I received an unexpected gift at work today; a Mini Strandbeest kit. Like a wildly complex Ikea furniture set, there’s dozens of parts to stick together, but it doesn’t take terribly long if you follow the directions.
This particular tiny Strandbeest is powered by wind, with a small windmill and two reduction gears. Like its peers you can also just push it along with your hands, but it’s far more entertaining to blow on the windmill and watch it spring into action.
Want to see it walk? I placed it on the floor and pointed a fan at it. Here’s a short video of the result, complete with silly music to complete the effect:
This year I’ve been doing a number of “30 day” projects where I try to see what I can accomplish in my spare time in only 30 days. For July I decided to focus on photography. First I had to come up with some rules and make some decisions about what I was going to photograph and how.
Here are the rules I came up with:
Take at least 30 photos during the 30 days. This turned out not to be a worry at all, I took well over ten times that amount; the difficulty was in narrowing it down to the best of the bunch.
Only photograph with my iPhone 6 and only make minor adjustments to the photos. I didn’t want to distract myself with tools I didn’t already have in my pocket, and didn’t want to dive into RAW photo development either. This was to limit the scope of the project so it would fit in a 30 day period.
Most importantly, the photos needed a theme. I went with “Turn Up,” which I’ll describe more below.
The theme “Turn Up” comes from something I’ve heard from two disparate sources, video game designers and urban planners. Both point out that when left to our own devices, we typically don’t turn our head to look upward at the world above us. Sure, there’s a whole other world up there, but we rarely stop to look at it. Urban planners take this to mean that we should focus design efforts on making street level experience as friendly as possible and worry less about making, say, the exterior of higher levels of an office tower visually pleasing. Video game designers on the other hand have to find various ways to suggest aiming the mouse/controller up to see the rest of a puzzle, for example.
The corollary to this philosophy I suppose is telling someone who’s afraid of heights not to look down when they walk over a bridge, which of course is what they’ll inevitably do when told not to. People are like that.
Through the perspective of the lens of a camera, looking upward feels just as awkward as it does through our own eyes. For this reason many photographers stay way from such photos, lamenting the unnatural, often forced nature of this perspective. Part of that “otherness” I would argue is an odd feeling of familiarity. We were all children once, and we were constantly looking up at adults, taller children, or pretty much everything. The world is not made for small people.
Whatever the case, that sense of otherness is exactly what excites me about such perspectives. So for the past month I’ve been wandering around the city, finding tall things to look up at and often squatting down to photograph them from low angles.
And here, in no particular order, are the results.
1. Lotta’s Fountain
Contrasted by the much newer buildings behind it, we look upward to the 1875 Lotta’s Fountain on 3rd and Market. According to legend, the fountain served as a meeting place for survivors of the 1906 earthquake and fire, which is why people still meet there every year far too early in the morning on April 18th. The fountain was restored in the late 90’s.
Allegedly the fountain is still operated on special occasions, but I have to admit I’ve never seen water flowing through it.
2. Rincon Center atrium
Sometimes I wonder how many health-conscious office workers grabbing vegetarian quinoa bowls for lunch at the Rincon Center’s outdoor plaza ever explore the rest of the complex. My guess is not many.
Built adjacent to an old post office that was preserved for its historic murals is a 1980’s office/retail complex with a beautiful sun filled atrium (yes, we’re getting to that other downtown 1980’s atrium in a moment, hold your horses there folks.) What overshadows this atrium more than a cloudy day is the water feature in the center, where water falls from a shower head several stories above to collect in a pool in the middle of the floor. This in and of itself is all well and good, but a sign next to the pool of water claims that this is actually part of the building’s climate control system.
This is a claim so dubious I have to wonder if anyone out there believes it. Certainly if a fountain designer discovered a way to stabilize a building’s temperature with a water spout we’d all be doing this, because traditional HVAC systems are notorious for creating cold/hot spots, and have to be repaired all the time by grumpy maintenance workers. So if you believe a fountain can accomplish what an air conditioner cannot, I have a bridge to sell you.
3. Contemporary Jewish Museum
I’m not sure what it is with Jewish museums and wild architecture that eschews standard 90 degree angles, but that seems to be some sort of unwritten rule. This photo captures the Contemporary Jewish Museum (or the “Jewseum” as the hip kids call it) at its most unexpected angle, framed against the backdrop of more typical architecture.
