This Speaks for Itself | Weeknotes

I had mentally prepared a whole rant about how we’re all doomed, DOOMED.

But this screenshot speaks for itself. As friend said, ‘this is doom scrolling stuff’.

We are at the end of the neoliberal period and this really is perfect. The person who wants to be in power has absolutely no idea about anything.

It’s been raining here all week. Loads of thunder storms have swung by. I was in town the other day and the Hogsmill was rushing in to the Thames.

Here’s a 300 iteration VQGAN_CLIP generated video from the prompt ‘The Metaverse’

As Andrew Dana Hudson pointed out over chat, CLIP is like “I figure people will have pink haired anime avi’s”

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Permanently Moved

Worldrunning – Alex Fradera

Posted this interview with Alex this week. No point in leaving it unloved on the external HD!

The Ministry Of My Own Labour

To be honest, I’ve spent most of the week doing all the stuff I spoke about in ‘Learning Mode‘.

Exploring all these new areas of interest has resulted in a state of mind approaching mania. But in a good way.

I know I said yesterday that I’ve kinda stopped trying to write as brain fog is not conducive to writing. But last night an essay, well, more of a disquisition, emerged fully formed in my head.

I had to get up from bed to write it down. 2k of words later I have the roughest sketch of an essay about Bitcoin and climate change. It pulls in some of the arguments I was making in the first draft of Land As Platform back in 2018.

I just need to write this damn thing now. Its a big project.*

*another one.

Dipping the Stacks

China’s new gaming underclass – Protocol — The people, power and politics of tech

They’re mostly women, and they “accompany” male gamers, acting as guides, training partners and even therapists.

David Brooks Reconsiders ‘Bobos in Paradise’ – The Atlantic

You have to possess copious amounts of cultural capital to feel comfortable using words like intersectionality, heteronormativity, cisgender, problematize, triggering, and Latinx.

A Theory of Vibe

Suppose that when a person grasps a style or vibe in a set of worldly phenomena, part of what she grasps can be compared to the formulae of an autoencoder trained on this collection.

What does rewilding look like? | Rewilding Britain

Imagine life bursting back to our land and seas, where wildlife numbers are growing instead of shrinking and we’re working with nature, as a part of nature, instead of exploiting it. Nature can recover when given a chance. We have to give it that chance.

Efficiency is the Enemy

There’s a good chance most of the problems in your life and work come down to insufficient slack. Here’s how slack works and why you need more of it.

Reading

I read one of the puppet books I mentioned last week.

I also realsed when sorting some book piles out that I hadn’t finished the last 50 pages of N. T. Wright’s Paul: A Biography. This is now corrected.

I also re-read the first couple of chapters of Steve Aylett’s bizarro masterpiece Lint. I’ve mentioned this book on the blog a few times most recently here. It’s so so good. Top 5 fav books of all time.

Green Lung – Reaper’s Scythe

Green Lung return in October with a new album called Black Harvest, I can’t wait.

I described them previously as occulty groove music. This single of the forthcoming album shows that Green Lung continue to labour in the genre known as ‘Sabbath’.

This track is a hit with me.

Billie Eilish – Happier Than Ever

Because history repeats. When I first mentioned Green Lung in 2019, I also mentioned Billie Eilish. So I’m going to do it again. Happier than ever is one hell of an album.

The lead single is some what disorienting the way it moves seamlessly from acustic jazz croonathon to full on rock anthem.

But whats cool about Eilish’s work is that she writes actual songs. And there aren’t enough of them around.

Remember Kids: