Nestled amid the serene woodlands of Lake Arrowhead, California, the Arrowhead Double A-Frame House – also known as “Bern Double-A” – is an artful transformation of a 1970s cabin. Designed by Dan Brunn Architecture (DBA), this structure elegantly melds the nostalgia of vintage architecture with modern aesthetics, offering a unique retreat that balances luxury with eco-consciousness.

The renovation re-envisions the original A-frame as a “double A-frame,” a novel approach that combines the firm’s distinctive minimalist aesthetic with warm, inviting elements. The cabin’s original T-shaped footprint proved ideal for expanding the A-frame structure in two perpendicular directions, creating a dynamic geometry that feels both familiar and bold. Central to this renovation is the addition of a glass wall on the short axis of the structure, a feature that allows ample light into the lofted areas and visually connects the indoors to the forested landscape beyond.

Inside, DBA’s characteristic restraint in material selection is clear, ensuring an effortlessly timeless feel. Existing woodwork, including the cabin’s original beams and ceilings, was meticulously restored through a unique sandblasting process with walnut shells, preserving the wood’s natural texture while harmonizing with new floors. This thoughtful treatment emphasizes the continuity between the cabin’s past and its revitalized design.

The living room serves as the focal point of the home, where a tall, glass-framed A-frame ceiling contrasts with a rustic fireplace clad in tumbled stone. Designed for relaxation and connection, this space offers sweeping forest views and a cozy semicircular sofa centered around the hearth. Hidden cove lighting enhances the ambiance by casting a warm, inviting glow across the vaulted ceilings, further enhancing the cabin’s connection to nature.

The design unfolds across three levels, each carefully orchestrated to suit distinct functions. The ground floor provides a tranquil zone for bedrooms and utilities, while the second floor brings a social, open layout that includes a guest suite, living and dining spaces, and a kitchen that flows seamlessly into the surrounding scenery. The third floor, an airy loft, features high ceilings, cozy carpeted floors, and mid-century-inspired furniture, adding an element of playful sophistication. Floor-to-ceiling windows strategically placed throughout amplify views of the surrounding woods, inviting nature to become an integral part of the interior experience.

A soft, dark navy hue – featured prominently in the cabin’s core elements, cabinetry, and select exterior areas – creates contrast against the lighter woods of the bedrooms and living spaces. This choice imbues the cabin with a grounded elegance, echoed by navy exterior siding and decks. The kitchen thoughtfully reflects 1970s design inspiration with dual-toned cabinetry and intricate details, including slim, dark-framed edges and custom wooden pulls. White, soft-touch Fenix laminate blends with dark blue-gray finishes, achieving a modern yet period-authentic feel.

Up in the loft, oversized windows provide unobstructed views of the treetops, reinforcing the cabin’s integration with the landscape. Here, bespoke built-in cabinetry displays vintage records and a turntable, celebrating the cabin’s mid-century charm. Adding a touch of whimsy, a Noguchi Akari lantern placed in the corner, illuminates the space in soft light.

The sleeping areas are designed as intimate retreats, each outfitted with Scandinavian-inspired decor, plush rugs, and soft fabrics. The main bedroom is particularly striking with its vintage-inspired reading nook accented in Irish Green, matched with a plush velvet sofa, creating an inviting spot to unwind. Thoughtful lighting fixtures, including wall sconces and floor lamps, add a gentle, ambient glow that enhances the overall sense of calm.

For more information on Dan Brunn Architecture, visit danbrunn.com.

Photography by Brandon Shigeta.

Leica, renowned for its high-end cameras, also excels in optical technology, including home cinema systems. The latest addition to its lineup, the Leica Cine Play 1, is a testament to the brand’s commitment to blending design and innovation.

The Cine Play 1 succeeds the Leica Cine 1, a compact projector designed for premium home theaters. This new model elevates the experience with enhanced technology and a fresh, versatile design. It’s tailored for both indoor and outdoor use, combining modern aluminum and glass materials with a Bauhaus-inspired aesthetic. The result is a sleek, stylish device that complements contemporary living spaces while nodding to classic projector designs. An optional Leica Cine 1 Floor Stand is crafted to seamlessly integrate with the projector’s design while providing a functional and visually appealing base.

The Cine Play 1 delivers impressive performance. It boasts 4K resolution, triple RGB laser technology, a Summicron lens, and Leica’s proprietary image optimization technology, which work together to produce bright, vibrant visuals. The projector achieves up to 3,000 ANSI lumens of brightness, ensuring sharp images and high contrast even in well-lit environments. This makes it ideal not only for dedicated home theater setups but also for multipurpose spaces where ambient light might be an issue.