The cube structure is made from steel panels, jutting out from a much older brick building that once served as a PG&E substation. The museum opened in 2008.
4. Old Mint
The Old Mint at 5th and Mission was actually San Francisco’s second US Mint, which was eventually replaced by the one behind the Safeway at Church and Market today. While the New Mint no longer prints currency, it’s still used to stamp out special collectible coins.
What makes the Old Mint photogenic in part is the fact that it’s been recently restored. Occasionally plans have been floated to turn the building into a permanent museum, but so far nobody’s been able to raise enough funds to do so. If only someone had a machine that printed money…
5. Dolores Street’s palm trees
Dolores Street is one of the most consistently sunny parts of the city, so it makes sense that the street’s wide median is covered in palm trees. In this photo I tried to capture several trees of various heights on one such sunny day.
The trick to capturing this photo wasn’t so much the angle or getting the palm leaves to frame the photo, but rather kneeling in the grassy median without getting dog shit on my pants. Even as a hobby, photography is truly a glamorous endeavor.
6. 16th Avenue Steps
There are several places in San Francisco where a street or avenue is so steep and narrow that it’s actually a staircase. One section of 16th Avenue is an example of this.
Back in 2003 a local resident decided that the bland concrete steps could use some sprucing up, and two years later a long colorful mosaic was installed on the 16th Avenue stairs. If you want to see what the stairs used to look like, walk about a block east to see a separate staircase that never got a mosaic upgrade.
7. St. Anne Church
While the Catholic Church may not approve of Barbie, there’s no question in my mind that Barbie would approve of this aggressively pink Catholic Church. The palm trees out front make it look like something from LA, the gray skies above in this photo make it clear this is in the Sunset District.
The 1930’s building features asymmetrical towers and dozens of white plaster sculptures stuck just above the entryway. Fog permitting, the towers are often visible from across the Sunset District.
8. Spencer House
Across from Buena Vista Park at Haight and Baker is a classic Queen Anne Victorian known as the Spencer House. Built for a man named John Spencer in the late 19th century, the mansion was restored about 15 years ago. Unlike many of its contemporary buildings it was never converted from a single family home into apartments.
One important note: unlike the other Queen Anne Victorian later down this list, you may be able to afford to stay in this one if only for a few nights. Even if you’re not interested in booking the room, check that link for some shots of the home’s gorgeous interiors.
9. Sanchez Street tree lanterns
Not far from Duboce Park Cafe I happened to look up and spot these paper lanterns hanging out in the trees above. Who put them there? Why are they there? I have no idea, but it’s some harmless fun.
Oh, and to the half naked guy in the window I accidentally took a photo of when I was trying to capture the paper lanterns? Sorry! I deleted that photo.
10. Armory
What can you say about the Armory that hasn’t been said already? It started out as an actual armory, and it sure looks like one. Since then it was briefly a hospital, it’s hosted various events, and now it’s a porn studio that occasionally hosts concerts.
From this angle it almost looks like the building is begging a rock climber to come along and try to climb up it. Come to think of it, that’s probably not the best design for an armory. Then again, I’m pretty sure rock climbing wasn’t as big in 1914 as it is today.
11. Forest Hill Station stairs
In college I was taking Muni Metro somewhere with a friend and we got out in Forest Hill Station. He started walking towards the stairs, so I stopped him and said we should just take the elevator. He looked at me like I was insane and said, “Do you really trust Muni to rescue you if you get stuck in a broken elevator?”
Sadly, he had a point. But despite being the deepest underground of all of Muni’s subway stations, the stairs aren’t as strenuous of a walk as they look at first glance. Besides, it’s the oldest subway station in San Francisco that hasn’t been renovated. It still looks almost exactly like it did when it appeared in the film Dirty Harry, and by then it was already over 50 years old. So if you skip out on the stairs you’re missing part of the old-time aesthetic of the station.
12 and 13. Hyatt Regency San Francisco’s atrium
This late 1980’s hotel in the Embarcadero Center is one those places where you might wander in and be so busy with your luggage or whatever that you forget to look up. This would be a mistake; between the wildly designed elevators to the pyramid of floors above, the atrium does itself a disservice by holding the world record for the largest indoor atrium. That’s so missing the point of the spectacle of this incredible space.
I first found myself in here as a teenager, and I’ve returned many times. It still blows me away.
