Author: harold

I was running to that sprinter van parked on the bank’s parking lot on Sunset and Vine. It was safe to leave it overnight, as we had a little deal with the security guards, I believe.

I am getting in, turn on the engine and it’s this Hotline Bling bullshit on, again. At that time, you can’t not hear that stupid track if you turn the radio on. If you’re entering a gas station. A restaurant. A restroom. Probably a hospital. It’s everywhere.

I’ve always disliked Drake, his nasal voice and his industry plant (his uncle is goddamn Larry Graham) manners. So seeing him getting demolished by our L.A. lyricist #1 I mean, I’m not mad.

But yeah, I’m disappointed. I’m out here designing shit for a better future. We’re learning about what powerful black men did in the music business in the 2000s and all is appalling, times 100. We’ve had the biggest protests in human history for George Floyd, and that didn’t do a-ny-thing.

Meanwhile I witness two grown millionaires talking shit while people are like “culture!!” over a quickly produced beat that is not good.

It’s annoying. I’m annoying. Let’s focus. OVer and Out.

This is the map after the 1st round the other day. The far-right is in brown, and clearly dominates the landscape.

How did they end up third in the second round? Well, my not very serious guess is that tons of French folks watched football on Friday night. It was France VS Portugal. The French team is 90% black men, and won. That made tons of French citizens feel guilty, and they pulled a switcheroo in the second round over the weekend. I don’t know if that’s very French but it feels like it is.

Far-right vibes are not gone though. They keep growing. Governing this moving forward (tripartite government) is going to be nicely chaotic.

Paul Rudolph’s Green residence:

Built in 1968-72 when the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis were hot, 3,931 square feet (365 m²). It’s big and still impossibly futuristic in 2024. Those panels above the openings are not solar panels.

In architecture, people see this and are like “I see, Paul was mixing this influence and that knowledge. Interesting.”. I just have a gazillion questions:

• Who are the clients and what’s up with them? How did it feel to live in this house? It’s in Pennsylvania, how did it do through the seasons?
• How did it feel growing up in this house? Which part of the house was the best as a child? The worst?
• Greenhouse, yay! There’s a palm tree in there, how does it feel to have a giant garden inside? How does it smell? Does it create a micro-climate? Bugs? Vegetables? Rodents?
• It was supposed to be prefab in factory and assembled on site. What happened? Why did it go the traditional route?
• How did it pass building code? What where the contentious points?
• How people reacted/react to it? Stories around that incredibly unique house?

Tons of questions. Meanwhile all I can think looking at these pictures is iterating on this design:

• At the very least twice as small. 365 m²? In this economy? Hell no.
• But if I had to keep the size, instead of stairs I’d go with a ramp going through the greenhouse. I’d use it to get some lighting on the plants in the evening.
• Solar panels, obviously. Extremely precise calculation of the sun’s position to determine the angle on the house. I’m sure they did fine, but I’m sure we can do slightly more accurate these days and catch the absolute optimum angle.
• Maybe a couple more skylights. I think I would open the living room to the kitchen, with a screen instead of a wall. Add some built-in benches in the garden, and voilà.
• I’d definitely try to do the prefab, foldable segments type of construction.

It’s a super interesting design which deserves more than being used once. I hope this stunning home is taken care of.

I was homeless and needed my plants to be taken care of. So I dropped them off at a friend’s. One planter, a year later, didn’t look so good:

The middle plant died and the ones on the left and right, were about to give up as well. This is the planter right now, three years later:

I just transferred them to a bigger, nicer one as they are thriving! The scale is off, but that small red spiky thing became this huge green spiky thing. The one on the left was in bloom all spring! They’re juicy, other plants joined them. I’m in love.

I never gave up on them. I kept watering them, once in a while. Sometimes I would forget, and they would look dehydrated. I would double-down on caring, for a short period.

And now they look fabulous.

Something something love, effort, consistency. It works.

Doing God’s work.

If there’s one field where it’s not true at all, it’s sex. Or maybe more broadly, physical activity.

Less sex doesn’t make it better. Less running doesn’t make it more enjoyable the next time. Quite the opposite, actually.

The more physical activity is a routine, the better you are at it, the better you feel.

I enjoy that in a few ways and it’s lo-vely.

My lil dude is doing fantastic.

Dear future and rest of the world,

Yup. Far-right breathing down my neck in both of my countries. Both celebrating their independence ten days apart, giving a contemplative “how the hell did we end up here?” and “weren’t we fighting fascism a generation and some change ago?”.

My take is that we never really separated the state and the church fully in the western world, and that it’s backfiring like fires in California after someone thought it would be a good idea to light up fireworks in a dry ass forest.

I voted and am doing my part to make the world an EDI/DEI world you know, smoothing out the edges. Polishing the roughness. But man, it’s a lot of effort.

My parents were giggling. “Yeah, there’s a COVID surge here, we have a new variant, they talk about it in the news.” I tell them.

“Oh right, the pandemic! We’re not worry about it.” That was the message three weeks ago.

Last weekend: “I was out this week, for three days I was really sick and then I was not well for the rest of the week . COVID I think.” my mom said.

I’m so sick of this inept behavior, goddamn.

https://olsonkundig.com/projects/chicken-point-cabin/

You see this door/wall? It weights 6 tons. It’s moving through a combination of manual hand-crank, good old pulley and gears. A child can open and close it.

Not that I’m thinking about something that big in HHH, but I really want the least possible amount of electronics managing my house. No central computer. No “smart” lamps. No internet access for the fridge.

Electric stuff at best. When they fail, you change a breaker and you’re good to go for the next 15 years. I want lots of manual things so that I move my ass because that’s what the body is for: to fucking move.

I don’t see anything good about electronics in the house outside of headaches. I read them online and it’s so crazy. “my lamp needed to upgrade its firmware, but my phone died so I had to charge it before turning the lights on with the lamp app”. CRAZY.

A house needs to just run. Flip a switch, boom. Raise your arm to get the curtains to move, bam. No apps, no updates, no hacking, no headaches.

Now electric radiant floor heating, low e double pane glass, computer optimized airflow and house orientation, yes, 100%. That’s where technology shines.