Defiant Sloth

What a time to release something so terrifyingly dystopian: decor to dress up your surveillance cameras.

Unexpectedly found Kirstie Kimball’s Beyond Beurre Blanc blog, and it’s tremendous. Exactly the kind of thing I’d love to write if I ever pivot out of the marketing industry… Her piece on New Scenic Cafe is perfect.

A warm voice greeted me when I called, asking me how I was. I could hear kitchen noise and guest chatter in the background. I knew exactly where the host was standing, smack in front of the door, 10 feet from the kitchen, in a waiting room likely full to the brim.​

I live on the planet Earth in 2025. I see the storms are getting worse. I see the natural world is becoming really uncontrollable and that we’re leaping before we look in terms of AI and technology creation, and how that impacts society. So, the world of Alien doesn’t seem that alien to me.

Noah Hawley on his Alien: Earth series

I do appreciate Tonx’s forthright reckoning with himself/the industry on how to operate an independent, honest DTC business without pre-established celebrity clout (I mean, outside of the coffee space, I suppose, but he is still roasting and selling coffee).

A handwritten letter from Tony Konecny details experiences and thoughts about coffee culture with underlined text and a small illustration of a coffee pot.

Halfway through Ray Nayler’s Where the Axe is Buried. If you want near-future existential dread, this is the book for you. Masterclass in pulling in a reader through approachable but slightly foreign world building with an intriguing, politically relevant story.

A book titled "Where the Axe is Buried" by Ray Nayler is placed on a table next to a half-full pint of dark beer.

Depressing.

What’s happening to news media and free speech right now in the US is going to echo across generations.

While I haven’t read it since it was released (back in 2013?), Brian K. Vaughan’s The Private Eye was particularly prescient. We’ve been heading towards its worldview for years and… have arrived, I’d say — even if every private detail about our lives hasn’t leaked, anonymity is impossible.

A tense conversation unfolds between two individuals in an office with a large window, as stormy skies and ominous shadows loom outside.

Beautiful night at the Arboretum on Saturday. They hosted a walking event under the full Harvest Moon, and just a week into our newfound discovery of this place, we’ve been twice. We’re anticpating several more visits as the temps cool and leaves change.

A dimly lit path surrounded by grass and trees is illuminated by small lights under a clear night sky.

An astute equivalency of loneliness amidst other addictive vices, but with the thesis that it’s actually more dire, and to mitigate, an indulgence in a little old fashioned vice in the spirit of sociability is, maybe, just perfectly fine.

In Britain, pubs are closing at a rate of one per day […] Today’s owners blame taxes and costs, but young people increasingly choose online gaming, porn, drugs, Netflix, and OnlyFans over nightlife. […] the risks of alcohol to a 25-year-old liver are dwarfed by those of social isolation. When I go out to bars/clubs, I don’t see drunkenness … but togetherness.

Combo articles that spell out the major problem all generations are running into: the decline of critical thinking.

I get it, books have lots of text, and reading is a process. But there are no dark pattern designs in books to optimize your time and drive attention engagement — and for good reason. It is a meditative experience, tapping our brainwaves and requiring us to think: understanding, interpreting, philosophizing, imagining, and yes, some books and study material encourage reflection and critical thinking.

We all know what happened here. The train has left the station and mass consumption patterns aren’t going to go backwards. I don’t have any suggestion for a fix. But I really feel for teachers and ex-critical thinkers everywhere.

In Monocle’s Briefing newsletter today, they highlighted the modernist/brutalist architecture of Japan’s Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium from 1964 and its risk of being torn down. At a glance, it shares a design philosophy with Death Stranding’s entrances for its Knot Cities. Love the overlap.

A modern architectural structure with a curved design in Japan, surrounded by trees, is at risk of being repurposed

We may never get another season of Scavengers Reign, but the showrunner did get a chance to release Common Side Effects (Adult Swim/streaming on HBO Max), and it’s very good. Conspiracies, miraculous fungi, detectives, on the run, big political/economic philosophies – it’s all here in fine form.

No idea how Kottke found this essay, but great companion to my previous link:

And I’m glad they’re lies. Because the makers of AI aren’t damned by their failures, they’re damned by their goals. They want to build a genie to grant them wishes, and their wish is that nobody ever has to make art again. They want to create a new kind of mind, so they can force it into mindless servitude. Their dream is to invent new forms of life to enslave.