14. Embarcadero Center tower
The Embarcadero Center took nearly two decades to build, and features an open-air mall topped with four office towers. Each tower has a similar design, but they’re all ever-so-slightly different. From far away you could be forgiven for mistaking the towers to be featureless and rectangular, but up close the rectangles have an unexpected, almost organic nature.
I’ve already forgotten which tower is reaching for the sky in this photo, but it’s definitely either One or Four (the two taller ones.)
15. Embarcadero Center entry hall
Okay, one more photo from the Embarcadero Center and then we’re moving on. I promise.
This plant-lined hallway with a gentle stairway takes you into the Embarcadero Center. Look up and you’ll see a plant-lined trellis of sorts above, but be careful not to trip on the stairs while you’re doing so. Unfortunately nobody ever seems to use this entrance to the western side of the complex, which is a shame because it’s so photogenic.
16. Transamerica Pyramid
Sometimes you just have to go with a safe choice, and the Transamerica Pyramid is exactly that. It’s safe because it’s an icon of San Francisco.
The depression-era Glass–Steagall Act forced Bank of America to spin off its insurance division into a separate company, which they named Transamerica. Decades later both firms built nearby skyscrapers in the Financial District. This shot was tricky to get because the building is currently surrounded on all sides with maintenance equipment, so forgive me for the unintended lens flare.
From this angle it looks like either an alien space shuttle, or some sort of highway to the sky.
17. Coit Tower
While we’re talking about the most iconic structures of San Francisco, here’s Coit Tower. Looking up at it from this angle, it seems to almost touch the sky. Or maybe that’s just me hallucinating after climbing what felt like a million stairs to snap this photo.
You’ve probably at least been inside the lobby of Coit Tower and looked at the murals, but — did you know? — there’s a second floor with even more murals. It’s typically only open to the public on special tours.
18. Mark Hopkins Hotel
It’s almost impossible not to look up at this hotel, seeing as how it’s one of the tallest structures on top of Nob Hill. The hotel is named after a railroad baron who once lived on Nob Hill.
According to a City Guides tour guide, it was a tradition for women to take their husbands or boyfriends to the top floor bar, the “Top of the Mark,” before he was sent away to fight in World War Two. The bar is still there today.
19. Grace Cathedral
For all its luxuries, Nob Hill is topped with a poor man’s 20th century knockoff of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral. But if you ignore the drab exterior walls, the ornate windows — such as these in the back — have merit in their own right.
Initially I’d planned on photographing the towers on the front, but those were covered in a giant banner at the time. I “settled” for the back, but in retrospect this is a more unusual shot. A happy accident, as they say.
20. 8 Octavia
This condo complex seems to elicit very strong love-it-or-hate-it reactions. Personally I lean more towards the love it side simply because it’s different. I’ve never seen anything with fins quite like that outside of the heatsink squished on top of the CPU in my computer. That said, I wouldn’t want to be the guy who had to clean this building’s windows.
It took a good ten minutes to get a photo that came out at all — those glass fins are all too happy to reflect sunlight into a camera lens, so this might be a good place to live if you’re constantly hounded by paparazzi.
21. Supreme Court of California (Earl Warren Building)
This classic-looking building only dates back to the 1920’s, but has been added onto over the years. It was badly damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake but has been repaired since. The courtrooms are supposed to look quite nice, but if it means getting roped into a jury I’m happy to take in all in from the outside. The law and justice motifs mean there’s no mistaking this place, it’s definitely a court house.
22. UC Hastings College of the Law
The pure blandness of this building makes it stick out like a sore thumb in the Civic Center area, completely out of touch with the classic French look of the rest of the neighborhood. (See #21 which is right down the street from here.) But the clean geometric lines also beg for this type of photographic treatment, flipping the blandness to an unexpected angle where it’s almost enduring.
Planning insists that this building dates back to 1907 — if that’s true it clearly must have been overhauled in the mid 20th century.
23. 101 California Street
This early 80’s skyscraper is notable for its round shape and the impossible-looking triangular “bite” taken out of its glassy lobby. The structure essentially stands on massive stilts, which seems ill-advised but what do I know — the place survived the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. I think it looks more daring in person than it does in any photo I took of it, but this was the most intriguing photo of the bunch.
Unfortunately architecture is not what the building is best known for. It was the site of a grizzly mass shooting by a deranged gunman who thought MSG was controlling his brain, or something. This tragic incident led to a short-lived ban on assault weapons.
