Or maybe it never lost it. But it sure was hidden there for a while, while a speculative boom remade Bagdhad by the Bay as a wasteland of high rents and vowel-deficient start-ups. Many creatives decry the current Bay as a bland shell of its former self, yet it’s nice to be reminded that it’s still just as much of a haven for alternative lifestyles and the gloriously weird as ever. Consider the evidence:

1) An Illuminati-ng Community of Conspiracy Theorists

Stop Being Scared of Your Microwave

“That is not to say that a broken or modified microwave oven could not harm you. If you, say, launched a cocktail shaker at a microwave door while reheating some fondue, thereby smashing the door, and you then decided to put your face right up to the smashed door, you would get burned. Don’t do this.” Read more…

Keep those tinfoil hats primed for more debunked theories where that one came from in our new series, The Debunker.

2) We Like Our Sports with a Strong Side of Socialism

The Oakland Tax Raiders: Why Professional Sports Teams Should Be Publicly Owned

“All we currently get is added strain on public infrastructure and other essential civic services, while parasitic billionaires find ways to suck even more blood from the cities that host the teams.” Read more…

3) Of Course, Our Politics Are Explosively Woke

Time to Go Nuclear Against Anti-Internet Privacy Laws

“We can’t just hand over our privacy to the biggest bribers of Congress. Until these products and services are implanted under our skin (oh, wait, it’s already happening!), we still have some say in this. Maybe it seems benign at the moment, given all the other dire political stuff that is happening — the lifting of environmental regulations, airstrikes killing civilians in Mosul, our government being infiltrated by Russia — but really, what the heck can you do about any of that? I have no idea! Whereas we still have a modicum of agency over our basic privacies.” Read more…

4) It’s in Our History After All:

Sex Work in San Francisco, Then and Now

“For sex workers, the Bay Area is attractive for reasons that will sound familiar to almost any minority. Greater tolerance for orientation and expression, excellent social services, ease of finding like-minded individuals and a social climate that generally favors the rights of the individual over the desires of the state.” Read more…