As a knowledge worker I find it unsettling how explicit the current crop of LLM tools are in their attempt to get me to internalize the logic of management. Like personally I do not want to review PRs and tell other people what to do all day, that’s why I’m a programmer and not a middle manager
Tooze: "China is the decisive variable in climate politics going forward...when I say that China becomes the singular centre of the entire global energy drama, I’m not exaggerating. It’s true. It is the entire fossil game and by far the dominant wind and solar player."
en.ccg.org.cn/archives/88518
...what's not to love?
plus queer bodies transforming themselves to be cooler and more comfy plus general solidarity and comradeship and coziness
allegory of a post-Trump society (🐻 California Republic!) plus radical emancipation of machine intelligence plus breaking free from big tech platforms (💥take that, Grando Sando!)
just devoured @annaleen.bsky.social's Automatic Noodle in less than 24 hours. Just what I needed 🤖🍜🎯😊 -- soooo on point!
wowwww so fabulous! 😍
The MJT is one of the greatest places in all of Los Angeles. I hope they recover and reopen soon (and weirder than ever) lacmaonfire.blogspot.com/2025/07/jura...
NOOOOO!!! I really hope MJT can come back from this. A seven-engine fire?!?!
In a world where more people obsess about their work being inherently meaningful, I hope that you see your job relatively close to the left side of the chart...
A screenshot of CDOT's interactive map of bike infrastructure on the North and West Sides of Chicago. The map is bounded roughly by the south branch of the Chicago river to the south, Harlem Avenue to the west, Oakton Street to the north, and Lake Michigan to the east. Lots of greenways and protected bike lanes are visible across the extent of the map, with scattered off-street trails visible here and there as well.
A screenshot of CDOT's interactive map of bike infrastructure on the South Side of Chicago. The map is bounded roughly by the Calumet Channel to the south, Harlem Avenue to the west, I-290 to the north, and Lake Michigan to the east. Lots of greenways and protected bike lanes are visible north of I-55, but there is very little aside from painted lanes south of that. Off-street bike trails are visible along the lakefront, on which the Lakefront Trail extends down to South Shore, as well as the Major Taylor Trail on the far South Side and a few sections of trail near Wolf Lake on the far Southeast Side.
A tale of two cities, Chicago bike edition: On the left is CDOT's map of bike infrastructure on the North Side, and on the right is the South Side. Even without the legend, you can tell that these are two different worlds, with I-55 acting as a border between them
how it started vs. how it's going on the Elizabeth Line
wise words seem obvious once spoken. past me needed to hear this. maybe also present me.
a red brick factory with a black pitched roof. in the foreground is a black water tower perched on narrow legs connected by trusswork. black smokestacks are attached to the factory, and putting out pale clouds of smoke or steam. next to the black water tower is a dark pole from which are stretched wires cutting across the sky and through the clouds of smoke.
and Rufino Tamayo's 1925 Fábrica
(the Tina Modotti photograph above is called Telephone Wires, and she made it between 1923 and 1929)
a painting mostly in tones of ochre of a single-story building with a pitched roof. it is connected to another similar building. to the right, we see poles bringing a dense skein of wires down to the ground, where they gather at a point. in the foreground at the bottom of an image is a body of water where the wires and the poles create a wavy reflection. in the background are four large black pillars -- perhaps smokestacks in the distance -- joined by a series of trusses.
god these are so good!
here's Fermín Revueltas' 1921 painting Subestación (La Indianilla)
a row of telephone poles, perfectly lined up so that the poles are all hidden behind the frontmost one, and only the crossbars can be seen growing ever smaller as they recede towards the bottom of the frame. the telephone wires mostly echo this same perspectival recession, except for a few wires strung from left to right across the upper portion of the image. the background is a rich brown, lighter at the edges. along the bottom of the image can be seen a few distant telephone poles.
it feels appropriate that the cover would call out to me with a picture by Tina Modotti, since the first I remember thinking about the aesthetics of telephone poles was in a class on Mexican art. Almost ten yrs ago, I wrote a paper on the wires of her contemporaries Fermin Revueltas & Rufino Tamayo
take photos and videos of telephone wires for fun, so...obviously I'm gonna be excited about a book called "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication". yes PLEASE!