Beyond its imaging capabilities, the Cine Play 1’s versatility extends to its connectivity options. It includes HDMI, USB, and LAN ports, providing flexibility for wired connections, while AirPlay, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi enable seamless wireless streaming. Whether you’re connecting a laptop, smartphone, or streaming device, the projector ensures a hassle-free experience. Additionally, its intuitive interface and compatibility with popular media platforms make it easy for users to access their favorite content.

The projector also delivers on audio quality. While it features built-in 10-watt speakers that are sufficient for casual use or on-the-go viewing, the Cine Play 1 truly shines when paired with an external sound system. It supports DTS Virtual:X surround sound, creating an immersive audio experience that complements its sharp visuals. This makes it a compelling choice for movie enthusiasts seeking a cinematic experience at home or outdoors.

The Bauhaus-inspired design is not just about aesthetics but also practicality. The use of aluminum and glass ensures durability while maintaining a lightweight, modern profile. These materials also contribute to heat dissipation, keeping the projector cool during extended use. Furthermore, the optional floor stand is designed to enhance the overall setup, offering a stable base that complements the projector.

As expected from Leica, the Cine Play 1 comes at a premium price point, reflecting its top-tier features and craftsmanship. Priced at $3,795 for the projector alone and $495 for the optional floor stand, this device is positioned as a luxury product for buyers who prioritize quality and design.

For more information about the Leica Cine Play 1 projector, visit leica-camera.com.

Leather is inextricable from the human experience, early manipulations dating back 400,000 years. Full grain leather is prized throughout the world as the premium surface in any hide, revered for its strength, durability, and beauty. New York City-based Studio Luddite elegantly subverts this notion with their newest release, the Pell Chandelier. Choosing instead to celebrate another aspect, this piece utilizes the raw edge of the hide, stacked in concentric circles to display the natural variation. Usually painted or waxed to preserve integrity, this unexpected use of a material so storied elevates the collection, adding a heightened sense of luxury.

The beauty of the edges makes each piece inherently unique. “As our process evolved, we found ourselves increasingly drawn to the edges of the leather rather than the surface itself. This resulted in a fixture comprised of stacked leather hide disks forming the body of the fixture. While traditionally, fine leather goods feature treated or burnished edges, our components are left raw, showcasing the natural imperfections of the material,” says Lex Zee, founder of Studio Luddite. Endlessly adaptable, the Pell Chandelier is custom crafted to suit any amount of fixtures or drop heights. This allows for a range of applications within the home, including living areas, dining rooms, or bathrooms.

Multiple leather and metal finish options allow for ideal integration into any existing color palette. Every aspect can be tailored to client’s specifications, fostering a seamless transition from lighting to appliance. Fusing modernity with tradition, the Pell Chandelier offers numerous lighting solutions to ensure every project retains a cohesive, timeless finish.

Studio Luddite is a New York-based brand established by principal designer Lex Zee, guided by the tenets of the Luddite Movement. This movement was popular in the early 19th century as a reaction to unemployment and wage decreases brought about by increased modernization. Luddites would often destroy machines in organized raids, something modern workers would do well to remember. In homage, Studio Luddite thoroughly invests in the functionality and integrity of their pieces, staying true to the craftsmanship and skill that has driven so much of humanity thus far. Zee explains, “I take pride in our brand’s dedication in sourcing quality materials and using them in unique ways. We make it a point to preserve the natural authenticity of each individual component.”

Lex Zee of Studio Luddite

To learn more about Studio Luddite and the Pell Chandelier, visit their website at studioluddite.com. For more updates on Instagram, click here.

The UK government today announced its “AI Opportunities Action Plan” — a rough and buzzword-saturated sketch promising to spend billions on this magical new technology that will achieve unprecedented results by means that are not entirely clear. [Press release; action plan; response]

The media has lined up to do its stenographic duty — but hasn’t bothered to translate the documents from BS back to English. Fortunately, that’s why you send us money!

The key to making sense of the AI action plan is that none of this is any more coherent than any other plan in the AI bubble. Its purpose is to bung public money to large tech companies that are Labour Party and Tony Blair Institute donors.

All of this is based on two reports that openly admit they were based on fake data generated with GPT.

The foundation for a bad idea

The UK’s AI action plan originates in two reports from the Tony Blair Institute — the brains trust for the current Labour government. The Guardian called the TBI “the architects of Starmerite thought.”

