Sign in

HR Smith

@strangerworks.bsky.social
439 followers 328 following 33 posts

San Francisco-based reporter for Mission Local, Bay Nature, etc etc. Exceedingly interested in most things.

PostsRepliesMedia
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Truly, the best editor is the kind of editor who calls you up and says "I have an assignment for you and that assignment is explain how spiders balloon using electricity."
120
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Absolutely loved being one of the editors on this bonkers story from @miss-elenius.bsky.social on a wildly addictive, perfectly legal drug whose side effects include (in one user) impulsively purchasing $4,000 worth of golfing equipment. missionlocal.org/2025/08/sf-s...
missionlocal.org
Scientists say this drug is stronger than morphine. It’s on sale over the counter.
The FDA says opiate-like drugs like 7OH are dangerous and addictive. Scientists say they need to be studied.
142
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Who has two thumbs and was incredibly excited to learn that Spike Lee just released a remake of Akira Kurosawa's sweaty anti-income inequality art noir masterpiece High and Low? This guy: www.portlandmercury.com/movies-and-t...
portlandmercury.com
Movie Review: Highest 2 Lowest Is a Spike Lee Joint by an Akira Kurosawa Fan
For fans of making fun of Boston sports fans.
120
Reposted by HR Smith
Kate Golden @meownderthal.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Good luck, little butterflies! No presh. Some hopeful news amid the turmoil, from @strangerworks.bsky.social for @baynature.org 🌎https://baynature.org/2025/05/01/survival-of-the-flittest-relocated-butterflies-are-spotted-in-san-francisco/
baynature.org
Survival of the Flittest: Relocated Butterflies Are Spotted in San Francisco - Bay Nature
At a recent release, volunteers help a new batch of silvery blues adjust to city life.
064
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Love a good second-day story that points out that the current DA is quoted as admitting to a freaking misdemeanor in the first-day story, and yet somehow that is not noted or contextualized (IT IS CONTEXTUALIZED HERE. COME HERE FOR THE CONTEXT).
011
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
This promises to be a civic gossip/civic policy spectacular.
000
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
"It was never clear to me — other than being a bunch of assholes — what it is you guys want?" is but one highlight of this exit interview that @esksf.bsky.social and I did with Aaron Peskin for @missionlocal.org. missionlocal.org/2025/01/sf-a...
021
Reposted by HR Smith
Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
If you're mad at the health insurance industry — and you should be! — then please remember that every U.S. state has a department of insurance that regulates these insurers. The DoI can come down on them like a ton of bricks for fraudulent behavior. You can file complaints, talk to state reps, etc.
371093359
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Loved so much about Queer, but when I saw the word "Joan" in the credits at the press screening my first thought was, "You have got to be fucking kidding me." www.portlandmercury.com/movies-and-t...
portlandmercury.com
Film Review: In "Queer" Luca Guadagino Manages to Make William Burroughs Seem Romantic
Luca Guadagnino is a great editor of other people’s love stories. With this past spring's Challengers, he took a fairly basic screenplay about tennis bros and queered it up to 11. In Bones and All (20...
031
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Love this history — I've never heard of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers' Movement before now.
000
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 15/04/2024
When the same outfit trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth decided to bring back an extinct insect, they went about things very differently. Many thanks to Bay Nature, Kate Golden, and above all things Durrell Kapan for this road trip with a cooler full of butterflies. baynature.org/2024/04/15/t...
020
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 26/03/2024
So grateful for these months of deep obsession with riparian ecology, the history of California’s state park system, and the most badass basket weavers I have ever had the pleasure of speaking with. baynature.org/article/afte...
baynature.org
Dos Rios Ranch Is the Everything Park - Bay Nature
Dos Rios Ranch State Park, in the Central Valley, is a test of California’s ability to adapt to the future—and learn from the past.
020
Reposted by HR Smith
Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 22/02/2024
Y'all I am SO excited for this. 🧪 Are you in NYC on April 10? Do you wanna hear about how we talk about animals we HATE?! This talk is for you it's me and @bug-gwen.bsky.social! THE DREAM TEAM. journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/eve...
journalism.nyu.edu
Creepy, Crawly, and Uncharismatic: Telling the Stories of Unloved Animals - NYU Journalism
A conversation with Bethany Brookshire and Gwen Pearson.
0228
Reposted by HR Smith
Carli Velocci 👽 @carlivelocci.com · 22/02/2024
So... if you ever wrote anything for Vice, today might be a good day to start saving those PDFs
A tweet from @janusrose that says: "VICE has shut off our ability to download our emails after we received an anonymous tip that they’re going to be deleting our entire website today. 

fun times in the media death spiral!!! will update once i know whether or not we’re all fired"
161183585
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 14/02/2024
First time I’ve called someone to do a fact-check and they’ve put me on speakerphone so that they can sort abalone shells at the same time.
110
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 09/11/2023
Today's archival read: Frederick Law Olmsted Jr's survey of the state of California, with an eye towards what should be turned into state park land. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc...
babel.hathitrust.org
Report of state park survey of California. Prepared for the California State park commission by Fred...
Report of state park survey of California. Prepared for the California State park commission by Frederick Law Olmsted.
100
Reposted by HR Smith
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 08/11/2023
One of the things that I learned from working on a podcast about climate solutions is telling people the solution is to vote is limiting because it suggests that they aren't the adults in the room. One of the coolest bits was when a dude told us we'd inspired him to *run* for utility board
1398
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 08/11/2023
This absolute treasure of a nightlife story in the @portlandmercury makes me long for the days of living in a city with a decent alt-weekly. www.portlandmercury.com/culture/2023...
000
Reposted by HR Smith
it took an hour, maevey a day @maeveynot.online · 08/11/2023
i like a true crab/i like a false crab/i like a cute crab/i like a pointy crab/a long crab/a crab in ammonite/get your nails did/carcinze tonight
310128
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 30/10/2023
Bart police leave the train car, whereupon competing interests instantly crank up their respective smooth jams.
100
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 23/10/2023
After a 100+ years of California wiping out of wild ecosystems, look who's crawling back to native plants begging them for little flood control, a little hillside stabilization, a little groundwater recharge? But there's a catch. Where you going to get those wild seeds from?
baynature.org
The Native Seed Gold Rush - Bay Nature
Big environmental dreams—and disasters—have created demand. Now it's time to worry about supply.
100
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 16/10/2023
Late to this essay, but this rings so true: "A quarter of all animal species known to science are beetles. Look into the mirror. Are you so sure you're not a beetle yourself?"
010
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 16/10/2023
Woke up this morning with the dim memory of saying, with great excitement, "It's called no-till farming but you can STILL PLOW" to some unfortunate soul at a party.
210
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 06/10/2023
Amazing opportunity! Tell all your bb science journalist friends! Would that this opportunity had been around when I was a sproutling, trying to write way above my skill level for publications that didn't always fact-check, filled with raw terror of making grievous mistakes!
010
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 06/10/2023
Biking all over SF and Oakland during this heat wave, and in the Castro only are the times recognized and met with denim cutoffs, sliced and frayed to bisect each butt cheek at a perfect 45 degree angle.
000
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 15/09/2023
This woman on Bart with a teddy bear tattooed above each kneecap, in a baby pink sweatshirt printed over and over with the phrase "Assholes live forever." The rewards of public transit are myriad and glorious.
000
HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 04/07/2023
New All-Seeing Eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleburg just dropped.
030