Counterpoint

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5 minutes

I really enjoyed making the episode of 301 that went out this week. It’s super nice when the research/reading I’m doing produces a fun episode. The key insight (for me) this week was about Yahoo’s introduction of Vanity URLS to the Geocities ecosystem.

Anyways, The audio version contains far less content that the show notes, as I cut a bunch out. reading a full URL twice over takes up 10-15 seconds which had to be removed else where.

There’s even more Geocities related things I wanted to mention that didn’t make it in to yesterdays episode!


The Archive Project

I’m sure most of you know about the Geocites archive project that began in 2009 after Yahoo announced it was killing the service. You can read about the efforts of archive team (I love how salty they are about Jason Scott) and archive.org

Just over 600gbs of Geocities was archived which when combined with other extant archives mean there is just under a terabyte of structured data available. Artists have used this material as medium.

One Terabyte Of Kilobyte Age – Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied

“Users’ endeavors, like glittering star backgrounds, photos of cute kittens and rainbow gradients, are mostly derided as kitsch or in the most extreme cases, postulated as the end of culture itself. In fact, this evolving vernacular, created by users for users, is the most important, beautiful and misunderstood language of new media.”

I have followed the OTOKA Tumblr for years, its been a constant companion in my dash realyl worth following if you are a goblin Tumblr user.

The Deleted City – Richard Vijgen

http://deletedcity.net/

Artist Richard Vijgen built a map explorer based on the Geocities archive. This artwork truly captures the city metaphor of neighborhoods and suburbs. Presenting using openstreetmap and Mapbox software you can browser around geocities. Database vision or something super cool.

Below is a talk by Vijgen at the Computer History Museum (who had Deletied Cities installed in the atrium) followed by an interview with Geocities Co-founder David Bohnett


Permanently Moved

The Geocity and the City

This episode is about what happens when the metaphors we use change.
But mostly it’s about Geocities.

Photo 365

353/365

The Ministry Of My Own Labour

I’ve been ticking so much shit off the list. A lot of it is still dial tapping and switch throwing, but i’m burning though my list

  • I did a huge deep dive into my analytics, watched some tutorials.
  • Looked at, rebuilt, tweaked the top 5 most visited pages on my blog.
  • Started work on Dimensino Season 2 now NDAs have expired.
  • I sorted out my notion finally, which was a 4 hours project over 2 days.
  • Had a couple of work calls which were speculative about doing some work.
  • Started thinking about issue 005 of the zine.

Terminal Access

Huw wrote a lovely essay [🔒] Blabryng Fleschely Tonge: pathways into a new year

Contemplation is a bodily activity, though; yoga, prayer, fucking, and walking are all practices that reveal things to us. I love the blabryng and I love the fleschely. Paths require walking; but one benefit of a well-trodden path is the ability to take one’s mind off the immediate dangers of the wilderness and begin to let your mind wander.

Wonderful.

Dipping the Stacks

The Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act is an opportunistic, unconstitutional assault on cryptocurrency self custody, developers, and node operators – Coin Center

Nothing about the bill would prevent the next FTX. In fact, it puts users at more risk.

The rise and fall of peer review – by Adam Mastroianni

Peer review doesn’t work and there’s probably no way to fix it. But a little bit of vetting is better than none at all, right?

Dramageddon: The Virtual Civil War – by Gurwinder

Social media both attracts and amplifies dramatic, narcissistic people, making them seem far more representative of humanity than they really are.

Are You the Same Person You Used to Be? | The New Yorker

Do you seem to be remembering yesterday, or reading a novel about a fictional character? If you have the former feelings, you’re probably a continuer; if the latter, you’re probably a divider.

Valve answers our burning Steam Deck questions — including a possible Steam Controller 2 – The Verge

Griffais says the company is also directly paying more than 100 open-source developers to work on the Proton compatibility layer, the Mesa graphics driver, and Vulkan, among other tasks like Steam for Linux and Chromebooks.

Reading

Ironically I’m still reading How to Read a Book by M.J. Adler I just today hit 50% of the way though on my kindle.

I’m also still listening to The Man Who Invented the Computer by Jane Smiley.

I also started reading Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants by John Drury Clark. It caught my eye so I picked it up. It has a lovely tone of voice.

Much of my reading time has been replaced re-watching an anime series for a podcast I’m going on next week.

Music

thejaymo.net Spotify Playlist

Electric Counterpoint by Steve Reich Performed by Alvaro Herran

I had a really nice walk along the Thames into Kingston listening to this performance earlier in the week.

I’ve always thought that the big decision to be made when performing Reich’s work is tone. Sure theres notes on the page, tempo and indications for when loops being etc. But the interpretation can only be done though tone. Herran’s guitar/amp settings on this recording are light and delicate. They have a gogossamer like quality.

Lovely recording.

Remember Kids:

I have both nerds

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