531: Concrete from sand, the NYT polycule interview, and skateboard Ninja Warrior
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It’s so nice to be back in San Francisco. I always say I love leaving this city, and I love returning to it. The underground community events, the friends, the spring weather - life is good. And weekdays are appreciated for weekend recovery. :)
I finally attended the Speakeasy SF immersive show in Little Italy, and it was fun, though not quite as immersive feeling as other similar shows. Having the fake police break up the whole show to end it at the end was probably the highlight. The kind of thing to send your parents to, rather than your edgey friends, perhaps.
That said, some of the actors there complained about the work environment in the last show, so be polite!
I’ll be up north this weekend but if I wasn’t I’d be at these two great art fundraiser parties my friends are throwing - Infinite Love and Bug World.
Technology
Highland Electric is a startup that electrifies schoolbuses both for the green benefits, but also to use them as grid overflow power storage, since the buses sit unused most of the day. What a great arbitrage, if it holds!
ClimateCrete is a startup processing desert sand for concrete use, since most concrete on earth is made from water adjacent sand, which is expensive and ecologically delicate. Concrete is one of the biggest carbon emitters, so this would be a big win!
Ideologies
Friend Alton sent me this rationalist post on ‘frame control’ by which an actor controls the framing of the discussion in order to manipulate the outcome. That’s something I think we all have radar for, but I didn’t have this explicit of verbiage to refer to it, so will be keeping an eye on that moving forwards.
This NYT interview with a 20 person polycule has been making the rounds lately. Meanwhile, my polycule’s reaction to the recent mainstream polyamorous coverage is ‘jeez, where do they find these people?!’
The press likes to find the most extreme radical version of a movement and amplify them for the clicks. So I guess I’m here as a straight white polyam man to tell you - not all polyam people hold multiple other identities in the LGBTQ+ alphabet, and we’re not all in giant live-in polycules.
What the interview does get correctly though, is that most poly people probably have strongly critical views of current societal norms. Once you tear down one false idol (monogamy), it’s hard not to start tearing down more. :P
Memes
The Japanese invented Ninja Warrior obstacle courses of course. Now, what if they did them…..on skateboards? That winner’s slide move was insane!
I rewatched Baby Driver and didn’t find it as mind blowing the second time around, although it’s still a great movie. Check out this music video the director Edgar Wright did with some famous British comics 15 years beforehand with the same premise.
I’m a drum and bass head but even the rest of y’all will prolly appreciate this Youtube drummer playing insane live drums to the latest Chase and Status banger.