Archive (Page 2) • 5it • Buttondown

Moving on the Assembly Line

April 12, 2017

Two quick things: 1) the next-to-last episode of Containers is now live. It's a deep dive into a trove of archival recordings from the historical moment when...

Melisma Straddles Genres and Singers and Nation-States

April 5, 2017

Episode 6 of my podcast Containers starts with a puzzle: why were people of West Oakland dying 12-15 years earlier than their counterparts in the wealthier...

The Urge for Going

March 28, 2017

Episode 5 of Containers is out. This one is about the strange and sometimes tragic condition of the American merchant fleet. In short: shipping is now...

The Underlying Trend That Ties Together Popular Narratives About Technology

March 21, 2017

Episode 4 of Containers is out. This one is about the hidden backend of the coffee industry that's enabled all this fancy third-wave roasting to occur. I put...

Call This Concept Scenario Fulfillment

March 14, 2017

You know you’ve always wanted to ride in a tugboat as it pushes around a huge cargo ship, right? Well, that’s what we do in Episode 3 of Containers, my audio...

Amassing Hundreds of Quotations He Deemed Relevant

March 7, 2017

The second episode of my audio documentary on global shipping, technology, and the complexity of modern capitalism is out. This one is an intimate look at...

Resend: On Reaching Their Destination They Chained Themselves to the Perimeter Fence

March 1, 2017

Apologies, friends. All the links in the last newsletter got messed up. This is what I get for sending a newsletter out from an airplane! They're fixed in...

On Reaching Their Destination They Chained Themselves to the Perimeter Fence

March 1, 2017

The first episode of Containers, my audio documentary series on global trade, capitalism, and technology is now out! We follow the rise of container shipping...

An Aquarium, a Teeny Tiny One for Your Phone, Filled with Plump Little Micro-Organisms

February 27, 2017

I've been working on a thing, day and night, a radio documentary called Containers. It has become an insane and unlikely labor of love. The premise is that...

10 Lights-Out Production Lines

January 4, 2017

1. It's strangely fitting that Children of Men's history is intertwined with Harry Potter's. "When I ask Cuarón if he thought much about Children of Men...

This Buried Matter

December 15, 2016

1. This is a formidable entry into what will be a burgeoning genre: explaining how AI quietly came to dominate [X] without many people really noticing. "As...

His Crew Had Captured a Stowaway

December 7, 2016

1. The FDA was not really built to handle things like biohackers building kits to let people genetically engineer yeast to make glowing mead. "Agency...

Because Everyone Is Like You

December 1, 2016

1. It was very hard to pick one graf out of this Jonathan Lethem profile of Adam Curtis. "So we live, thanks to our advanced systems of monitoring,...

A Big Flywheel That Has Changed Everything

November 28, 2016

For those that don't know, I'm working on a major project about the global trade, logistics, the port of Oakland, and automation. If you or someone you know...

Concrete Might Not Be Sexy

November 17, 2016

1. The unexpected story of the creation of deep-water diving, which was basically a mad scramble for treasure. "While Charles basked in public acclaim, John...

And Furious Despite Refutations

November 11, 2016

What a response! We gave away all the tickets we had to the Real Future Fair in 48 hours. For those outside the Bay or who didn't get a ticket, we'll stream...

What just happened?

November 9, 2016

Donald Trump won. Donald Trump won slinging invective at the very people that Real Future has addressed itself to: the diverse coalition of people who see a...

And the Localization Rate Is 100 Percent

November 7, 2016

The Real Future Fair is coming to Oakland on November 15, which is so soon! There are standard tickets available here. But I'm gonna to give away some...

The Memes Disperse

November 4, 2016

[air horn] [air horn] [air horn] [emergency siren] [emergency siren] We've got two big announcements about the Real Future Fair in the Bay. We'll be joined...

Ironically We Humans Have Become that Sublime Force

November 3, 2016

I've been playing with a hydrophone (from Iceland!) to record tug boats and cargo ships at the Middle Harbor of the Port of Oakland. Just putting that out...