24. Twitter’s headquarters, aka San Francisco Furniture Mart
This 1937 Art Deco building was once the home of San Francisco Furniture Mart, also known simply as “SF Mart.” It closed in 2008 and sat empty for a number of years until it was converted to offices and Twitter moved in (along with several other companies) enticed to the area under a bizarre tax deal, even by the standards of San Francisco tax laws.
Historical notes aside, the ornate geometry of the Art Deco styling coupled with the brown exterior almost makes this building look like an ancient tomb that Indiana Jones might pillage.
25 and 26. Sutro Tower before and after
The other day when I hiked up Mount Sutro I had this sneaky idea that I’d head over to Sutro Tower and take some photos of it for this project. But our old pal Karl The Fog had some different ideas, and was looming over Twin Peaks by the time I’d made it out of the woods.
So I had to return the following weekend to get a clear shot of Sutro Tower without Karl’s cold embrace, but decided to include both photos as an exercise in contrasts. As it turned out, getting a shot of Sutro Tower from the same angle was much more difficult when I had to carefully position myself so that the tower blocked out direct sunlight. The two photos don’t quite line up, but this was my best attempt.
27. Mission Dolores Basilica tower
After the 1906 earthquake knocked down the Gothic-style brick church that once stood here, a stucco building replaced it. What you see here is the bell tower from the 16th Street side. Apparently it was a bit bland until they added some finishing touches to it in the mid 1920’s. From this angle you can’t see the bells but that’s probably for the best given the pigeon netting that would be visible.
28. Market Street pedestrian/bike overpass
If you’ve ever made the hike up Twin Peaks from Noe Valley this may be a familiar sight. This tower winds around at a gentle slope to take you up to a bridge that crosses over the hilly part of Market Street. If walking up or down this thing doesn’t make you at least somewhat dizzy, nothing will. Fortunately since it’s on a hill you’re at ground level on the other side.
While the geometry of the corkscrew design makes for an interesting photo, I’m not sure I’d want to be walking in this thing during an earthquake.
29. SFMOMA expansion
Designed by architecture firm Snøhetta, the expansion of the SFMOMA includes a white “skin” to the back of the building that looks like an undulating wave. Particularly at this extreme angle, it feels as though you’re floating across a slightly off-white sea.
30. John Daly’s mansion at 21st and Guerrero
According to the Planning Department, this beautiful Queen Anne Victorian was built in 1895 by John Daly (yes, the man Daly City is named after) and was recently restored in 2009. Confession: I’ve wanted to live in this building since the first time I saw it years ago.
Since this building is built into a hill it’s possible to view it from many angles, but I prefer looking up to it from here because it emphasizes that gorgeous tower.
That’s all thirty! If you’d like you can also view these photos in this Flickr album.
A Medium post titled Clouseau: A Postmortem has been making its rounds on the internet today. While the title isn’t particularly revealing, the subtitle gives you the gist of the story: “How I vetted and dumped a startup idea in ~20 hours and for under $1000.”
For those who haven’t read the article, here’s a quick summary:
A product manager from Google went on a vacation in Europe and stayed in some fancy hotels
Those fancy hotels did a poor job of providing rooms dark enough to sleep in
The product manager spent time and money investigating a business plan around measuring light levels in hotel rooms
This data would be offered as a service and would be a “natural monopoly” in the industry
Two light meters were purchased and a logo was commissioned for the project
This plan failed because hotels don’t let people barge into their rooms to measure light levels without reserving the room, which was cost-prohibitive
What this unintentionally illustrates is classic “product manager thinking:” marching ahead with a pre-conceived solution set in mind despite having given little or no thought to the problem space as a whole. Instead, they limit themselves to areas where they have existing domain knowledge and try to build a solution around that. In this case, that involved coming up with a data-driven approach built around a technological solution.
But just because someone has a pre-existing toolkit for solving problems doesn’t mean that toolkit is always going to be the best method — or even an adequate method — to solve every problem. As the saying goes, to the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
As a software engineer I’ve witnessed this type of thinking in every product manager I’ve ever encountered. No matter what the problem, somehow software was going to be the answer, because that’s what they had to work with. Is the toilet broken? Great! Since the problem is broken toilets, we’ll build an app that lets you hire a plumber. Problem solved… sort of.
So I don’t mean to single out this particular product manager when I point out that his “rapid prototype” was an unnecessary waste of time. If anything that’s the industry norm.
