The USPS just changed how postmarks work - and it will affect MAIL-IN VOTING while hitting Americans with late fees on everything from tax payments to rent checks.
Starting in 2026, your postmark date won’t reflect when you actually mailed something anymore. Instead of stamping mail with the date you dropped it in a mailbox or handed it to a postal worker, USPS will now mark it with whenever their sorting machine gets around to processing it - potentially days later.
Architecture is one of those fields that’s perpetually on the border of “You’re all full of shit” to me. This is an NYC office building that was built in 1977:
Apparently that little circular doohickey up top was, at the time, a revolutionary departure from modern design principles and had every prominent architect at the time absolutely furious for that reason. 46 years on and it’s seen as an architectural treasure that made the NYC Landmark list.
It’s. A circle. Literally just a circle. I don’t get it.
I can explain this, but you have to start with the understanding that this entire thing is a gigantic in-joke of a piss take. This is going to be long.
First, you need to understand about ornamentation. Ornamentation is anything in a building that is basically a slightly superfluous detail.
In this colonial revival house (which is supremely balanced and has very clean lines), you can notice how the bottom windows have these clean ornamentations at the top, the way the columns fan out into a small design; the way the dormer windows have their own different style of decor complete with arch and keystone! That’s the ornamentation, it’s the small touches of structural decor. The majority of the time, they were there because they were needed to support something, to give additional support
Modernism changes that. The arrival of concrete and steel on architecture means you can explore structures that were never possible before, ways of getting light into a room that were never possible before, shapes that were never possible before; it basically heralds a new era entirely. For instance, Louis Sullivan’s National Farmer’s Bank of Owatonna, though a late entry into modernism (1908!):
Look how none of the voids (windows and doors!) have any sort of ornamentation. There is some ornamentation around the corners, sure, and while the ornaments themselves are very baroque and refined, there’s also a textural element on the tiling itself being patterned. But that’s very up-close detailing, or very far away detailing. You end up with a mix of the shape and texture being where detailing is explored, less so the ornamentation of before. Importantly, none of that ornamentation is, in any way, shape, or form, anything that is fundamentally structural. It’s become nearly superfluous.
And this keeps developing and developing and you arrive at things like skyscrapers. Sullivan may have been the father of the skyscraper, but I can think of no better follower than the trio of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, who are most notable for the Empire State Building, but 500 5th Avenue may be the most direct example of what I’m talking about:
This modern-day ziggurat is almost all shape - the mullions (those vertical lines dividing windows) are largely decorative, and the ornamentation is very minimal and only serves to bring forward the shapes - notice how they only exist in what’s essentially the ceiling of each floor!
So we’ve established that ornamentation is steadily going away and no longer en vogue because architects are exploring the limits of shape itself, and they’re exploring unusual textures. But fast forward some 50 years, and this has become the singular architectural style that even exists. And a trio (Denise Scott Brown, Robert Venturi, and Steven Izenour) go to Las Vegas on a trip and come back with post-modernism. The idea is that buildings are either decorated sheds (ornamented houses) or ducks (buildings where the shape itself is the draw). The duck is a bit of joke to Americana - they passed by a duck building where the entire point was that it was a duck. There’s a disagreement, but even among the detractors, you’re going to see a more humorous take on Modernism. They’re going to make buildings that resemble other aspects of buildings, or other buildings, or whatever. It’s extremely in-jokey. It’s amazing.
Venturi and Scott Brown’s first major work is the Guild House, which is an apartment for the elderly. See if you can spot the joke:
Did you get it? The entire 5-story building is topped off with a colossal arch, treating the balconies like a void that you have to add an ornament on top. It’s a call back to the windows that we saw on the colonial house! This is a joke for a specific audience, but goddamn it’s really funny.
So the post-modernists are basically gonna set up jokes with architectural elements and play with aspects of it. It’s architecture for architecture nerds. It’s so obviously trying to be clever, and I love it.
