It’s the kind of morning where you forget to put the paper filter in the AeroPress.

Excellent analysis in Vlast today on Kazakh political economy. : If you read Russian, I highly recommend you read. Два года ожидания социальной справедливости Токаева - Аналитический интернет-журнал Власть Here’s a quote from Dosym Satpaev “«Протестность в Казахстане никуда не делась. Она просто не аккумулирована в рамках политических оппозиционных партий и …

Spill by Cory Doctorow: Finished reading: Spill by Cory Doctorow 📚 This short story is part of Cory Doctorow’s excellent Little Brother series. There’s a million things I like about these books, but one of my favorite things is how Doctorow sneaks in basic digital security practices, especially for activists, as an …

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Friends don’t let friends send emails on Monday morning.

All that I’m going to say is that the failure to include a GIF-picker in the Signal desktop app on Windows is a gross omission.

First sub-freezing (25 F / -4 C) ride of the year. Fortunately, it was just the two miles to the metro station, as I don’t know if I’m emotionally prepared prepared for this yet. #biketooter

The world’s 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars Absolutely, but this article also doesn’t mention that electric bikes and mopeds require far fewer critical minerals for their batteries, which have their own grave externalities.

This video does a great job summarizing the problems and challenges facing the MARC train in Maryland. I second the author’s call for regular weekend service on the Brunswick and Camden lines.

Between travel, deadlines, being sick, and the elections, November just felt like I was trying to survive. Here’s to creating my own conditions to thrive in December.

Finished reading: 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson; 📚 While not quite as thought provoking as the Mars Trilogy or Ministry of the Future, which may have shifted some of my own politics, Kim Stanley Robinson still impressed me with his world building and his ability to combine science with politics. In …

Maybe if I switch notes apps just one more time I will finally be productive, organized, and happy. Maybe I will be unstoppable.

At that point in the year where I’m unmoored in time, unsure what year it is. Is it 2024? 2025? 2023? Am I still enduring 2020? Who knows? Let’s pick one at random to put on this document and find out.

Finished reading: Villa and Zapata by Frank McLynn 📚 I’d previously listened to the excellent Revolutions Podcast series on the Mexican Revolution, which peaked my interest in learning more. I was fascinated to learn more about the conditions during the Porfiriato that lead to the Mexican …

The Strange Reason Nearly Every Film Ends by Saying It’s Fiction (You Guessed It: Rasputin!) Virtually every film in modern memory ends with some variation of the same disclaimer: “This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely …

I watched The Soul of a Cyclist on my flight home today. It’s a very lovely documentary about people who like to ride vintage bikes, shot in Portugal and England. Recommendended for bike lovers just looking for something charming to watch.

Coming to Germany certainly hasn’t done anything to make me covet a fancy German mid-drive cargo bike any less.

I had a free day because of the way my flights worked out, so I took the train from Frankfurt to check out rainy Heidelberg.

But in Gilded Ages — such as the one that dominated the turn of the 20th century and the one we’re now in — the ultra-rich abandon such humility. The linkages between wealth and power becomes apparent for all to see. Conspicuous consumption becomes the handmaiden of conspicuous clout. In such …

This episode of The War on Cars with Adam McKay was exactly what I needed to hear in this political moment. This was an episode about the climate emergency, but it was also an episode about why it’s important to let ourselves feel the anger, the sadness, and the grief necesssry to process the …

Brussels has a metro. Look at it!

Little Brother: Finished reading: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow 📚 I wish I found this book when I was younger. I didn’t truly understand public-private key encryption until I read Cryptonomicon. This was an easier explanation. More importantly, this book is grounded in the defense of civil rights.