Instead, if he’d only taken a couple minutes to ask someone who travels frequently — or even someone who lives in a neighborhood with a lot of nightlife — he’d know that this was a solved problem. In fact, it was solved so long ago that the solution is offered in thousands of stores from dozens of different companies:
Yup. A humble sleep mask will block out light. And for good measure, buy a couple sets of earplugs. Believe me, if you travel a lot, you’re going to wind up in some loud, bright hotel rooms where you’ll need both.
The message I want to leave you with is to avoid this pitfall. Yes, sometimes gathering data and offering it as a service is a sensible solution to a problem. Or maybe some other type of technology. But unless you’ve fully explored the alternatives, don’t limit yourself with a hammer/nail mentality.
You may have heard the bad news recently: the last company making VCRs is about to stop production. But worry not, VCR fans: the VCR Classic Edition is here!
No, this won’t play your old tapes. Following in the steps of Nintendo, the VCR Classic Edition is 50% smaller than your old VCR and comes preloaded with 30 exciting tapes some guy in Cleveland recorded from his TV back in the day!
Tapes bundled with the VCR Classic Edition include:
A rerun of the final episode of MASH
Couple of really funny I Love Lucy episodes
News clip about a dead body some kids found down by the lake
That one Seinfeld episode about masturbating
…and many more!
Don’t run out to the store yet, the VCR Classic Edition hits shelves this November. We’ll update when we hear more, but early reports confirm that it won’t work with your existing remote control, but it does include HDMI output and relies on USB for power.
So much yes!
We’re looking forward to the VCR Classic Edition and can hardly wait to find the right tracking settings on some forgotten old tapes. This is a perfect example of how to preserve everyone’s favorite technology. We can’t wait!
For the past few years I’ve been aiming for 10,000 steps a day to make my fitness tracker happy get some exercise. Most days I don’t go anywhere special, but on weekends I like to branch out when I have the time and find new places to explore. That’s no easy task when you’ve lived in the Bay Area your entire life or spent the past (checks calendar) nearly thirteen years in San Francisco (holy crap.) So to do something a little different I walked from 17th Street to 23rd Street using the least efficient route possible, starting with Mount Sutro.
Take any map of San Francisco, and somewhere near the center there will be a green patch that’s either labeled “Mount Sutro Open Space Preserve,” or “Interior Greenbelt,” or some combination of the two. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a gorgeous man-made park — the non-native trees are a dead giveaway — with various trails zig-zagging around for hiking and mountain biking.
There’s several entrances, but I started at the one maintained by Parks and Rec at Stanyan near the end of 17th Street. There’s a small staircase and a sign to mark the entrance.
The hike up Mount Sutro is not one for the faint of heart — the trail is often steep, covered with rocks and fallen tree branches, and can be muddy and wet from the fog. At times it even felt like it was raining due to the fog rolling off the trees above.
The park has a somewhat surreal feel to it; you know in your mind that you’re still in the city, but for the most part it doesn’t feel like it. Sure, you can see some houses from a few vantage points, or hear sirens in the distance, but there’s little evidence to suggest there’s a bustling city not far below.
To add to the strange feeling, the place was nearly deserted. I could probably count the number of other hikers I encountered on one hand. Some part of me kept expecting to find a group of teenagers drinking or smoking pot in the bushes, but I didn’t even see any litter to suggest that this was a place people had escaped to for such endeavors.
Which is all a fancy way of saying that this place is rather unique. You won’t find crowds of tourists here like Golden Gate Park or Telegraph Hill.
By the time I got to the top I was somewhat lost. There were no obvious vantage points to find my bearings thanks to the trees and the fog, and my phone wasn’t picking up enough of a signal to use Google Maps. Fortunately, UCSF was kind enough to put a map there right when I needed it.
Following the map, I took the East Ridge Trail down to Aldea Housing. From there my phone briefly got a strong signal again. I thought about turning back, but figured what the hell — Sutro Tower wasn’t far away. Why not press on?
There’s no obvious signs leading you to Sutro Tower from there, and it was so foggy I couldn’t have even guessed which way to go to find it. Fortunately Google Maps had my back and a few minutes later I found what I can only assume is the base of the tower, prodding the underbelly of our dear friend Karl.