Digital experiences continue to strive for the relentless pursuit of maximizing engaged user time, especially so with AI conversations:

Chatbot products […] are thus indeed a logical next step in the trajectory of Silicon Valley striving to create more addictive commercial software services for increasingly lonely consumers

So now we’re getting to the stage where drone warfare, once thought to be an electronic replacement to soldiers on the ground, is being eroded by the drone-frying Leonidas electromagnetic weapon. This also seems like a terrifying tool against any other avionics in the sky.

🕗 Updated my Slimmest Wallet Pursuit recommendations page. New entry for the year, probably my end-game wallet unless something, somehow, comes out that’s significantly better, or we stop using cards altogether in the future. Save you the click: it’s the Tom Bihn Minimalist Wallet #1.

A black textured wallet with a small logo in the corner lies on a white surface.

Excellent piece by Heavy Table on the Midway Men’s Club at the Minnesota State Fair. My favorite stop (often multi-stop) when I go.

But while it may be as old-school as it gets, the place is anything but dusty. It hums with life. Fairgoers swarm every side of the nondescript building, lured by what’s rumored (loudly, and often) to be the cheapest beer at the fair — maybe the worst-kept secret in St. Paul. Inside, workers sling burgers and beer out of every side of the building, moving as fast as the flat-top and the taps will allow.

illustration of a fair building against blue backdrop, with people gathered under its wooden awning that reads COLD BEER FOOD

Friendly reminder how excellent the MX Master 3S mouse is from Logitech. Sure, they may be working on this new version (4), which rumors point to having haptics and software enhancements like the Action Ring, but if you have a 3S, nothing beats it — silent clicks are golden.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime-first-experience read: I Who Have Bever Known Men. Phenomenal novel by the late Jacqueline Hartman. It weaves a harrowing exploration of selfhood to the backdrop of a retracted, minimally expositioned nightmare. I suppose you could call it my poolside summer read.

A book titled "I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jacqueline Harpman is resting on a metal mesh table.

This is a slightly ridiculous article about the increase in appetite for higher spice-level food in the US. Sure, as someone who really enjoyed well-spiced (and highly-spiced) food, it sounds like an absurd trend for the sake of burning your body’s receptors. But like anything, there’s a culinary art to well-spiced foods and spirits.

Most of these sky-high Scoville hot sauces don’t taste good, and signing a waiver to eat fried chicken drenched in Naga Viper peppers is different from the majority of folks' increasing interest in a variety of spices and “spicier” augmentation of food, or honestly, just more engagement with foods from across geographies that use “spicier” ingredients due to proximity and tradition. This all goes within reason — people are going to act like fools when foolish things are available to consume. But the fact that Fritos has 26 different Flamin' Hot products? Maybe that’s a sign that the spices they’re lacing into their chemist food actually does taste good, and perhaps there’s a national swing in taste because everyone isn’t pouring ketchup on everything anymore? Variety of choice is an interesting thing.

But maybe the science of all this makes the most sense, which the article does extrapolate:

Capsaicin, the compound that makes many spicy foods spicy, transmits pain signals to the brain, which the brain then counteracts by releasing endorphins—it’s like a runner’s high

There is something so alluring and exciting about a newsstand, particularly the kiosks abound around Lisbon, that I really wish media consumption, at least in the US, could tolerate more than just digital. Paper periodicals aren’t dead yet, but they aren’t proliferating.

Nice paper pad by Yamamoto — the Pen Addict takes it through its paces. While I don’t often write with Sharpies, it’s nice to stumble on paper that holds up well against those deep inks. Also seems suited for bullet journaling (vertical orientation), if you’re into that kind of thing.

Chris Person’s essay on Death Stranding 2 resonates.

The last four hours of Death Stranding 2 are some of the most absurd spectacle the man has ever been associated with. Kojima is constantly mugging at the camera through his characters, leaving silly, obvious references to his previous games as if to suggest that even he thinks it’s a bit absurd. Inhabiting the space often feels more like you are inhabiting Kojima’s instagram feed, like he’s gotten all the actors and directors that he personally enjoys together, put them in his weird little scanner, and he’s smashing them together like little action figures

You would have thought pristine wilderness in North American could weather pollutants better than developed areas, but even the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has reported high mercury levels despite MN cutting emissions by two-thirds over the last two decades, imperiling freshwater fishing.

Passed by this stack of fallen trees, sliced up by the city, on my morning run. We’ve been getting some wild weather this summer.

A pile of freshly cut logs of varying sizes is stacked together.