The TBI has taken on board the guidance of its generous tech donors. Hence the reports pushing hard for AI in government — one suggested spending £4 billion a year to replace public servants with computers; the other claimed that AI will save 23% of workplace time across the economy.

The TBI reports literally — and proudly! — admit their data was generated by asking GPT and not by going out and doing actual research. The reports include pages of charts and graphs of wholly fabricated numbers.

This entire AI action plan was based on admitted data fraud.

Press release from the Prime Minister

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s press release for the plan throws around ill-sourced claims backed by other ill-sourced claims. It reminds us of digging through the same sort of hasty slop about blockchains.

For example: did you know that the International Monetary Fund estimates that “if AI is fully embraced — it can boost productivity by as much as 1.5 percentage points a year”? Huge if true!

Well, no — the IMF didn’t estimate that. An IMF report on the dangers of AI cited this as one example of “optimistic” claims about AI. It linked a Goldman Sachs briefing from 2023 to promote a report that says that under particular assumptions, generative AI — that is, LLM slop generators — could raise productivity by 1.5% a year.

The report bases this claim on the results of innovations that actually worked, such as electric motors and personal computers. The authors just assume LLMs are in the same class. The report admits this is “highly uncertain.” [IMF, 2023; Goldman Sachs, 2023; Goldman Sachs, 2023]

Starmer says they’ll “feed AI through cameras to spot potholes and help improve roads.” This is the sort of thinking we expect from AI boosters — he cites a problem we don’t have, because all local councils already have more potholes reported to them than they have the money to fix.

The problem is that public services have been systemically starved of funds for a decade or so. AI won’t fix not paying people to fill the potholes.

There are other claims like this — “From teachers personalising lessons, to supporting small businesses with their record-keeping, to speeding up planning applications” — and you may enjoy digging down to track any of them to their highly questionable roots. Or you may not.

The government will order “dedicated AI Growth Zones that speed up planning permission and give them the energy connections they need to power up AI.”

This means bunging money to data center providers Vantage, Nscale, and Kyndryl in particular.

Vantage Data Centers is based in Colorado, Nscale has a data center in Norway, and Kyndryl Holdings is a struggling IBM spinoff trying to revitalize itself by focusing on AI data centers.

It’s not clear how Vantage, Nscale, and Kyndryl won this deal — it certainly wasn’t in a public tender.

Bureaucratic slop generation: the action plan

We don’t think the AI action plan was literally written by ChatGPT. But you’d be forgiven for thinking they used an LLM to map out some bullet points based on the TBI recommendations. It reads like a tepid sixth-form essay.

The claims sound very attractive! AI is apparently “helping some teachers cut down the 15+ hours a week they spend on lesson planning and marking in pilots.” People have seen this claim about teachers and they like it!

In fact, the government did an educational “survey” that was actually an AI promoting focus group. The resulting plan was to generate lesson plans and mark homework with an LLM.

(This will complete the loop: LLM lesson plans will assign children homework they do with an LLM, which will then be marked with an LLM.)

The report cites claims that documents will take 20% to 80% less time to “Business leader interviews, August 2024” — where someone asked bosses what they thought an AI might do.

The report is big on “Unlocking data assets in the public and private sector” and recommends to “Rapidly identify at least 5 high-impact public datasets it will seek to make available to AI researchers and innovators.” This specifically includes the government’s existing plan to sell off NHS patient data to Palantir.

Recommendation 13 is to “Establish a copyright-cleared British media asset training data set.” This and recommendation 24, “Reform the UK text and data mining regime so that it is at least as competitive as the EU,” are currently in consultation as the UK copyright opt-out for AI training — which you need to get your response in on by February 25.

Recommendation 28 is to “Require all regulators to publish annually how they have enabled innovation and growth driven by AI in their sector.” This specifically means prioritizing “AI innovation” over such tawdry details as protecting the public.

Recommendation 43 is “Procure smartly from the AI ecosystem as both its largest customer and as a market shaper.” This means “bung money to Microsoft.”

Sounds good, let’s do all of it

The official response to the totally independent AI Opportunities Action Plan is to implement the lot. You’d be forgiven for thinking the fix was in.

The government will commission “a new state of the art supercomputing facility.” The UK Atomic Energy Authority will build out small modular reactors to power it.

“AI Champions” will be appointed to shove LLMs into places they have no use.

