I know I’ve spent the summer annoyed about the state of social media. But I’ve spent most of it largely off it. Mainly due to it being blocked. I’m not really reading or consuming it at all. I log in, post something, reply to DM’s and notifications and log out. The news is also blocked.

What’s slowly starting to happen, as I spend more and more time in smaller communities instead. Is that I’m starting to feel like i’m in a ‘scene’. And it turns out that a discord full of writers, podcasters, musicians, all chaos magic adjacent all like the same stuff. We’re all writing and reading each others work. New books are dropping by people a few handshakes out and everyone is reading them all at the same time.

I wrote last year that One band is a collective endeavour, two bands make a scene. This is exactly whats going on.

I posted this as a weekly meme a while back but I’m re-posting it. This is the best meme i’ve seen this year hands down. It’s the single most important thing, it means a lot to me and (I would suggest) that others need to remember this too. My media ecology is set up in such a way that I try to keep up to date with as much ‘work’ that my peers are making and creating as possible.

The reason, being frank: I just don’t care what ‘everyone else‘ is doing, thinking, saying, or making.

In fact, ‘most people‘ aren’t making, thinking, or creating anything at all.

I only care about what my peers are doing.

I’ve worked really hard to make my friends and peers the horizon of my influence. I can influence out and be influenced by this little filter bubble. Its not an echo chamber by any means. You reading this ‘over there’ at the top of your own lighthouse have different interests from me and therefor have a different horizon. If you like stuff and post about it, maybe I’ll like it too. Our chain of loose association means that potentially we can all see quite far. But only if you share it.

The goal of creating and making things on line of course is to influence more people. To get ones work in front of more eyeballs. Basically what we are all seeking, ultimately, is Attention. But its important to remember you don’t need to pay attention to everyone else.

One of the worst changes social media made as part of the shift to algorithmic timelines was showing tweets/posts/content to people that they hadn’t purposely/intentionally chosen to pay attention to. X’s ‘For you’ page is the single most useless part of the website. I just don’t care what ‘other people‘ or strangers think. I solved the algorithmic content problem on instagram by following 100’s of people who collect and paint Warhammer. I just drowned everything else out by flooding my feed. lol

The Internet (at least for me) is (after the last 5 years or so), starting to feel good and fun again. I’m in small communities, hanging out with people doing their thing.

A big topic of conversation of course in these groups “how we promote our work now”. The wider reach of social media was useful. Yet, I personally don’t particularly feel the need to re-build my social graph. I’m skeptical that its a good use of anyones energy and time at all.

Anyways. Not particularly going anywhere with this line of thinking. But its on my mind.

I’ve been working in issue #7 of Start Select Reset Zine this week. Should be out and in the post to subscribers by the end of the month. Support below to get on the mailing list.

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Photo 365

The Ministry Of My Own Labour

I’ve been doing a lot of ‘sorting out’. Responding to the inevitable things that cropped up whilst I was on holiday the other week.

• Calls with folks
• Lots of calls
• Planning my talk in November in Istanbul
• A few meetings booked in for next week
• Insane amount of self indulgent introspection.
  • Trying to come up with a plan and some medium term goals and priorities.

I am more or less free work wise from the end of September. So if anyone reading this has any projects that they think i’d be a useful addition to, please get in touch!

Terminal Access

I’d like to direct you toward this interview with Sean Monahan @ the carousel its a super interesting, free wheeling discussion about his time in K-hole, Norm-core, Marketing world in general, Gen Z and emerging trends.

Dipping the Stacks

Baldur’s Gate 3 is Causing Some Developers to Panic – IGN

While Baldur’s Gate 3 is being widely celebrated by fans and developers alike, some are panicking that this could set new expectations from fans. Good. In this opinion from Destin Legarie we explore why fans feel this way and why they’re celebrating games like Baldur’s Gate 3, and Elden Ring.

Yelling is not journalism

Games release in imperfect states because devs either run out of money or the shareholders of their parent company mandate that a game must come out in a certain window

Robot Saints in the Middle Ages – Medievalists.net

There is a famous example of a devotional robot – the Rood of Grace in Boxley, England – that was held up by Protestants in the sixteenth century as all that was wrong with Catholicism. Apparently, this wooden figure of Jesus on the cross could move its eyes and mouth, and was a huge draw to Boxley Abbey.

The Ritual of Rearranging Your Books

When our holiday plans went awry, I did what any sensible book collector would do in my place: I spent Christmas Eve piling every single book from the unread books bookcase onto the dining room table, dusting them, considering them, and deciding their fates.

Flight Simulator Gave Birth to 3D Video-Game Graphics – IEEE Spectrum

Bayless recalls that after explaining to Gates that the software included every airport on the planet, Gates responded by saying, “‘You’re full of shit. That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.’” This was Gates’s highest form of praise, Bayless notes. “In the lore of Microsoft, if Bill says that to you, you’re made.”

Reading

X by Y

I’m currently reading the first draft of a large chunk of a book written by a friend. Whilst it’s been commissioned its not announced – so obviously I can’t talk about it.

Here Be Monsters by Rhyd Wildermuth

This is one of the books that I mentioned in the introduction that my wider ‘scene’ is reading. I haven’t actually finished this, but 93% is basically done. I’m looking forward to watching the discussion between Rhyd and Gordon at 5pm today. Here be monsters is a very readable and fast paced history of social justice politics. Where it came from, how we got here, and where we are now. It’s really good.

★★★★★

Choose Your Enemies by Sandy Mitchell

I had been putting reading this off as it was the last book (#10) in the Ciaphas Cain series. BUT a new book just came out, so I snapped both up on Audible. This book is another entry in the series that’s stamped out of Mitchell’s classic ‘Flashman vs Blackadder but in spaaace’ mold and I love it. Can’t get enough of these characters. As always, Perring’s performance as narrator was top notch.

★★★★

Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organise Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential Main by Tiago Forte

I finally did it. I started reading the Forte book. I think if I was 23 and not live though much of the knowledge management framework discussions that have occurred since 2000’s this book would be a must read. I am going to recommend it to lots of graduters I’ve encourntered who are baffled by folder stuctures and project managmenet software. Having lived their entire adolescence using the search function in google drive rather than organising files in to folders.

Haven’t finished it yet, so can’t give you a final score.

Tatsuro Yamashita/Mariya Takeuchi Collection

God knows how far i’ve gone down the city pop rabbit hole in the last month or so but I’ve ended up here. This week I’ve been listening to the instrumental collection of 80’s city pop pioneer Tatsuro Yamashita and his wife Mariya Takeuchi.

Anyways. These tracks are all instrumental versions of their biggest hits and the whole series has basically become the soundtrack to my day/life. I can’t find anything online about these albums and they don’t appear to be on discogs. Anyways they are on Spotify and they are amazing. My Favourite song is SPARKLE.

Remember Kids: