A letter to the editor, from the desk of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, lately of the river, now of the rental listing To the Editor: Sir — I have in my time been shown a great many remarkable machines, and have found that the more remarkable the machine, the more modestly its inventor will describe Read More …
Tag: article
Built Together, Billed Separately
To the Editor: Sir — I see by the papers that a concern called Amazon, whose chief business appears to be the delivery of everything to everybody by Thursday, has announced that it will spend more than one billion dollars over five years upon the towns that have the misfortune to host its data centers. Read More …
The Television Is Watching You Back
I was raised to believe a television was a box you watched. It turns out I had the arrangement backwards. Researchers at UC Davis, University College London, and a university in Madrid sat down and did the plain, unglamorous work of watching what a smart TV sends out over the wire while you watch it. Read More …
Just Plain Food :: Horchata
I’m tired of a food system built around engineered cravings and shelf life instead of actual food. Here is the recipe to yield 1.5 liters of finished horchata. Ingredients & Equipment 1 cup long-grain white rice (uncooked) 1 whole cinnamon stick 1 tsp pure vanilla extract ½ cup sugar (adjust to taste) 2 cups milk Read More …
A Letter to the Editor
From the desk of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, lately of the river, now of the republic To the Editor: Sir — I have been dead a good while now, but a man does not have to be alive to recognize a confidence game. What is being run on the American public at present is as Read More …
The Poorhouse and the Powder Keg
I have lived in enough states to know that a man who tells you the trouble is Left against Right is usually selling something, and the thing he is selling is your attention, so you won’t notice who’s holding your wallet while you argue about the bathroom or sports. Here is what I notice instead. Read More …
How Quick Fixes Borrow from the Future
A man I used to work with in Chicago had a habit of taking out small loan every Tuesday to cover his Monday night choices. By Thursday, he was working for free just to pay off the interest on Tuesday. He thought he was solving a cash problem. In truth, he was simply renting tomorrow’s Read More …
I Paid My Neighbor in a Zucchini
This post is about a zucchini, a broken microphone, and why I think the outrage cycle is the most effective inertia machine ever built. Today in Chicago it was Kanye and the ADL. Next week it’ll be someone else. I’m not interested in relitigating who’s right, I’m interested in what all this click-bait, rage-bait do Read More …
The National Cosmetic Studio
I have been observing with breathless awe the latest triumph of our grand Republic’s economic engine. We are told by the public prints that the government has appointed its first Chief Design Officer, a gentleman of immense private fortune and impeccable aesthetic taste, whose solemn patriotic duty is to “modernize the internet-facing portions” of our Read More …
A Dream Deferred by a Dollar Sign
There is a peculiar kind of weather in America today. It is a season where the rain falls only on the pavement, leaving the gardens of the ordinary man to bone-dry dust, while the glass towers of corporate high-rises are washed clean every morning by the sweat of people they never see. If we look Read More …