The “Regulatory Innovation Office” will force “behavioural changes within regulators” if they object to the plans of the government’s favored vendors. Regulators will “publicly report on their activities to promote AI innovation.”

So if you want to play fast and loose with rules, put some AI into your scam and appeal to the new central AI innovation office if your regulator tries to stop you.

What happens next?  

If you want to see what will happen in the UK, look at the US. Big tech companies are buying their way into the government. AI companies need more funding to keep going. Venture capital money isn’t enough, so the companies want to tap into that sweet, sweet government funding — the final stage of capitalism. Regulations get loosened, doors get opened, and rich companies accumulate more wealth and start dictating the rules.

None of this has to work properly. The present AI innovations in government include a Copilot-powered refugee rejection bot and a search engine that occasionally tries to get sexy with you.

This is all while the UK government is already setting out how it will cut public service funding to the bone. Just not this public service funding. [Guardian]

The reason the reports, plans, and press releases don’t make sense is because they’re not supposed to. They only exist to justify paying big tech companies lots of public money.

The purpose of the AI Opportunities Action Plan is to pump the AI bubble with hot air. CEOs and insiders cash out. When the bubble pops, your tax money is gone and your public services run on slop generators.

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Even worse is when you get that nagging suspicion that you are, in fact, the world's foremost expert on this topic that you hate. "Oh no".

Anyway, my whole entire job is putting on events, and then getting people to show up at them by telling them about them and I feel like I am really bad at that last part.

Two decades ago, we did this by paying for strip ads in the 2 or 3 local weekly physical newspapers, and putting up posters on poles around town (which meant dealing with a small set of complete weirdos who had their own competing poster fiefdoms, but, whatever, capitalism!)

It kinda worked, I guess? Then the Internet came along and broke everything and we've never figured it out since.

So.

if you are a person who is in the business of putting on events that are open to the public:

I would like to know how you tell people about them. I would like to know what you do, and what you think works.

If are not currently a person who is in the event-throwing business, please sit this one out.

Here's what we do. It's all terrible and I hate it. Do you do different things? Does it work?

Ranked roughly from most effective to least effective:

1. We spend many thousands of dollars per month for paid ads on Facebook and Instagram. I hate this, not least because I am paying money to the worst people in the world. We spend many hours trying to tailor the "audiences" of those ads to our likely customers, which is a constant moving-target shitshow. (And still we periodically see replies saying, "I'm in Utah, why are you showing me this?")

   Sometimes our outside promoters seem to get more (tracked) sales on their ads than we do on our own advertising, but I can't tell whether that's because they are targeting them better, or whether they're just spending a lot more money.

2. Every week, we send out our weekly calendar to around 70,000 people. It has become harder to track "email opened" and "link clicked" these days, but those rates are pathetic. Assuming our tracking works at all (which, who knows, maybe it doesn't), those emails turn into like one ticket purchase a week.

   (Yes, they are all live addresses, bounces are tracked, good sender reputation. Please take it as given that I know how to deliver email properly.)

   When an outside promoter uses a third-party spam service, I see the sales tracking on those, and their numbers are rarely much better than our own -- still in the single digits.

   But email link surveillance can only track sales that originated as a click on the email, and it's certainly a common and normal thing for someone to become aware of a show through email, then they find a friend to go with them, and only a week or two later do they go to the web site to buy tickets. At that point there's no "chain of custody". So, does our email work? Maybe, but we can't prove it!

   This is true of nearly every other method of advertising an event as well.

3. We send out maybe 20,000 more-targeted emails to previous ticket buyers of similar events, e.g., we hype upcoming metal shows to previous metal purchasers. The "open" and "buy" rates are somewhat better for those, but not hugely.

4. When a show is doing poorly, we will sometimes dump a bunch of last-minute free tickets on sites like Do The Bay, in hopes of cutting our losses and getting at least a few bodies in the door who might spend some money at the bar.

   When we do this, it's a desperate stop-gap measure for that one specific event. It is my strong opinion that customers acquired through coupon-clipping sites like this never turn into regular customers: once you give it away for free, "free" is the price they expect it to always be.

5. We have a bunch of social-media automation that posts flyers of upcoming events, tonight's event, etc. Most of the social media sites choose not to show those to anybody. I have no idea if they work or not.

6. Sometimes, someone who works for me will post some free-form thing to Instagram and usually only to Instagram. They tell me that it's really important to tag the artists (a thing you can only do manually and not through any API.) Since Instagram has no concept of "Share" or "RT", I do not understand why they think this matters. It does not lead to sales in any evident way.