Which brings us back to 550 Madison Avenue, by Johnson and Burgee, at the top of this post. The circle isn’t just the circle. It’s the entire slope and circle. The thing crowning the building. And you’ve seen it above doorframes and windows in a number of places.
The thing atop this dormer is called a pediment. It’s that mini roof. In this case we have a standard apex (the top) and a broken base (the bottom). This means that the top is connected and doesn’t recede to let in any ornamentation, but the bottom is broken up into two parts to let in the ornamentation.
On top of this door, you have a pediment broken on the apex. It’s filled in by that egg-like thing.
But what if you put a gigantic broken pediment one with no ornament on top of a building?
And there we have it. 550 Madison, a gigantic, supremely large scale shitpost, brought to you by technological advancements in construction and shifting design philosophies. “This skyscraper is structured like a window” is a really funny gag to pull if you’re the kind of person who actively has the same degree of architecture nerdery that I do. And architecture is one of the most common forms of art that you can observe and pull apart on your daily life.
Architecture is one of those things where because its so aggressively public, communal, and (seemingly) long lasting, its design should be equally so. But it turns out architects are just a bunch of little guys doing their weird hobby shit like everyone else, with back-and-forth fuck you’s to match. And that’s beautiful, it should never change.
Have you ever tried living for two full years in a makeshift tent that protects you from neither the scorching heat of summer nor the freezing cold of winter?
Have you lived without clean water, without proper food, in a place that isn’t suitable for human beings?
We are living in tragic conditions. We barely eat enough to keep hunger away, and whatever food we find is nothing close to what a human body needs.
Have you ever been in severe pain that feels like your body is tearing apart simply because there is no medicine? And when medicine does appear, it is either a rare miracle or sold at a price we can never afford.
Our life has become something that words cannot fully describe.
We are suffering every moment, in every part of daily life. And asking for help is not easy for me, but our reality is far harsher than anything we can face alone.
Your kindness, your humanity, your support are the only things keeping us going. Without your help, I don’t know how we would have survived these months.
The recall pertains to numerous brands of grated Pecorino that were distributed throughout 20 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.
The recall has been bumped up to Class I status, meaning that consuming the affected product could result in serious adverse health consequences, or even death.
It’s actually kind of striking how rapidly the ads on ostensibly respectable platforms have changed in the last 12–18 months. I’ve been getting penis enlargement scams and pyramid schemes that don’t even bother to pretend to be otherwise on YouTube – it’s like every platform is now running the kinds of ads that even three years ago would have been restricted to porn sites, and I’m not gonna lie, the fact that everyone seems to be getting desperate all at once ain’t an encouraging sign!
I just saw full frontal erect penis on a weather app. It’s not the sign of the impending tech-bubble implosion I expected, but apparently it’s the sign we’re getting.
just got a call from the american psychiatric association. you old dogs, i said, picking up on the first ring. how many times i gotta tell you to lose this number. i don’t want you coming around here anymore. “listen, toots, we’ve been doing some thinking,” they says, and i says, guess there’s a first time for everything. “you’re a real funny dame, sugardoll. reviewing criticism, we’ve determined that the biggest issue with our previous diagnostic and statistic manuals of mental disorders is the anonymity of it all. we’ve been circling around a vague figure of the mentally well without defining the traits of a mentally well person. there’s no personality. what we need is a cute broad with a couple opinions to model the psychological norm.” so i’m saying back up and give it to me straight: i’m the new standard of sanity? can i get that in writing? and they say, “as the american psychiatric association we hereby state that you are the baseline and any deviations from your personality are deviations from the very concept of sanity, at least in the united states psychiatric system.” they’re making it public tomorrow. it’s a nice gig, if you really want to know. never thought they’d let a woman do it.
I live a very difficult life every moment in this cold weather, from which we cannot survive. Many children have died from the extreme cold in the tent.
My day begins each morning with the search for necessities like food, water, firewood for cooking and heating, and mobile phone charging from distant locations.
My life is painful in every detail, but I am confident that you will not abandon me.
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