D&F 5-9-21
It’s hotting up here in the bay, with one friend reporting they even needed to use the AC today—nearly 80º! One of the things I find charming about the Bay Area is that we shrug off the ground literally moving under our feed regularly, but get too cold and too hot when the temperature falls out of the 60-70º range. As a Texan, I scoffed at this before I moved, but now I see how easy it is to get lulled into a delightful light sweater weather mood.
Bless the light sweater.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to plan a camping trip with pals, and the Sierra Nevada area is frozen. Despite Oakland being temperate AF, the valleys and mountains have major swings. My requirement is that it not get below freezing again. I like it chilly, but I was not prepared last time.
This week is a reminder of the old internets, as I stumbled into the Today in Tabs archives and even discovered a fresh take on an old favorite music player. That’s right, the original llama ass-kicker is back: Winamp. I don’t know how efficient it is, but a lot of us likely miss the days of 133 Pentiums and low bitrate MP3s or ripped WAVs. Why, back in my day, music players weren’t just a trumped-up webapp!
If you went to school in the 80s or 90s you remember when it became cool to shop at Goodwill, unless you were poor growing up (hi) and had to go there to buy clothes. The used clothes trend is back, much like crack-hugging bootcut jeans (ugh), and it’s as complicated as ever. The new rich kids are ruining things for the old rich kids. Repeat after me: there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
In more clothing news, female gymnasts now have the option to not need to dig their leotard out of their butt after ever routine. A world where women can do athletics without being ogled is a much better one, and ideally we’ll be allowed to be muscular and strong in more sports instead of thin.
Did you know that success is addictive? That’s right, those chemicals you get from finishing a project or getting a promotion are pleasing in the same fleeting way as all our good brain chemicals. If you optimize your life chasing these chemicals, there’s no there there. What if instead of trying to maximize our career, we created slack time.
While we’re relaxing and finding other ways to make our brains happy, we can also buy less. With huge islands of micro plastics floating around, it could help for us to think a lot about how much Americans consume in product and energy compared to other places. Let’s vote for triple-paned glass, and strong emissions standards, not to mention avoiding cooling our offices down to 68º in the summer. A lot of fuss is made about individual consumption, but I think this article makes a good point about global northern waste at large.
If all else fails, we can marry someone who wants to work, and we can relax and do part time work. I’m being glib, but I do hope we can do less sheer hours of work, even though this article does a less than stellar job of laying out how that might function. I think it’ll take a lot more than middle-class people having a chill time.
Links
- Mmmm beans.
- Disney is not my favorite thing, but this tweet delights me.
Closing
The newsletter took a less funny turn away from the past at the end there, sorry! If it makes you feel any better, I’m told Doge coins crashed (what does this mean?!) when Elon appeared on notably hip young show SNL. Additionally I heard he played Wario.
It’s’a cursed, Mario.
No matter where you’re reading this, I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend, and hugged a friend. I don’t plan on a horny summer, but I do want to hug loved-ones.
Take it easy, keep it safe, and stay cool, space cowgirls~