com/a-basketball-team-can-be-sold-but-who-owns-its-history
+[101] https://defector.com/category/the-machines
+[102] https://defector.com/go-ahead-and-use-ai-it-will-only-help-me-dominate-you
+[103] https://defector.com/go-ahead-and-use-ai-it-will-only-help-me-dominate-you#coral_thread
+[104] https://defector.com/author/hamilton-nolan
+[105] https://defector.com/author/hamilton-nolan
+[106] https://defector.com/go-ahead-and-use-ai-it-will-only-help-me-dominate-you
+[107] https://defector.com/category/mlb
+[108] https://defector.com/c-b-bucknor-fucking-up-all-over-the-place
+[109] https://defector.com/c-b-bucknor-fucking-up-all-over-the-place#coral_thread
+[110] https://defector.com/author/tom-ley
+[111] https://defector.com/author/tom-ley
+[112] https://defector.com/c-b-bucknor-fucking-up-all-over-the-place
+[113] https://defector.com/all
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+[120] https://defector.com/tips
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+[122] https://defector.com/other-stuff
+[123] https://defector.com/other-stuff
+[124] https://defector.com/defector-hall-of-fame
+[125] https://defector.com/masthead
+[126] https://defector.com/tips
+[127] https://defector.com/advertise-with-defector
+[128] https://defector.com/other-stuff
+[129] https://defector.com/other-stuff
+[130] https://defector.com/defector-hall-of-fame
+[131] https://defector.com/masthead
+[132] https://www.twitch.tv/defectormedia
+[133] https://bsky.app/profile/defector.com
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+[135] https://defector.com/terms-of-use
+[136] https://joinlede.com/