7. Sometimes we'll nag a band into posting a video where they stare dead-eyed into the camera and say, "Hello fans, we are coming to NIGHTCLUB in METROPOLITAN AREA, are you ready to rock?" Do those move tickets? I dunno, but sometimes they are funny?

8. Every now and then, someone who writes for a local online publication will include one of our events in their event round-up. This only happens at random, and if that writer is a fan of that particular artist. No amount of effort on our part can make this happen.

9. We have occasionally tried buying ads directly with local online publications rather than Zuckerbook. It's expensive, difficult, and doesn't work:

   Expensive: their ad rates tend to be 5× or 10× higher than Facebook. Difficult: They tend to have longer, more complicated terms; terrible conversion tracking; and most of the time you're dealing with an actual human ad rep through email, who doesn't answer your email half the time. Doesn't work: little evidence that it translates to sales.

10. Most of the time when you contact a local publication and say to them, "Hey, this event we have coming up seems up your alley, maybe you'd like to post something about it?", they just ignore you, but sometimes their answer is: "Sure! Write the entire article, pay me hundreds of dollars, and I'll run it under my by-line."

    We've done that a few times in the past. It's a lot of work, obviously, and it's unclear whether it has ever been worthwhile. See also, no tracking.

11. On rare special occasions, we will spread pole posters around town. Effectiveness unknown.

12. On even more rare occasions, we will print out handbill flyers, and pass those out at similar events at other venues. We almost never do this. In my opinion, the people who still do this haven't noticed that it is no longer 1995.

13. "One of the artists posted a video of their performance, look at all this engagement!" The gig's over! This sells zero tickets. "But... exposure!"

Things we don't do:

14. We never advertise on Google, YouTube or with Google Adwords. It simply does not work. When we have tried, they won't even place the ads. "Please spend $200 showing this ad to people." "We have shown it to $5 worth of people, you're welcome." Largest surveillance advertising company in the world and they won't take our money.

15. Sometimes, if you are looking at a band's music video on YouTube, right below the video there will be a text banner ad telling you that the band is playing in your city, next week, at a LiveNation venue. Wouldn't it be nice if I could buy an ad like that, for when the band is playing at my venue, and the video is being viewed by someone in my city? Oops, there is no mechanism to buy that ad unless your first name is "Live" and your last name is "Nation".

    (Not even joking about that: it's a "beta" "partner program" of which LiveNation is the only partner, and has been for over a decade.)

16. Sometimes someone will say, "But shouldn't you be advertising on TikTok? Isn't that where all the 18 to 24 year olds are now?" Then I say, "I don't think that having a dance meme go viral six months after the show helps us much". And they say, "No, you can run ads for events, that have actual end dates" and I say, "Show me one. Just one. Show me a single TikTok ad, placed by a venue, any venue, for an event that happens on a specific date." I have yet to see one.

17. Even less helpful is when someone criticizes our lack of "presence" on TikTok, or the blandness of our Instagram, because the only way for that to change is for me to hire some full-time wannabe "influencer" to run around the club every night hoping to "go viral" and I'd rather just shoot myself in the fucking face I don't think DNA Lounge can really give that person the career path they're looking for.

    I've always had a fantasy about this blog having more of a music journalism spin to it, but that's always been a non-starter and this "influencer" thing is just a variant of that which sucks more.

Related to all of this is that the way people use nightclubs has been completely broken by the internet. The concept of a "regular" isn't even really a thing any more, not at the scale at which we operate.

It used to be that people would go to clubs for many reasons: music discovery, community, finding friends or partners with similar tastes. All of that moved online around 2008, and clubs became the place you went to see the touring artist you are already familiar with, with the people you already know.

The multinational media corporations turned us into their "last mile", the regrettable place where their electronic "content" product has to finally touch dirt. So unseemly.

As late as 2014, it was still possible for a dance party like Blow Up or Popscene to exist, where there were regulars who went for discovery and community. People would show up with the attitude of, "Whoever they've booked, I'll probably like it." But even by then, our monthly genre-specific DJ parties (Sequence, Vital, Wasted, and to a lesser degree So Stoked) had stopped branding themselves as recurring parties and started branding themselves as one-off concerts. Sure, it happened every month, but most of their customers didn't even know that. They came to see the Big Headliner Show.

(Before you object, yeah yeah, Death Guild is frozen in time, like some clove-stinking Brigadoon. But that's not how literally anything else works.)

In conclusion, internet advertising is a land of contrasts.