Links for 5/28/23

A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it’s bad for you

Doug Rushkoff Is Ready to Renounce the Digital Revolution

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Could This Be the Final Frontier for Renewable Energy?

Return to the Water documentary

Are You Using Your Leash Wrong?

@theblakemorgan on AI Bros

Meet the first famous female rock&roll drummer

How to make your wardrobe sustainable

Gov. DeSantis Urged to Veto Radioactive Roads Bill

Grosso Forever: Loveletter To Japan

British Longboard Union highlights reel: Porthmeor Longboard Classic, April 2023

Indigenous peoples caught in the Russia-Ukraine war

Sisters Stacia and Ashley Ahina

Ecocide: Should destroying nature be an international crime?

The Floating Basket Homes of Iraq: A Paradise Almost Lost to Saddam

The Fight to Expose Corporations’ Real Impact on the Climate

Takeshi Terauchi, Japan’s Eleki God

Concern grows over rich nations controlling sunlight

So.. You Can Longboard Dance? 2022 | Memories

The dark side of plastic: understanding the impact on our bodies, ecosystems, and the world

Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

The origins of climate crisis

Coastal residents fear ‘hideous’ seawalls will block waterfront views

Korean Cowboys of the Old World

Woolight Firewire Sustainable Surfboards

Chokepoint Capitalism: how Big Tech and Big Content captured creative labor markets and how we’ll win them back

When Good Waves Go Rogue

Retiring my Powell Diamond Logo Deck

Powell Diamond Logo Deck

This was my first longboard deck. I purchased it in the mid 90s to practice cross stepping on. It used to have a nose bone because I figured doing lots of nose wheelies might take a toll. But actually the tail suffered early on because the banked walls at the then new Kunsthalle extension building in Hamburg are rougher than they look.

So as the razor tail got worse and worse I had to start thinking about replacing this very special board. This season I put on 165mm 50° Paris V3 trucks. I got used to them quickly, only missed the old swing weight. You see, reverse kingpin trucks like Paris create a shorter wheel base. For years the board used to have heavily wedged Thunders. Wedging effectively increases the wheelbase (plus the Bolzen wedges added considerable mass).

Anyway, looking all summer for a replacement which has a classic sidewalk surfboard shape, nothing did materialize. Neither did a nice dancer like a Lush Legend (probably Brexit is to blame). The Loaded Mata Hari only came out very recently. So in autumn I discovered the Bastl Boards Bolero. It’s about the same length with a longer wheelbase. The necessary lean on the 70 mm 85a Cult Creator wheels will hopefully be kept from wheel bite with the new deck’s wheel wells.

I set this up asymmetrically because I’m used to a shorter nose and the variation in kick clearance that comes with it might be a good thing. Looking forward to ride it!

Bastl Board Bolero Setup