James Stobie, known on YouTube as Stobe the Hobo, was the poet laureate of the modern freight-train rider. For a few short years in the 2010s, he crisscrossed the country on railcars with a camcorder…

404 Media is filing public records requests around the country to find out how cops are using Axon's ALPRs. Here is how you can do that too.

The biggest source of power a community has when data-center developers come knocking is the ability to say no. That power is manifested through zoning, building codes, environmental rules, and other…

Tech’s new generation and the end of thinking

I first became acquainted with Berkeley Springs, WV, in my scumbaggiest twenties. I lived two hours away in Baltimore, where I worked as an editor at the local alt-weekly newspaper. I made $30,000 a…

If you’re a local government in West Virginia, Big Tech can essentially do whatever it wants with you. That’s actual state law. It’s called the Power Generation and Consumption Act, or West Virginia…

Following an April lawsuit, a pair of environmental groups sought a preliminary injunction this week in federal court that would shut down construction of the terminal 6.9-mile segment of the Corrido…

There was a time when a motel having a restaurant and even a bar was normal. As an amenity, it made good sense: The road-weary, hungry traveler was a captive customer, marooned for the night on an ar…

For a brief period in the late 2000s, US Route 48 truncated abruptly just shy of the town of Moorefield, WV. Four lanes downhill right into a reflective guardrail. It was an odd feeling. Behind it sw…

A few miles southwest of Wardensville on US Route 48, a traveler is presented with the choice between two different versions of rural West Virginia. Head due south along the Lost River to the small L…

The nice thing about a ferry without any real utility is that it’s not likely to be crowded. On a recent summer evening, on the last run of the day, we were one of two cars on the nine-car capacity O…

Milo’s Guesthouse is one of what I’ve started calling keypad motels—very small properties with very limited or, more likely, no onsite staff that are usually accessed via a previously exchanged keypa…

About two winding miles down the highway from Seneca Pines Lodge is another, much larger motel. This one, literally in the shadow of Seneca Rocks, the area’s main tourist attraction, is long-abandone…

A "piercing, unsentimental" (New Yorker) history that boldly challenges the idea of a rural American crisis.   It seems everyone has an opinion about rural America. Is it gripped in a tragic decline? ...

YouTube video by Motherboard

In his recent The Reverse Centaur’s Guide To Life After AI, Cory Doctorow likens AI coding/code generation to gambling. A human comes up with some textual prompt issuing an instruction to an LLM to w…

My name is Noelle and I’m a fan of the world’s largest operating steam locomotive. I used to think this was a unique fact about me. But recently our tiny fandom has exploded. Big Boy, as he’s called—C...

These are all the clips I could find on YouTube as of 2020-09-17. I'll try to keep it up to date. Let me know if there are some I've missed. Also check out a...