Every time I've failed in my life, and Lord have I, it's because I let a system decay. Every success was iterated out of intentionally building a framework around the nebulous, weird, creative bit. Not eliminating the creative, but, like, building a Volvo to drive Gandalf to where he needs to go.

Yep, you can buy & refill physical OMNY cards with cash at NYC MTA kiosks (and also through chain retail outlets like prepaid gift cards). Which I do, because I don't want my phone to be a point of failure for commute. No worse (and in some ways marginally better) than the Metrocard in practice IMO.

(Also it's surprisingly easy to screw up your liver with acetaminophen if you're not the type who reads & follows dosage instructions, and/or thinks your headache is a 10 on the pain scale requiring All The Medicine. When you start measuring Tylenol in grams per dose, you need to actually measure.)

The bear is now one of the renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web

Every year someone does a piece or documentary about how the original "Santarchy" was intended as a one-off culture-jamming meets Burning Man provocation. Some of the folks who invented SantaCon apparently feel regret for what it (immediately and predictably) became. But not *enough* regret IMO.

there is a certain condescension in the idea that “racism should be publicly unacceptable and come with consequences” is an attack on the “working class.”