Los Angeles is where you confront the objective fact that you mean nothing; the desert, the ocean, the tectonic plates, the clear skies, the sun itself, the Hollywood Walk of Fame – even the parking lots: everything there somehow precedes you, even new construction sites, and it's bigger than you and more abstract than you and indifferent to you. You don't matter. You're free.LA residents given to talking about life in the city talk about freedom a lot. Without a cohesive citywide identity or community structure, without a city center in any sense of the word, you don't situate your life in relation to some imagined ur-community or parental figures. You're just there. But I'd add one thing: it's true that the city as a whole cares about nothing. But there are a thousand communities, more, within the city.
This is Lukas Bergstrom's weblog. You can also find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Tech
AI, Net, RSS, Crowdsourcing, Development, Shopping, Hardware, Visual, Business, Medical, barcamp, Security, s60, Web, Open, OS, Android, Mobile, Social, Data, a11y, Energy, Collaboration, Audio, Product Management, Web analytics, Javascript, PIM, Automobile, MacOS, WRX, Storage, Wearables
Other
Housing, Personal care, Clothes, Podcasts, Politik, Food & Drink, Boston, Games, Quizzes, Berlin, History, L.A., Friday, Feminism, Travel, Agriculture, CrowdFlower, Life hacks, Law, Video, Minnesota, Activism, Statistics, Transportation, Sports, San Francisco, Toys, California, NYC, Geography, Bicycling, Surfing
Music
L.A., Labels, Mixes, Mp3s, Musicians, Shopping, Making, Good tracks, Booking, Mailing lists, Streams, Events, Reviews, House, Hip-hop, History, Boston, Lyrics, Videos, Business
People
ADD, Meditation, Buddhism, Life hacks, Stories, Me, Weblogs, MOTAS, Gossip, Exercise, Languages, Subcultures, Family, Working with, Friends, Health, Enemies, Heroes, Vocations
Arts
iPad bait, Events, Humor, Comix, Literature, Visual, Animation, Spoken Word, Outlets, Poetry, Burning Man, Rhetoric, Sculpture, Desktop wallpaper bait, Movies
Commerce
Macroeconomics, Management consulting, Personal finance, Non-profit, Taxes, Real Estate, Investing, Personal services, International Development, Web, IP Law, Marketing and CRM, Shopping, Microfinance, Insurance
Design
Architecture, User experience, Tools, IA, Process, Web, Data visualization, Furniture, Algorithmic, Presentations, Type, Cool
Science
Physics, Psychology, Cognition, Zoology, Networks, Statistics and Data, Environment
Travel
Kenya, Uganda, Kingdom of Siam, Vagabond '08