Becky Tiffany

The Anti-Social Century Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.

This one of many reasons that 21st century liberalism should reorient itself around *places*, namely creating places that are actually pleasant to live in, with generous public spaces that bring people's physical bodies into proximity.

A better world is possible

A dark-themed weather tracking map from Google Weather Lab: Cyclones (Preview) showing hurricane/cyclone models in the Atlantic Ocean as of Friday, September 19, 2025, at 08:00. The map includes ensemble forecast tracks and storm markers extending from the mid-Atlantic toward Western Europe. Multiple colorful lines (green, orange, blue, purple, yellow) represent different storm model ensembles and possible tracks, with clusters of paths pointing toward Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Portugal. The cyclone originated east of the Caribbean, with its projected paths fanning northeastward across the Atlantic. Colored circles mark storm intensity along the tracks, numbered (e.g., 1, 2, 6) corresponding to categories. A second storm is visible off the Pacific coast of Mexico with clustered ensemble markers. The left panel lists model options (Observed, Our experimental model, WeatherNext Gen, WeatherNext Graph, ECMWF ENS, ECMWF HRES), a legend for storm markers, tracks, ensemble tracks, cones, and wind speed colors. At the bottom, sliders indicate initialization time (Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 08:00) and lead time (+6 days, Fri, Sep 26, 2025, 02:00). The background map highlights North America, the Atlantic Ocean, Western Europe, and parts of Africa.

Having AI crammed down our throats is bullshit, but machine learning has some real uses in science. This awesome page shows experimental cyclone track forecasts from Google DeepMind and Google Research's AI weather models, along with forecasts from ECMWF. 😍

deepmind.google.com/science/weat...

This is truly incredible: Meidas Canada⁩ just surpassed 100,000 YouTube subscribers on DAY 1! Congratulations to Charlie Angus and the Maple Meidas for making this launch such a tremendous success.

This is just the beginning as we fight fascism worldwide!

👉 YouTube.com/@meidascanada

Picture of massive jacked up pick up truck beside small electric bike, with caption “owning one of these gets you accused of being an elitist, who’s imposing his lifestyle on other people.”

Remember this one?

Did this trip for the 3rd time today and I love it so much. It feels like a bit of faff to load/unload my wheelchair to go for a short stroll, but it’s also nothing compared to the headache of driving downtown and looking for parking.
I love my mobility options!

what's interesting about this is that it serves the same purpose as trump's rallies — energizing potential supporters and interested people, creating a positive vibe that builds an affective relationship — but is so much more democratic in that it is participatory

The Happiest Cities in the World are Also the Most Bicycle Friendly The 2025 Happy City Index is in and the world's happiest cities are also some of the best places to ride a bike.

Want a happy city? Build for bikes.

So pleased to see Minneapolis continuing to be on this list & can personally confirm: I am happier here than anywhere I've ever lived.

And a huge factor in that is my ability to live a less car dependent life with my family.

Screenshot of BMJ article: Feature Covid-19 Why scientists are rethinking the immune effects of SARS-CoV-2 BMJ 2025; 390 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1733 (Published 19 August 2025) Cite this as: BMJ 2025;390:r1733

“A growing number of scientists believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus may be subtly altering our immune systems. If correct, their hypothesis will change how we understand everything from RSV to shingles to sepsis.”

“It’s certainly impacting our immune health & probably.. overall health”

Oh hey it turns out another thing Covid cautious people have been saying nonstop for several years is true: lockdowns did not cause “immunity debt,” and Covid infections DO cause immune disruptions that make you more vulnerable to other illnesses.

"Urban planners basically design subsidies for drunk drivers" is a hell of a message about our crap land use, and I'm 100% here for it.

I'm regularly blown away with how powerfully therapeutic good physical space design can be. Especially when an entire commute & physical environment can be filled with proportions, materials, greenery, sound & safety features that leave people feeling a soul-level happiness.

