Microfiction? Too long. Six-word short stories? Hold our baby shoes. With the right context, you can conjure an entire saga with just a few words. It’s called Venmo Nanofiction, and it’s just one of the madcap amusements awaiting you in the debut issue of Paper Airplane magazine.

There is no way this will be enforced in a fair or just fashion. Yay.

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

Nation’s 56,000 Acres Of Spinach Crops Cooked Down To Single Half-Cup Serving

Let’s go?

TOMORROW, apparently

BREAKING: Disney+ is to replace the two-season run of Andor with a recut version that runs for only five minutes, and is just Mon Mothma apologising profusely to Darth Vader for any inconvenience, and letting him have whatever he wants.

Shout out to the NYPD traffic officer in full flow at 34th St— “Come on baby, let’s go! Ok honey, watch the pothole! Oh no why he do that…?!”

Exasperated owner of a mixed-breed Royal Crime Squishe.

And that's one of the reasons (some of them) really like generative AI. It enables them to produce so much noise that it's hard to cut through and figure out what's true or false. "Flooding the zone" as Steve Banon called it. Other's call it Media Blietzkrieg, which might lead to actual blietzkrieg.

“The only appropriate time and place to ride a bike is a time beyond time and a place beyond place, where the space-time continuum is bent so strangely you are both everywhere and nowhere, eternal and nonexistent.” @mcsweeneys.net

It turns out a genre of movie I like very much is “Sad man carries angry cat through a series of increasingly fucked up events in vintage New York City.”

Ah ok here's a fun tip I ran across by accident, hopefully it still works if your algorithm starts going conservative, watch Tasting History by Max Miller. it's like algorithmic bug spray for fascism www.youtube.com/@TastingHist...

Lately I’ve been doing interviews for my new book, and I keep getting some variation of the same question: How do you stay hopeful? In truth, a lot of the time I’m not. September’s comic is about what it feels like to be losing hope. You can read it here: aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/the-storie...

NEW: @bradlander.bsky.social joins us to talk political courage, from defending bike lanes early in his career to his efforts to rein in reckless drivers to his cross endorsement of @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social. We are thrilled to welcome Brad to The War on Cars! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

I HATE when people compare AI to the printing press, it's so disingenuous. The printing press was opposed by the elites because it put power in the hands of everyday people, and popularized a vernacular. AI does the opposite, by allowing elites to bypass artists and laborers.

If you live in New York City you are either a socialist or you haven't thought about it enough. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/new-york-s...

me, living in a society made to make me feel exhausted and crazy: wow why do I feel exhausted and crazy

How do they rise up, rise up, rise up…

Happy anniversary @99pi.org! This was a sweet episode, but I especially worth listening to for Roman's spicy rant about the perils of efficiency about a third of the way through!

Spending some time this Labor Day to read @monteiro.bsky.social’s excellent “Ruined By Design” because ethics should be at the core of all our work

Happy Labor Day, comrades 🫡

I’ve seen a lot of cishet allies who are also confused by all the prominent Dem voices suddenly acting like having trans rights means we can’t also have vaccines and schools and national parks, and that’s because some of the “why” is happening at a pitch only queer and trans people can hear

Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head. 🖊️🦑

Love this thread about why Regency romance is A Thing

Aaaaaaaaaa

Them: “Cities are all rotting hellscapes!” Cities:

LOL. In my city they respond to car crashes by randomly ticketing cyclists for minor infractions for a few days until they get bored.

Nighttime on the NYC subway, oh no so scary, such danger 🙄

In high school I would stop in Union Station to eat mediocre mall sushi on my way home from ballet class and never once got food poisoning let alone any other danger 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is an incredible illustration of how genAI works. (Or, you know, doesn't.)

Nothing like ballet music you danced to when you were 12 to rouse you from dozing on the couch into an alert B Plus preparation for piqué arabesque in two seconds while terrifying the cat

This is the best product listing copy I’ve ever read

Incredible.

Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it

Absolutely true but also it's not carbonara (c.1940s) if it has cream in it.

every “ancient tradition” was invented between 1848-1870 and every “modern perversion” is so ancient as to predate writing

Olmsted’s city parks actually did include refreshment spots, they just didn’t get maintained. Recently Prospect Park has allowed cafes to open in the Picnic House and Boathouse and there are lines all day. We want our cold brew and croissants and it’s what these space should be for!

This, wholeheartedly.

My dad, looking at the Hudson Yards high rises: “Those are the kinds of buildings Godzilla knocks down. Swoosh his tail, knock ‘em all down.”

[writing the constitution] Benjamin Franklin: Write down "no dumb fucks as president" Alexander Hamilton: Stop saying that Benjamin Franklin: I'm tellin' you. You're gonna regret not writing that down

Oh my god this!! (Whole thread.) My trainer said I had "Sifu Face" because no amount of effort would penetrate my calm. More weight? More reps? Faster? Higher? If you say so, teacher!

👀

This isn’t random, this is right out of every 19th century nationalist ethnic joke. Minus the joke part.

I needed this, McSweeny's... 🤣😆 Standing left on the Metro escalator is indeed a DC crime. Not just at Metro Center, but also a lot of other Downtown stations. ;) (Full disclosure: I live In TkPk, adjacent to DC, but I also work in the District...)

Stupendous.

This! Driving is a complicated skill, actually. And even for those who drive daily, it's so easy to slide into careless bad habits.

Actual federal crime in DC 👇🏻