It’s my Birthday today. Cannot wait to leave this 12th house year.
We went into town to meet up with my parents. Its the first time I’ve been in central London since I spoke at Treadwell’s. We went to my favourite place for 2 hours of endless Dim Sum. I ate so many steamed buns I feel like I’m going to explode.
Today was also the first proper thing I’ve done out the house since recovering from Covid so, I feel pretty wiped out.
So here’s some random photos:
Permanently Moved
Don’t Call It a Comeback
This weeks show is about the TV show Whats My Line? and the power of Colonel Sanders’ image flowing backward in time.
The Ministry Of My Own Labour
Starting to get back into the swing of things. It’s really hard to cold boot in to any sort of work rhythm with brain fog.
I still don’t have any freelance work in the pipeline so I’m going to be getting on worldrunning.guide and blogging a lot for the rest of the month.
I’ll do a post about it closer to the time, but I’ll be on The Stoa 17th of August. I’ll give a talk and then as is the format move to live q&a with the audience. My talk title is “Solarpunk: A Narrative Strategy for a Broken Present, a Memetic Engine for a Better World“
Dipping the Stacks
A New Era of Financial Market Behavior – MarketPsycles
Financial market behavior and structure are in for a massive change if retail continues to push their way into liquid markets.
This is one of the most interesting things I’ve read recently. Also, I’m pleased to add is also inline with discussion/opinion in the back channels.
Opinion | Roxane Gay: Why People Are So Awful Online – The New York Times
Every harm is treated as trauma. Vulnerability and difference are weaponized. People assume the worst intentions. Bad-faith arguments abound, presented with righteous bluster.
Put a tree on it
Computing in the 2020s is (still) a user-hostile shifting sand. We are drowning in churn and noise. I am fighting back by switching this website from HTML to PDF.
The new reading stack – macwright.com
Books are amazing, but the options we have to buy books and track our reading are terrible. A lot of us are locked into the Amazon ecosystem – buying books on Amazon.com, reading them on Kindles. Sites like AbeBooks and Goodreads were quietly acquired by Amazon. Even LibraryThing is now part-owned by Amazon.
Reading
I read 2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron this week.
Andrew Dana Hudson mentioned it on a call and told me to read it.
In turn, I told JDO to read it.
Its cheap, short and very punchy advice. I’ve found it quite inspiring and useful in more ways than just ‘how to get more words down on the page when you sit down to write’. It’s also encouraged me to get back to writing fiction.
It’s like £2 on kindle. Worth every penny.
Music
thejaymo.net Spotify Playlist
Willow Smith – lately i feel EVERYTHING
So the saying goes “If I’ve heard of your da, I don’t need to hear from you”. The only person I ever had the pleasure of meeting a few times and had definitely heard of their ‘da’ was Peaches Geldof. And I found her extremely good value to be around.
Maybe because of the old saying (perhaps,) that I haven’t seen too may reviews of Willow Smiths pop punk album lately i feel EVERYTHING. I don’t know why, because it’s an absolute banger. It feels like it’s from 2003, but with 2021 production aesthetics. The whole album is shot through with a sort of teen ‘take no shit from anyone’ attitude. Love it. It’s really exciting to see/hear pop punk back in the public consciousness. I wonder where this is all going to go.
My favourite track on the album hands down is:
Lipstick
It’s just huge.
G r o w
The Avril Lavigne collab track is an instant pop punk classic.
Remember Kids:
I wanna make one of these – but it’s the Tree of Life.