Folks are terrified of the NYC subway, think DC is a gang ridden hellscape and have other often irrational fears, but here's the truth, other than disease or an abusive partner with a gun, you're most likely to be killed by a reckless driver, and we barely acknowledge it's a problem.

We found that after banning rule breakers, about 95% of moderating tasks evaporated. Most Alexandrians we found to be remarkably conscientious ppl who want to participate in thoughtful discussion about creating a productive/functional community for all. It's important to facilitate that w/ structure

After managing online groups w thousands of Alx parents, we found that about 1% of participants would belligerently break rules, try to stir up conflict, theorize abt off-the-rails nonsense & we discovered that if we didn't follow through on banning them -regular, kind, sensible ppl would leave

Audience for a Long COVID conference all wearing masks

This is what the audience for a Long COVID conference looked like today. Notice anything? 😷

The entire business model of R1 public universities rests on 4 revenue sources:

1. Federal grants
2. Private gifts/endowments
3. Tuition (esp. from foreign students)
4. State $

For decades, 📈 in 1-3 offset a secular 📉 in 4. Now, 1 & 3 are being decimated & 4 ain't coming back. The math is clear.

A darkened picture of me, a 40ish white woman, leaning against a pillow. Overlaid text reads August 8 is Severe ME Day

August 8 is Severe ME Day. It recognizes the 25% of people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) whom this neuroimmune disease has left so severely ill, we're home- or bedbound.

1/

I’m fine with limiting the speed of e-scooters and e-bikes just as long as we do the same for every vehicle on our roads.

Peak Dutch cycling infrastructure:

A beautiful Fietsstraat, with greenery, benches, terraces and bike parking spaces, turns into a dedicated cycle path shaded by trees in a schoolzone, to turn into a Fietsstraat again after the schoolzone.

📍 Amsterdam, Weesperzijde.

People riding bikes along a canal in Utrecht, Netherlands.

Posts about urban biking in Dutch cities are routinely replied to with something like “well, they have the big advantage of being relatively flat.”

The Dutch also have the big advantage of not constantly making excuses about why they can’t make clearly smarter decisions.

Can Americans Just Stop Building New Highways? A new book argues that the expansion of the US roadway network has exacted social and environmental costs that far outweigh the benefits.

“The places doing the best in terms of economic efficiency, traffic safety, social equity, and environmental sustainability are frequently the places with the fewest highways and major arterials per capita.”

Erick Guerra in Overbuilt. Must read.

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Please don’t circulate charts that compare construction costs vs. building heights without explaining to your audience that the large increase in costs seen at 4+ stories in height only applies in places that have made the mistake of adopting typical US building codes.

That white guy who can't get a job at Tim Hortons? He's AI | CBC News A series of AI-generated videos that show a white man complaining about how difficult it is to get a job in Canada have been taken down by TikTok, following inquiries made by the CBC News Visual Inves...

www.cbc.ca/news/ai-gene...

YouTube video by BicycleDutch Cities aren't loud, cars are!

It's been said time and time again: Cities aren't loud, cars are!
New short filmed in Utrecht.
youtube.com/shorts/MtMu2...

DING DING DING

I had a friend once (she passed away), who railed against wind farms and wind turbines to protect the birds. She also had this outdoor/indoor tomcat who constantly butchered birds and left them on her doorstep.

Zohran has become a sensation simply by virtue of being a palpably nice person who cares about his community, wants to make their lives a little easier, and thinks the rich could contribute a little more to help with that.

The far right and hard centre have absolutely no good answer to this.

Just a minor side effect of car dominance.

What makes a city great for running and how can we promote ‘runnability’ in urban design? Even the type of street trees planted in a city can make a huge difference.

💯 “If you’ve ever run a big marathon in your city, you’ll know the feeling can be electric. Blocked off streets, cars temporarily banished from the road and a sense of enormous freedom as you run.”

How could cities be designed to inspire more people to take up running?

Thought provoking piece👇