Where Is Capitalism? Unmasking Its Hidden Role in Psychology – This deep-dive by social psychologist Karim Bettache takes a closer look at how capitalism shapes the way we think and how we see the world.

There Are No Weird Blogs Anymore Cause It’s More Fruitful to Drive Them Out of Business – “After several years of reporting on and obsessing over how private equity works and why, I finally understand the root of my misconceptions about capitalism. I had thought that the point of buying a beloved, profitable publication was to make it more profitable, to strengthen the fundamentals of its business model in hopes of a lucrative exit years down the road.” Via Kottke

In Defense of Times New Roman – “We are so used to Times that even choosing it still signals apathy.” V.H. Belvadi on why we should look past the impulse to see Times as “undesigned.” A nice companion to the current trend of designers choosing to use Times as a way to signal a type of brutalism or rawness within their work (Lorde’s use of the typeface across her entire Virgin rollout comes to mind).

Why the internet fell for a Chinatown passport photographer – A small film developing shop has become a go-to place for flattering passport photos in NYC, due to the proprietor’s knack for portraiture. “‘She’s really perfected the craft, and you can tell she is very deliberate and knows what she’s doing but makes it look effortless.’”

The Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute – A visual compendium of niche trends and aesthetics, described as “an online community dedicated to developing a visual lexicon of consumer ephemera from the 1970s until now.” Each of these is a massive shot of nostalgia, and seeing them given cultural context and analysis is really scratching a particular itch. Loving Frasurbane, Whimsicraft, Global Village Coffee House. The Are.na of one of its founders, archivist Evan Colins seems to have even more comprehensive visuals for each aesthetic. (Discovered via the Frasurbane page: this fabulous 1986 secretary desk.) Via Irony Machine.

Personal Web Neighborhood – A link page styled as a charming ASCII town, created by Loren at Ribo.zone.

When AI Prophecy Fails – Cory Doctorow (Enshittification) on why AI is essentially one big MLM scheme. “What’s Amazon to do? How do they convince you to buy enough AI to justify that $180b in capital expenditure? Somehow, they have to convince you that an AI can do your workers’ jobs. One way to sell that pitch is to fire a ton of Amazon workers and announce that their jobs have been given to a chatbot. This isn’t a production strategy, it’s a marketing strategy – it’s Amazon deliberately taking an efficiency loss by firing workers in a desperate bid to convince you that you can fire your workers.”

No HTML Club – A small compendium of websites built only using text files. One of the sites, ASCII Bar, is a long-scroll of cocktail recipes. I’m not sure exactly why, but this text-only approach is really doing it for me aesthetically. Via No CSS Club.