Do I Need Books?

May 30, 2018

...as well as some new ebooks that the library makes available for free. Sometimes one’s personal library can devolve into a kind of virtue signaling, a way to seem smart when visitors drop by. In my case it’s definitely time for a book winnowing and, yes, I will still have a bookshelf populated with books I use for reference. Kelly has her own books and shelf. Of course books have a tendency to accumulate and I have no doubt that I will have to go...

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I Ate 100 Power Bars

Mr. Homegrown

March 12, 2018

Thoughtstylings

4 Comments

...make the Stasi blush, one company I met promised to provide me with, “real-time shopper behavior intelligence” with a database that goes back, “35+ years of every UPC scanned in store.” (1) When I asked if this information is tied to me personally, the rep said that it’s all connected to my credit card information before abruptly cutting off the conversation when, I think, he noticed that I was wearing a media badge. Speaking of that media badge m...

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Sad foot sign, the end is comin’

Mr. Homegrown

June 28, 2019

Design

2 Comments

...all seriousness, our corrupt city government does a very poor job of placemaking. The best they can do is name intersections after people with pathetic little signs posted high up on a signal. You know you’re in trouble when a podiatrist sign is a better placemaking option. Paris LA ain’t. I think we’re going to have to take things into our own hands and build our own Happy Foot Sad Foot Arc de Triomphe. One we do that the People’s Parliament of...

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My Facebook Problem

Mr. Homegrown

February 26, 2018

Thoughtstylings

55 Comments

...ked to the press last year revealed Facebook’s ability to monitor, in real time, the mood of teens and serve them ad content based on “when young people feel “stressed”, “defeated”, “overwhelmed”, “anxious”, “nervous”, “stupid”, “silly”, “useless” and a “failure”.” To blame social media itself is not entirely fair and would be what academics call “technological determinism,” the idea that technology drives ideology rather than the other way around...

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There’s No Such Thing as a Free Watch

Mr. Homegrown

February 16, 2018

Thoughtstylings

3 Comments

...al media “influencers.” These watches begin not as a practical way to tell time but, rather, as a physical manifestation of social media interactions. Amidst the shifting winds of Alibaba sites, dropshipping networks, Shopify templates, Instagram accounts and someone somewhere concocting the details of “Our Story,” a watch was formed, like a sudden precipitate in an unstable cloud. And almost immediately after being produced, it is reviled, doomed...

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