About 20 years ago, Alex Hirsch, a student at the California Institute of the Arts, set out to make a low-budget short animated film that he hoped would become a demo reel one day. It was called “Gravity Falls” … you have perhaps heard of it, yes? Hirsch used the[Read More…]

The cities of San Francisco and Pittsburgh are currently in a battle for bragging rights: Which town is home to the world’s steepest street? Is it Canton Avenue in Pittsburgh, a 21-foot stretch of which is at a 37% grade? Or Bradford Street in San Francisco, which claims a shorter[Read More…]

In 1935, in the depths of the Great Depression, the U.S. Congress passed what’s sometimes called the “Second New Deal.” It was a $4.88 billion investment into getting Americans through the Depression. The original New Deal, launched in 1933 just after Franklin Roosevelt won the Presidency, had prevented people from[Read More…]