Following my gut, I walked around the reservoir next to Sutro Tower until I found another trail that seemed to be leading towards Twin Peaks. Once again this would have been much easier had I been able to see where I was going. (Million dollar idea: Glasses that let you see through fog. Get on it, hardware startup entrepreneurs!)
Fortunately an older couple heading in the opposite direction confirmed to me that I was on the right track.
After jumping a barrier and heading up a somewhat steep trail that didn’t seemed “official,” to put it mildly, I found a whole crowd of tourists. I’d done it! I’d made it to Twin Peaks!
The fun of Twin Peaks — if you’ve somehow never been — is not the view. In fact, there’s rarely much of a view at all. No, the fun is watching hoards of confused tourists scream about how they’re freezing, watching pamphlets get blown out of their hands by the wind, and seeing them take selfies against a backdrop of fog. It’s really a blast.
At this point several hours had passed and it was time to head back home. On the pedestrian/bike side of the recently reconfigured figure eight, I jumped another barrier and made my way down a staircase, followed by another, then another, then like maybe two or three more. Yeah, my knees are going to be sore as hell tomorrow.
But at least from here I more or less knew where I was going. If you’re walking to or from Twin Peaks from the Mission/Noe Valley, those stairs lead to a pedestrian overpass over Market Street, which is very handy for this particular part of the hike. The ramp on the other side takes you down to Grand View Ave. near the end of 23rd Street.
The fitness tracker says all in all that worked out to just over six miles, though if you follow in my footsteps your mileage may vary depending on your exact route. A word to the wise: bring water with you, appropriate shoes, and full-length pants to avoid poison ivy. You also might consider an umbrella if it’s super foggy.
Finally, here’s a few panoramic photos of the Mount Sutro hike. As with all the photos in this blog post you can click it for a larger view. Additionally, all of these photos are in a Flickr album.
“Don’t be a dick” is an excellent rule to live by. Nobody wants to be around a dick because they don’t want to be the victim of a dick move, and yet being a dick is often — but not always — free from consequence. Rather than being a dick in return to a dick move, sometimes you have to break the cycle by turning the other cheek and accepting that life isn’t fair. For that reason, some call this philosophy “the golden rule.”
Unfortunately, a lot of folks are dicks, making dick moves whenever the mood strikes them. One such dick is whoever chopped down someone’s tree on Judah near 14th Ave. The victim put up the sign in the above photo to plead with the dick in question.
The sign features a drawing of an ax chopping, presumably to indicate how the tree was taken rather than as a threat, as well as the following text:
To the person who took our tree: Please return it as soon as possible and all will be forgiven.
Let’s hope the dick takes heed and returns the tree to its rightful place.
The other day I got to thinking: what would happen if the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation was built with modern software? If it ran on Microsoft Windows, its own operating system might be bigger a danger to the crew than the Borg. Here’s how I suspect it would play out.
I have no idea what my brain does when I’m asleep. Occasionally it leads me to some strange discoveries. For example, up until today I’d always assumed “Nonchalance,” the name of the studio behind The Jejune Institute, was something they’d made up for the game’s second chapter. My own dreams proved this to be incorrect. How? We’re getting to that.
Far too early this morning I woke up after a dream, grabbed my phone, and typed something into Google. I can’t remember the dream nor the search keywords, but the results included this music page on Nonchalance’s website. (Why some of the music is listed as by “JBH & Bobby Peru” is beyond me, since those are the same person.)
To me the most interesting part about the page wasn’t the music itself, it was that it represented some relic from a previous version of the Nonchalance.com website I’d never encountered before — it predated The Jejune Institute. Needless to say, I couldn’t get back to sleep; I’d stumbled down this temporal rabbit hole and needed to know more.
While many links on the page now redirect elsewhere, Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine came to the rescue. For those unfamiliar with the service, they’ve been capturing publicly available websites for decades and storing them online. You can go back and see how your favorite websites looked back in the day, even if they’re long since defunct.
After poking around the archives of Nonchalance’s website, most of the content on earlyversionsofthe site covers their other activities, including art installations, musings on design, and related projects like Oaklandish. Only later versions of the site make reference to the “game” project they’d become best known for (click the hyperlinked word “the” in the previous sentence to see what I mean.)
The most unexpected revelation hidden in these forgotten pages is the first entry in the website’s blog (scroll all the way down) in a post from 2007, about a year before The Jejune Institute opened its doors to the public.