static/archive/dirt-fyi-3hauqg.txt

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+old world
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+[11]Technology
+
+Feb 5, 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
+
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+Washington, D.C. Just Experienced Its Largest 24-Hour Temperature Drop Ever
+Recorded – Here’s How It Impacted The District’s Seasonal Blooms
+
+The District just experienced its biggest 24-hour temperature drop ever
+recorded, from historic heat to freezing rain in just a matter of hours!
+
+Washington, D.C. Just Experienced Its Largest 24-Hour Temperature Drop Ever
+Recorded – Here’s How It Impacted The District’s Seasonal
+Blooms
+Kamira / Shutterstock
+Save
+Share
+[18][svg][743]
+[19]Alex Striano
+ ·  March 13, 2026
+[20] This Town Only A Few Minutes From Washington, D.C. Has Been Ranked The
+Best Place For Families To Live In America
+[21] Georgetown Will Be Transforming Into A Parisian-Style Street Market This
+Month As Part Of Its 23rd Annual French Market Event
+
+Earlier this week, the District broke local temperature records for one of the
+warmest March 10ths measured in decades, but within 24 hours, D.C. temperatures
+crashed to the point where parts of the D.C. area experienced freezing rain and
+snow!
+
+While the drop in temperature was forecasted, it truly felt impossible while
+the sun was shining and the warm air truly felt like spring.
+
+Powered By
+00:00/00:34
+10 Sec
+Sudden temperature drop brings Sunday morning snow to Centennial, Colorado, USA
+Next
+Stay
+*
+****
+
+In other words, this year’s ‘[22]false spring‘ hit Washingtonians harder than
+it ever has, and quickly humbled our hopes for an end to the cold winter
+weather.
+
+magnolias at The Enid A. Haupt Garden at the Smithsonian Castlemagnolias at The
+Enid A. Haupt Garden at the Smithsonian Castle Cathy Landry / Shutterstock
+
+How much did the temperature drop around D.C. in 24 hours?
+
+The District experienced a 51-degree swing, from 84 degrees and sunny one day,
+to 33 degrees with freezing rain and snow the next!
+
+The remarkable drop in temperature is the largest ever recorded within 24 hours
+in Washington, D.C., with records dating back to 1929.
+
+The only ever similar temperature drop on record in D.C. was nearly a century
+ago, in 1934, when temperatures went from 65 degrees to 14 degrees in a single
+day.
+
+dc cherry blossoms second stagedc cherry blossoms second stage Dusan Ilic /
+Getty Images Signature
+
+Did the record-breaking temperature ruin any of the District’s blooms or
+blossoms?
+
+Washington, D.C., is home to many gorgeous and iconic blooms that bring the
+city to life every spring, but not all of them bloom at the same time, which
+means that one bad storm is highly unlikely to impact all of the blooms and
+blossoms around the District.
+
+That being said, two particular blooms were at the highest risk of impact from
+the historic temperature drop and subsequent weather:
+
+  • The Okame cherry blossoms were just about at their peak bloom before the
+    temperature shift, which means that most of their flowers likely fell due
+    to shock from the weather.
+  • The magnolia trees around the District, which were just about to start
+    flowering, seemingly made it through the day unscathed. [23]According to
+    the Smithsonian Garden, the magnolia trees around the Enid A. Haupt Garden
+    and the Smithsonian Castle seemed to be progressing towards their bloom as
+    if unfazed.
+
+Fortunately, the District’s iconic Yoshino cherry blossoms were not impacted by
+the major shift as they are not expected to bloom until the very end of the
+month or the start of April.
+
+See also: [24]One Of Washington, D.C.’s Very First Michelin-Starred Restaurants
+Is Set To Close Its Doors After Its Final Service Next Month
+
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+[33]The UFL’s D.C. Defenders Will Be Hosting Their Home Opener This Weekend At
+Audi Field – Wale Will Be Performing At Halftime
+
+[34] April 7, 2026
+[35] [svg][d]
+
+[36]Georgetown Will Be Transforming Into A Parisian-Style Street Market This
+Month As Part Of Its 23rd Annual French Market Event
+
+[37] April 7, 2026
+[38] [svg][georgetown]
+
+[39]10 Secret Spots Around Washington, D.C. To See The Wisteria’s Purple
+Flowers Reach Their 2026 Peak Bloom
+
+[40] April 7, 2026
+[41] [svg][where-to-s]
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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+[12] https://secretdc.com/escapes/
+[13] https://secretdc.com/wellness-nature/
+[14] https://secretdc.com/secret-guides/
+[15] https://secretdc.com/sports/
+[16] https://secretdc.com/music/
+[18] https://secretdc.com/author/alexander-striano/
+[19] https://secretdc.com/author/alexander-striano/
+[20] https://secretdc.com/dc-best-place-for-families-to-live/
+[21] https://secretdc.com/georgetown-french-market-2026/
+[22] https://www.instagram.com/p/DVw1zA4jly_/
+[23] https://www.instagram.com/p/DV0zEPTkSz1/
+[24] https://secretdc.com/tail-up-goat-closing/
+[27] https://feverup.com/legal/terms_en.html
+[33] https://secretdc.com/dc-defenders-home-opener-2026/
+[34] https://secretdc.com/dc-defenders-home-opener-2026/
+[35] https://secretdc.com/dc-defenders-home-opener-2026/
+[36] https://secretdc.com/georgetown-french-market-2026/
+[37] https://secretdc.com/georgetown-french-market-2026/
+[38] https://secretdc.com/georgetown-french-market-2026/
+[39] https://secretdc.com/where-to-see-wisteria-dc-2026/
+[40] https://secretdc.com/where-to-see-wisteria-dc-2026/
+[41] https://secretdc.com/where-to-see-wisteria-dc-2026/
+[42] https://secretdc.com/tag/history/
+[43] https://secretdc.com/tag/science-nature/
+[44] https://secretdc.com/tag/spring/
+[45] https://secretdc.com/tag/winter/
+[46] https://secretdc.com/top-news/
+[47] https://secretdc.com/wellness-nature/
+[48] https://www.secretmedianetwork.com/
+[50] https://www.facebook.com/SecretDC.smn
+[51] https://www.instagram.com/secret.washington.dc/
+[52] https://secretdc.com/about-us/
+[53] https://business.feverup.com/brand-partnerships/branded-content/
+[54] https://business.feverup.com/
+[55] https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR4KmbHAoU5JlWzLbsHvgJmFV7fAn9ifhfA7Ql1FyaiQxnB0JNdo7mb6jEjgWeRmQ/pub
+[56] https://secretdc.com/dc-largest-24-hour-temperature-drop-ever/#
+[57] mailto:dc@secretmedianetwork.com
+[59] https://secretdc.com/
+[61] https://secretdc.com/things-to-do/
+[62] https://secretdc.com/top-news/
+[63] https://secretdc.com/food-drink/
+[64] https://secretdc.com/culture/
+[65] https://secretdc.com/escapes/
+[66] https://secretdc.com/wellness-nature/
+[67] https://secretdc.com/secret-guides/
+[68] https://secretdc.com/sports/
+[69] https://secretdc.com/music/
+[70] https://secretnyc.co/
+[71] https://secretlosangeles.com/
+[72] https://secretldn.com/
+[73] https://madridsecreto.co/en/
+[74] https://parissecret.com/en/
+[75] https://secretphiladelphia.co/
+[76] https://bostonuncovered.com/
+[77] https://secretdetroit.co/
+[78] https://secretatlanta.co/
+[79] https://secretchicago.com/
+[81] https://secretmedianetwork.com/
+[84] https://feverup.com/legal/terms_en.html
+[90] https://secretdc.com/about-us/
+[91] https://business.feverup.com/brand-partnerships/branded-content/
+[92] https://business.feverup.com/
+[93] https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR4KmbHAoU5JlWzLbsHvgJmFV7fAn9ifhfA7Ql1FyaiQxnB0JNdo7mb6jEjgWeRmQ/pub
+[94] https://secretdc.com/dc-largest-24-hour-temperature-drop-ever/#
+[95] mailto:dc@secretmedianetwork.com
+[96] https://www.facebook.com/SecretDC.smn
+[97] https://www.instagram.com/secret.washington.dc/
+[101] https://feverup.com/legal/terms_en.html
+[108] https://secretdc.com/dc-largest-24-hour-temperature-drop-ever/#
+[109] https://secretdc.com/dc-largest-24-hour-temperature-drop-ever/#
+[110] https://secretdc.com/dc-largest-24-hour-temperature-drop-ever/#
+[112] https://secretdc.com/dc-largest-24-hour-temperature-drop-ever/#

static/archive/stopsloppypasta-ai-lzdmgr.txt

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+[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

static/archive/www-robinsloan-com-ebxc4s.txt

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+[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] https://www.quantamagazine.org/where-some-see-strings-she-sees-a-space-time-made-of-fractals-20260311/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me
+[95] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIhVfGbREA
+[96] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIhVfGbREA#t=58m12s
+[97] https://www.dfcp23.com/?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me
+[98] https://pdimagearchive.org/images/ba5855cc-22d7-48ce-bcdd-0220700bf5d8/
+[99] https://social.ayjay.org/2026/02/25/a-decade-ago-robert-macfarlane.html?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me
+[100] https://www.robinsloan.com/about?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me
+[103] https://www.robinsloan.com/colophon/