Package finally arrived after sending it in early December, getting it back for no reason, sending it back again after visiting three post offices, filling out three forms and talking to four people and hoping my gifts would arrive at some fucking point.
Very easy to think right now that things are absolutely terrible in LA and the US. And they are.
But I’m reading this utterly fascinating book series called The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers and things were absolutely terrible in Tokyo and Japan in the 80s and 90s.
Overworked developers, cramped work spaces, ruthless practices, endless contracting and poor stability, developers who had their games all over the world dead in their 40s and 50s after a lifetime of unhealthy habits working 12 hours a day on pixels and machine code, it’s pretty rough.
But just like 2025 California also has some great things going, so did 80s-90s Japan. We just need to focus on them and make room for them to keep growing.
Related: keep being a generalist and connect the world in your mind.
Is it possible for us to care in the US? To foster the will to have nice things? I think we actually had this in the aftermath of WW2. The country was mostly on the same page about progress, values, the future. But over a few generations, more and more people defect.
I do!
Inequalities made people care less and less. Right after WW2 is full of opportunities and great, positive changes in the US. It slows down in the 60s and as we know, wages and productivity stopped being connected in the 70s and everything fell massively apart after that.
Let’s set up Universal Income so that people stop the tunnel vision about survival and start caring about their environment again.
And fuck those LED lights.
There’s a massive difference in results quality, which expands inequality.
I haven’t touched the most expensive version at $200/month, but I imagine that it’s really sharp.
We need Universal Income asap, what are we doing?
In 2023, French authorities seized 23.5 tons of cocaine, compared with 4.1 tons in 2010. In the first 11 months of 2024, nearly 47 tons of cocaine were seized by the authorities.
10 times more, one order of magnitude bigger in 15 years. Nice work, y’all.
It’s so odd right now because the weather is gorgeous (one of the reason why we’re here in CA) and makes you want to smile. Pavlovian response.
It’s odd how tech is so advanced that 3D printing wildfire proof homes fast is a realistic possibility, yet no one seems to know? Billionaires will sell you cars and sponsored posts but actual value to your life, nope.
It’s odd that I’m currently looking to buy some land and that this tragedy opens up a whole range of possibilities.
But my heart is sick. Those grey and dusty pictures are killing me. When I say the words Pacific Palisades, beautiful caramel brown bark comes to mind. Shade comes to mind. Green and blue comes to mind. Altadena was a pure jewel that I couldn’t wait to visit again. That natural serenity is going to take so long to come back.
The reality that this destruction is our own destruction by ourselves, that the Palisade fire might have been triggered by some idiot probably doing it for the Viral, makes me want to beat the shit out of anyone working at those social media and phone companies, on sight.
It’s so sad how dumb we can be. It’s actually odd.
People will write about the surveillance state going wild while glued to devices that know everything about them and leak info all the time. They will also push for high density housing and pay later schemes.
Baby, those things you’re addicted to make surveillance far easier.
I didn’t know hikers and teenagers were two different categories, but OK, journalists.
All this tiptoeing, ugh. We know that most fires are started by people, this is not surprising.
The pain to me is to witness that a dude holding a fake $20 bill is immediately arrested and killed with a knee on his neck, but a dude fucking around on a Tuesday morning, possibly with fireworks in wooden hills, killing 20+ folks, destroying 12,000 buildings, burning 10,000 hectares, displacing 100K+ people might fucking get away with it.
We need a manhunt and prosecution here.
Gorgeous weather. The city is currently more quiet than during 2020 lockdowns. Exhausted. Confused.
Naturally the media with their brain rot are talking about the wind or the Olympics but I’m still like “so what the fuck happened? Who, what started this fire?”. Can someone investigate fr?
I’d like to understand so that it doesn’t happen again.
I don’t know what mix of politics, administration, private companies, private interests, public barrages, budget cuts, extremely wealthy and influential individuals, petty communities and neighborhood associations has cemented a status quo the size of Jupiter, but despite us knowing exactly how to fix this fire problem, despite the fucking fire problem showing up stronger and stronger every decade, here we are.
Journalists doing a great job at educating, as usual.
Tuesday morning, 6:30am. On my bicycle, I’m expecting the usual 8°C/40sF but the wind is gnarly and warm. Very warm. Great! The sky is clear, the sun is rising in all its glory.
10am. I see some smoke far away. 11am. The smoke is so massive, the wind is still so brutal and warm that we all get to sense that this is going to be an absolute massacre in those canyons.
Wednesday morning, 6:30am. On my bicycle, smoke smell. Brown horizon, 360°. Wind, ashes. I’m 20 miles away. The sun rises over my basketball court, red as a tomato. The wind is still strong, traffic lights are down, people are losing it.
More fires start. Coworkers leaving one by one. Weird sight of those new moving mountains, far away.
This morning, 6:30am. On my bicycle, it’s back to 5°C/40°F and my hands are freezing. My body loves dry weather but that’s three days in a row with 5-10% humidity in the air, it feels a bit stiff.
Remote work life. White smoke everywhere in the back. Went to skate, it felt good but it was hard. I drank 6 or 8 liters of water today.
Why am I building a modest concrete house with a green roof? Well.
But dear Angelenos, we’ve got to do better. It’s truly embarrassing.