Why Soviet cities are insanely well designed – SovietBorn on Youtube: Not quite actually, she goes off to list many of the cons towards the last third of the video. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater though, there are ways to address the cons without abandoning everything that ever went into Soviet architecture.
China's City of the Future: Utopia or Dystopia – TechAltar on Youtube: Looks like Shenzhen is kind of out of this world.
Namibia Watering Hole – 24/7 lives stream of a watering hole in the Namibian desert, where a variety of animals come to quench their thirst. First time I popped in, I caught what I think is a hyena (it was night time) taking a little sip. You also catch much delightful out-of-frame wildlife sounds.
Decade of Danger – “the United States expended almost 10 million tonnes of ammunition during the Vietnam War, doing so at a pace of nearly two million tonnes per year during peak efforts in 1968 and 1969.[5] The roughly four million 155mm artillery shells the U.S. and EU have supplied to Ukraine over nearly three years of war would altogether weigh only about 180,000 tonnes. The American defense industrial base is still far from ready for sustained industrial war, and with history suggesting 12-to-24-month lead times being the norm for scaling up production even under emergency conditions, prudence counsels for accelerating the process (Figure 1). Billions of dollars spent on extra stockpiles during the Decade of Danger pales in comparison to the humanitarian costs and trillions of dollars in losses that conflict could bring.” They're calling this the “Decade of Danger” now?
Switch-Lit – Collaborative story-writing app for the collective imagination.
Via Dense Discovery #333:
WE HAVE NEVER BEEN WOKE: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite by Musa al-Gharbi
“Musa al-Gharbi argues that the rise and influence of ‘wokeness’ in contemporary discourse is often overstated and misunderstood. With data and historical context, al-Gharbi challenges common assumptions about social progress, activism and political identity, offering a nuanced perspective on the limits and contradictions of what he calls ‘symbolic capitalists’. 'In education, media, nonprofits, and beyond, members of this elite work primarily with words, ideas, images, and data, and are very likely to identify as allies of antiracist, feminist, LGBTQ, and other progressive causes. Their dominant ideology is ‘wokeness’ and, while their commitment to equality is sincere, they actively benefit from and perpetuate the inequalities they decry.'”
Adding to my tbr, because it sounds spot on.
Digital Degrowth: Technology in the Age of Survival by Michael Kwet
RUIN ME, new single from Max Fractal.
Papeer – Curate a media feed from RSS, websites, and substacks and sync with your e-reader!
Bruce Sterling's Shelfie, in Ibiza!
“We’ve become incredibly good at turning collective challenges into personal shortcomings.”
— Kai, from Dense Discovery #327
My Most Dangerous Year: “In my view, whacking corporate CEOs isn’t an acceptable method of solving grievances. But perhaps the Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque idolization of someone seen as striking a blow to the system is a symptom of capitalism run amok.” — Marlon Weems for Oldster.
Bauhaus Manifesto: Walter Gropius' manifesto from 1919.
How the Federal Government Fell: “What is happening across the federal government right now is unprecedented. But this is not Germany in the 1930s; it’s not the fall of the Soviet Union. We grasp at analogies to help contextualize current events that escape understanding. There are similarities, but what’s happening is new, very American, and very 21st century. In 50 years it will be talked about in the vein of ‘What happened to the United States in the mid-2020s.’”—Garrison Davis
Chinpokomon Diplomacy: “On the surface, the conversation went smoothly — at least for the American President, who announced Japanese concession after concession without ceding much in return. And Ishiba pointedly refused to engage with questions about tarrifs. It might make one wonder what Japan stands to gain. The short answer is everything.” —Matt Alt
Comics Sans Frontiers @ Rice University in Houston, March 20-23: Featuring keynote presentation by Art Spiegelman, original art by Jack Katz, and full program jampacked with participants from around the world. Sadly, I'll be out if the U.S. well before then.
BRIDGE by Matt Madden: Narrated by the artist.
You can't post your way out of Fascism: By Janus Rose at 404 Media.
War for Eternity: Warren Ellis on the book by Benjamin R. Teitelbaum.
General thoughts by Warren Ellis on navigating the current platform-scape: “My thing was, does anyone really want to fracture common culture and a shared marketplace any more than it already is? And an hour later, I thought, common culture is a delusion of my age. Common platforms, perhaps, but platforms are contingent and temporary. We are all 'creators' now.”
The Future Is Too Easy: David Roth's takedown of this year's consumer electronics convention in Las Vegas.
The Colors of Motion: Prints that stack the average colour of each frame from popular films into a timeline.
Doing nothing with your favorite people is really, really good for you: The fact that this needed to be an essay at all and is in fact being shared around without even an inkling of a “no-duh” attitude is evidence of one of the deepest maladies of Western civilization.
How communal living makes cooking easier, cheaper, and better: Echoing my very same sentiments as the above link does.
Ugur Galenkus uses photography to juxtapose war and peace.
