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Taming nature

June 19, 2023

> The same discipline, if not creativity, has helped make Budweiser the most popular beer in the world. Its sheer consistency, across tens of billions of...

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Late spring, three ways

June 15, 2023

There is so much I could talk about right now. Draft just reached its earliest ever break-even point on the year. I feel like I’m back at full strength in my...

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Laying siege to Dongletown

June 13, 2023

When I first bought a bad laptop in 2014, it had some USB-C ports and nothing else, and so I had to buy some dongles. I eventually spent $500 on dongles. I...

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Basil’s rule of innovation

June 7, 2023

New developments appear to have occurred in technology. Most people have viewed them with grim skepticism, saying that the new thing is gross, weird,...

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What is wonder now?

June 5, 2023

I’m writing this a couple of days before Apple’s big conference, and it should go out shortly after. This is deliberate. I want to be proven wrong here. I...

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What should you ignore in an airport?

June 2, 2023

Almost everything. Airports are malls for the liminal damned. There are exceptions, which is why this text is longer than two sentences. Food 95% of airport...

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Randy text

May 31, 2023

If you had to pick a favorite baseball play of the past 5 years, you could go the “storied dinger” route with the most important swing of the entire...

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Two contexts

May 29, 2023

Two years ago, I went on a bit of a failure of a first date. She was really cool, had a fascinating job, was lovely to talk to. But she was freshly out of a...

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Sound Princess

May 25, 2023

To know Japan is to crap there.‌ You are aware of smart toilets, yes, but you are perhaps not aware of their omnipresence there. Japan tracks sales of smart...

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Matched pair

May 19, 2023

I ran an errand last week and flew to Los Angeles to get a tattoo that is actually two tattoos. No, they don’t have any meaning, just vibes. Found the guy’s...

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Chockablock

May 17, 2023

Building Block makes sculptural forms that double as handbags. They are geometric, postmodern-architectural, prioritizing geometric formalism over any strict...

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Yelling at teapots

May 15, 2023

The more museums you go to, the more you get bored of big museums. This happens. The crowds are too much, the collection is too vast, you get fatigue within...

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Zine text

May 11, 2023

Next Saturday, May 20, I’ll be exhibiting at Chicago Zine Fest alongside my pal Rachel’s Bitza Press. This is probably a big deal. People have been waiting...

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First harvest

May 8, 2023

Every April it is ramps season, and every April there is ramps backlash. They are overhyped, one hears. Stop obsessing over them. Ramp dunk pieces always...

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Wait

May 4, 2023

In America, we dread and avoid lines. If there is a line for food, the food is almost always overrated, and we should never get in it. Airport security has a...

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Oh, neat

May 2, 2023

We are all desperate. New product categories are never enough. Technology must distend, blob-like, across all of civilization. In our frantic desire to find...

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In & out

April 28, 2023

You know, vaguely, the dinner party line: did you know 7-Eleven is amazing in Japan? And yes it is, of course it is. Japanese 7-Eleven, which I beseech you...

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Wait for one

April 26, 2023

When I first got Basil, I would speak vaguely of the sort of dog I wanted: black, around 50 pounds, a shelter mutt goofball. Nobody could visualize this....

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Meow full

April 24, 2023

Of course this happened at a conference. Of course. You are provided several community-building activities, told to choose one, and it is going to be Meow...

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Bar Generic

April 21, 2023

How much fruit juice can you get away with? Is 5% an ABV you can find yourself agreeing with? What is the purpose of using spirits at all if they’re not even...

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