“The real bittersweet aspect is young adulthood begins with all this time for friendship, and friendship just having this exuberant, profound importance for figuring out who you are and what’s next,” Rawlins says. “And you find at the end of young adulthood, now you don’t have time for the very people who helped you make all these decisions.
Tag: atlantic
Why I Quit Ordering From Uber-for-Food Start-Ups
Sprig-type operations drain agency and expertise out of the world. They centralize, aiming to build huge hubs with small spokes; their innermost mechanisms are hidden. They depend on humans behaving as interchangeable units of labor.
The Story of Your Life
In telling the story of how you became who you are, and of who you’re on your way to becoming, the story itself becomes a part of who you are.
Why Everyone’s Saying ‘YAAAAAASSSSSS’ Now
The word “yes” is an extremely dull way to express the varied sentiments of “yes.”
Making Peace With Music That Everyone Loves But You
Part of maturing, I think, is realizing that charges of acting in bad faith are often themselves made in bad faith, an attempt to explain away gaps in understanding between two people rather than trying to bridge them, or even make peace with them.
The Dark Science of Pop Music
While most users think of Shazam as a handy tool for identifying unfamiliar songs, it offers music executives something far more valuable: an early-detection system for hits. By studying 20 million searches every day, Shazam can identify which songs are catching on, and where, before just about anybody else.
The Urban Oil Fields of Los Angeles. Oh my God I love that city.
Never try to look cool and learn something at the same time. You must have an awkward phase.
A Scientific Search for the Most Remote Places in the United States – The Atlantic Cities
Pretty cool. Cf. the Arctic 1000 traverse from a few years back, which crossed through the most remote part of Alaska. Also reminds me of some of the issues and ironies that William Cronon brings up in The Trouble with Wilderness.
A Scientific Search for the Most Remote Places in the United States – The Atlantic Cities
Every Every Every Generation Has Been the Me Me Me Generation – The Atlantic Wire
Basically, it’s not that people born after 1980 are narcissists, it’s that young people are narcissists, and they get over themselves as they get older. It’s like doing a study of toddlers and declaring those born since 2010 are Generation Sociopath: Kids These Days Will Pull Your Hair, Pee On Walls, Throw Full Bowls of Cereal Without Even Thinking of the Consequences.
Every Every Every Generation Has Been the Me Me Me Generation – The Atlantic Wire
Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
Ta-Nehisi Coates. Cf. Anil Dash.
Race, Class, and the Stigma of Riding the Bus in America
Choice commuters want a transit solution that seems modern, even if it’s actually old school. Really, they want a transportation choice that feels made for people just like them.
Six Rules for Dining Out – Magazine – The Atlantic
The laughing and the smiling will set in. Beware! That’s when you need to stop going.
Envisioning a Post-Campus America – Megan McArdle – The Atlantic
Tenured academics has worked a great scam. They’ve managed to monetize peoples’ affection for regional football teams, and their desire for a work credential, and then somehow diverted that money into paying academics to work on whatever they want, for the rest of their lives, without any oversight by the football fans or the employers.
In addition to enjoying this nice little zinger, definitely read her 12 hypotheses about the college system in the wake of distance-learning disruption. Good stuff.
Envisioning a Post-Campus America – Megan McArdle – The Atlantic
Right on Cue – Ta-Nehisi Coates – The Atlantic
Age, like all power constructs, (race, gender, class) encourages it’s own ignorance. To not know is a luxury of power. You don’t have to know Their Eyes Were Watching God. But I damn sure better know The Scarlet Letter. (It’s bad enough I’m slipping on Twain.) Age turns ignorance into a luxury, and worse, if you don’t recognize it as a luxury you start to think everyone is as clueless as you. And of course you’re clueless that any of this is even going on. It’s just a bad look all around.
(via)
Why We Stopped Spanking – Megan McArdle – The Atlantic
It strikes me as plausible that a world in which kids spend more time unsupervised requires a parenting style more reliant on swift punishment for detected wrongdoing than rewards for good behavior.
This is probably the best summary I’ve ever seen for 1) why I got spanked every so often, and 2) why I don’t really feel bad about that.
Today’s kids seem to be not only supervised but regimented; most of their time is supposed to be spent in some sort of structured activity. This makes it very easy to create elaborate reward systems, because there is all this elaborate surveillance that makes it very easy to monitor compliance.
File under: parenting.
Ending the Infographic Plague – Megan McArdle – The Atlantic. “Remember: only you can prevent viral media from spreading.”
Landscape Absurdism: Las Vegas – Design – The Atlantic Cities. The natural vs. the built.
Atlanta, Then and Now (1871 to 2011) – The Atlantic Cities. Awesome set of comparisons. Same spot, different day. This lot has been forlorn for a century:
Albert Ruger’s 1871 map of Atlanta is so good. See also his map of Chicago, 1868.
The Makeup of Stuck America – The Atlantic Cities
Richard Florida follows up on The Geography of Stuck that I tumbled a few days ago, talking about religion, poverty, human capital, diversity, health, and most interesting to me, the Big Five personality traits:
States with higher levels of agreeable, extroverted and neurotic personality types are much more likely to have a higher percentage of residents born in that state (with correlations of .46, .49 and .4 respectively). Conversely, the percentage of residents born in a state is negatively associated with openness-to-experience personality types (-.32).
I should add: considering all of the above, it seems statistically unlikely that I will remain in Atlanta.
Mark Larson 