The post reads in part:
Picture in your mind a cartoon character sleepwalking. Observe as they stutter, step, and stumble blindly out of bed, down the stairs and out the front door on to a busy street. They narrowly dodge impending danger without effort or awareness. Cars race by, they are turned around in a revolving door, and after the languid adventure they are somehow returned to bed unharmed. It’s a certain attribute the cartoon character possesses: to be able to stumble through life with nary a care, prodigiously protected and provided for by the invisible hand of good fortune. This ability is called Divine Nonchalance.
And so; our titled is lifted from this phrase, which may have its origins in modern Tarot: it appears on the card of The Fool. It signifies a certain blessed carelessness, a freedom from inhibition that sparks and inspires creativity. Long ago our local clique adopted the phrase to describe certain peoples who possessed the gift. If you possess it, as visionary artists often do, than you too may be one of the Divine Nonchalants.
BUT BEWARE: like any other gift, it comes with a price. The special power of Nonchalance is not found on the card of the King, or of the Sun… it is found on the card of The Fool. Clowns, wise guys, drunks and musicians are the salty sort of down-trodden folk who usually possess this super power in spades. And of course; cartoon characters. This special breed of people all share the wonderful attribute. It’s a shame they’ll never quite know what to do with it. By definition the Nonchalant is wonderfully scattered, and lacking in all direction. The ride is fantastic, but it only leads back to where we began.
It is appropriate then that we put the title to use. Nonchalance.org is a small looking glass into the creative lives of a few east bay souls. Here is where we document our works, make audacious statements of purpose, post exhibit schedules, engage with theory, trade intelligence, and celebrate our love for the past, present and future of this glorious lifetime.
If any of this definition sounds familiar it’s because “Commander 14,” played by Harry S. Robins, read a nearly identical script on a certain pirate radio station in Dolores Park in the second chapter of The Jejune Institute. You can listen to the full broadcast here. The part similar to the above quote starts at about 1:20. But really, you should listen to the entire thing; it’s less than an hour long and it’s quite funny. Listen to it at Dolores Park if you want the most authentic experience.
It’s amazing what mind-blowing mysteries we can accidentally unlock in the middle of the night. Assuming there’s no microwave harassment, of course.
While the plan to rent sections of Dolores Park to humans ended almost as soon as it began, birds now have the option to rent this lovely apartment dangling from a tree in the park, located at the corner near 20th and Dolores Street.
The sign on the apartment doesn’t reveal the price or list a phone number, it simply states:
Achieve Realty For Rent Renovated
Interested parties should note that this is more of a micro bird apartment than a full-size birdhouse. It would be well suited as a starter home for a small songbird, but wouldn’t be large enough for an adult pigeon or a family of birds.
No word on whether this apartment is covered by rent control.
This week Ubisoft launched a trailer for their upcoming game, Watch Dogs 2. While I wasn’t particularly impressed by the first entry in the series, a 3rd person action/hacking game, the sequel immediately interested me due to the setting: San Francisco and the Bay Area at large.
You can watch the trailer below or here. For those unfamiliar with the world of video games, this is a “cinematic” trailer, which means it’s CGI concept art intended to advertise the game — in other words, this isn’t gameplay footage, but rather what producers intend the game to look like when it’s finished.
How many local landmarks did you discover in the video? Here’s what I spotted — click any image for full size.
Golden Gate Bridge, Karl the Fog, and the Transamerica Pyramid:
The Ferry Building and the Embarcadero Center:
Alcatraz:
A cable car working its way up a hill:
Not technically a landmark, but a guy wearing Google Cardboard on Muni is good enough IMO:
Again, technically a homeless guy with a shopping card isn’t a “landmark” but it had might as well be:
Lombard Street, which someone’s taking a photo of on their phone for the sake of accuracy:
Sea Lions at Pier 39, complete with tourists utilizing a selfie stick:
3D printing a gun — okay so again this isn’t a landmark at all, but I imagine there’s more 3D printers than guns in San Francisco so I’ll let it slide:
Chinatown chase scene:
AT&T Park, or whichever phone company it’s named after right now:
“Nudle” is clearly a stand in for Google’s Mountain View campus:
The Bay Bridge serves as a backdrop for a chase scene:
Hangar One at Moffett Field in Mountain View:
Well there you have it. I’m sure there’s a few I missed, feel free to e-mail me an angry rant if that’s the case. Regardless I may have to buy the game when it comes out in November to see how it portrays the Bay Area.