sometimes I come across a book in a bookstore and think: this was written SPECIFICALLY for me. never more than today, tho:
my buddy @resnikoff.bsky.social off the top rope with some actual class analysis www.thenation.com/article/soci...
this is Milanese design (and design for public services!) at its best: a synthesis of hard-wearing ancient materials (granite, concrete) with new (steel tread plate; steel tubing; paint) to produce a useful, lasting, and distinctive public space
a staircase. grey stone floor, grey stone walls. to left and right, on either wall, are yellow banisters fixed to the wall with circular red pins. at the bottom of the stairs is a brightly-illuminated wall, grey with a tight grid pattern, and a pair of bright red doors. above the doors is a horizontal line of small square lights
a fare barrier on the Milan metro. the barrier is made of panels of dark grey glass held up by a support post painted bright red. the support post has a cruciform plan, with the arms of the cross tapering at a forty-five-degree angle to a point at the top. the glass panels are attached to the red support post with four bright yellow rectangular panels.
the end of a bright yellow banister, fixed to the grey stone wall behind it with a circular red pin.
a yellow railing on a warm-toned stone base, seen against a cooler-toned grey marble wall.
it's not just the color scheme, though -- it's the way the metro line COMMITS to its bit: that tight grid (grey on the walls, yellow on the ceiling); those 45-degree angles tapering to sharp points used to finish the support posts
on the left side of the image, a yellow banister descends diagonally along a grey stone wall, presumably follow the tread of stairs which are out of view below frame. the yellow banister is fixed to the grey wall with circular fittings painted a contrasting bright red. natural light -- perhaps from a subway entrance -- illuminates the upper left part of the image. on the right the grey stone of the wall changes to a horizontally-striped wall covering made out of metal and painted red
a grey wall with a grid pattern topped by a row of square lights in a long metal yellow fixture. along the base of the wall, five bright red circular seats
a ceiling with a square lattice painted bright yellow. the lattice is almost as deep as each square is wide -- perhaps three inches. in the foreground are two ceiling light fixtures with the bulbs set in decorative round mesh circles painted yellow (one with a red border). in the background are four triangular yellow lights, also fixed to the ceiling
a barrier on the Milan metro. the verticals are painted red and have pointed tops; the tubular barrier itself is yellow. everything else (floor, walls) is grey -- the floor is steel tread plate, while the walls are stone (granite?)
I wouldn't expect grey, yellow, and red to go together, but somehow the M3 metro line in Milan makes the combo look SO cool. I look forward to any chance I get to ride this line as an opportunity to be immersed in this crazy color world
a colorful heraldic crest on a stone pillar. Above the crest, on a sky-blue scroll, the words "London County Council." Below, on a similar scroll, "Maitland Park Estate." The crest itself consists of blue and white wavy horizontal lines representing the Thames surmounted by St George's cross (red cross on white) covered by a golden lion surmounted by a golden crown
The London County Council has been defunct since 1965, and this coat of arms hasn't been officially in use since 1986, when Thatcher abolished its successor the GLC. But in some parts of London at least, the seal is still lovingly kept up!
Screenshot of a single question and answer from interview in the Times Literary Supplement with Ursula K. Le Guin. Here is the quote: If you could make a change to anything you’ve written over the years, what would it be? In The Dispossessed, I would mention the communal pickle barrels at street corners in the big towns, restocked by whoever in the community has made or kept more pickles than they need. I knew about the free pickles all along, but never could fit them into the book.
Ursula K. Le Guin on the true pain of being a writer
“Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business…Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive govt funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies.”
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
a corn bulb standing vertically on a beige carpet, supported by an irregular stand made out of steel rods
an LED corn bulb standing vertically on a beige carpet, supported by an irregular stand made out of steel rods
an LED corn bulb standing vertically on a beige carpet, supported by an irregular stand made out of steel rods
an LED corn bulb standing vertically on a beige carpet, supported by an irregular stand made out of steel rods
with bulb 🌽💡
learned enough about metalworking this weekend to make a rough-and-ready stand for a corn bulb by welding steel rods together 👨🏭
the telltale clue for me was that the street sign almost hidden behind the taxi reads "Pageantmaster Court". Once I saw that it was easy to find the building!
