Month: July 2022

Bookmarked The Controversial Plan to Unleash the Mississippi River by Boyce Upholt (WIRED)

A long history of constraining the river through levees has led to massive land loss in its delta. Can people engineer a way out?

Boyce Upholt explores the engineering nature and the challenges with reversing the side-effects. Whereas in the past, water associated with the Mississippi would flow out through the delta, dumping sediment and building up the land. Nowadays it all flows through a single channel. Every choice associated with fixing this problem has its own environmental and economic consequences.

“There’s not a son of a bitch in this parish, or within this industry, that doesn’t want coastal restoration,” Acy Cooper, the president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association tells me when I find him repairing his boat in Venice, the southernmost harbor on the Mississippi River. Cooper is a third-generation shrimper; he knows that if the marshland is not saved, that chain will come to an end. The necessary gradient of water will disappear, replaced by salty ocean. So Cooper supports some projects—using dredged mud to build marsh, for instance—but worries that the diversion will make the water near Venice too fresh, pushing shrimp out into the Gulf. The small boats used by many shrimpers can’t travel that far. He compares the diversion to a gun held to his head: “Either let me die slowly and I can adapt, or you just pull the trigger and kill me now. That’s the way I feel about it,” he says. “If you pull the trigger now, I’m dead.”

The Army Corps’ draft environmental impact statement, released in spring 2021, confirmed many of Cooper’s worst fears: the blast of fresh water will have “major, permanent, adverse impacts on brown shrimp abundance.” Oysters will suffer, too. Tidal flooding will increase near homes in Myrtle Grove and other marshland communities, while the canals that residents use to travel to their favored fishing sites will become plugged with mud.

This is something captured by Elena Lazos-Chavero and her research team in their research into the act of reforestisation.

Lazos-Chavero’s team concludes, “All reforestation interventions are entangled in social and political structures… The effects of dynamism on trade-offs and synergies for these and various other stakeholders should be considered in planning phases and reevaluated throughout a reforestation effort.”

Listened Four Tet on His 155-Hour Spotify Playlist, the Coolest Thing on Streaming by Andy Cush from Pitchfork

Following the zigzagging path of his curatorial mind, the producer has compiled one of the most kinetic and personal playlists online—with 1,847 tracks and counting

Kieran Hebden discusses his epic Spotify playlist with Andy Cush.

When Hebden launched the playlist in 2016, it was something of a lark, a way to share the spoils of his crate-digging with whoever cared to listen. Within a few months, as it grew in audience and duration—he never deletes tracks, so it’s always getting bigger—he began taking it more seriously. Some Spotify playlists evoke a single vivid but unobtrusive mood, softly massaging the far edges of your attention while the center is occupied with dinner party conversation or lifting weights. This one is more like an ethnomusicology class, or an artwork unto itself. It asks for and earns your sustained engagement, reflecting Hebden’s vast knowledge and puckish personality in its perceptive associations between songs. At some point, for Hebden, it grew from a strictly curatorial outlet into a creative one

 

For Hebden it started as a desire want his own playlist, rather than trying to get onto somebody else’s. This then led to exploring the ability to create tracks for the playlist, which he did by creating alternative artist profiles. Rather than catering for people who do not care, Hebden’s intent is to create an artefact for listeners to explore.

Another example of a playlist that goes beyond the usual is Dan Snaith’s The Longest Mixtape, also in its own way, the Tapefear app helps with the engagement with serendipity.

Bookmarked Melbourne and Suburbs Isometrical Plan – 1866 (emhs.org.au)

A very detailed coloured lithograph by De Gruchy and Leigh of an aerial view of Melbourne in 1866 looking south from a point approximately above the corner of Victoria and Spring Streets. The picture extends from Yarra Park in the east to Batman’s Hill in the west and from Albert and Lonsdale Streets in the north to Port Philip Bay in the south.

This aerial view of Melbourne in 1866 is fascinating, not only for what it shows, but also to consider how it was actually constructed. Was it using a hot air balloon or was it simply based on De Gruchy and Leigh’s appreciation of the land?
Read Speaking in Tongues (Tom Tilley) by SupaduDevSupaduDev

From the outside, Tom Tilley’s childhood seemed ordinary. The first son of a pastor, he grew up in a beautiful country town where life revolved around football, his loving family and their Pentecostal faith. But behind church doors, a strictly enforced set of rules included a looming ultimatum: if Tom didn’t speak in tongues, he’d go to hell and be outcast from his close-knit, devout community.

The older Tom became, the more he questioned the teachings of the church, especially around speaking in tongues. And the more he heard about his parents’ adventurous lives before they found God, the more he wanted the freedom to make those ‘mistakes’ that the church forbade. Eventually, after years of suppressing his doubts in silence, Tom spoke up. Having the courage to do so came at a huge personal cost, leading to a decision that would take his family to breaking point. What happened next is surprising, and Tom’s journey to independence will inspire readers to ask what’s true in their own lives and who they really are.

Told with empathy and searing honesty, Speaking in Tongues is a powerful coming-of-age story about questioning the life created for you and building your true self, one recycled brick at a time.

This is one of those times when you know a name, only to realise that there is a whole backstory that you are unaware of. In Speaking with Tongues, Tilley recounts his experience in the Revival Centres International and his subsequent life afterwards following his passions by going into media.

What I found interesting is the discussion of connection and community throughout. Although his church connections seem to shrivel up instantly when he was asked to leave the church, his connection to Mudgee is something that seems to stay constant throughout. This is as much to do with place as it is to the people he grew up with.

Overall, what I enjoyed the most about Tilley’s memoir is how honest it is throughout.

Bridget Delaney provides a useful summary of the book in her piece for The Guardian, while Tilley also spoke about the book with Sarah Kanowski on ABC’s Conversations podcast.

Watched Moon Knight – 2022 superhero television miniseries produced by Marvel Studios by Contributors to Wikimedia projects from Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

Moon Knight is an American television miniseries created by Jeremy Slater for the streaming service Disney+, based on the Marvel Comics featuring the character of the same name. It is the sixth television series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to be produced by Marvel Studios, sharing continuity with the films of the franchise. It follows Marc Spector and Steven Grant, two alters of a man with dissociative identity disorder (DID), as they are drawn into a mystery involving Egyptian gods. Slater serves as head writer with Mohamed Diab leading the directing team.

Oscar Isaac stars as Marc Spector / Moon Knight and Steven Grant / Mr. Knight, with May Calamawy, Karim El Hakim, F. Murray Abraham, Ethan Hawke, Ann Akinjirin, David Ganly, Khalid Abdalla, Gaspard Ulliel, Antonia Salib, Fernanda Andrade, Rey Lucas, Sofia Danu, and Saba Mubarak also starring. The series was announced in August 2019, with Slater hired in November. Diab was hired to direct four episodes in October 2020, with directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead joining in January 2021 to direct the other two. Isaac was confirmed to star at the time; he used different accents to differentiate Spector’s various identities. Filming took place from April to October 2021, primarily in Budapest as well as in Jordan, Slovenia, and Atlanta, Georgia.

It would seem that with The Eternals, Dr Strange and now Moon Knight that multidimensionally is now on the menu.
Watched Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – 2022 film directed by Sam Raimi by Contributors to Wikimedia projects from Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a 2022 American superhero film based on Marvel Comics featuring the character Doctor Strange. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the sequel to Doctor Strange (2016) and the 28th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Sam Raimi, written by Michael Waldron, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, alongside Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Rachel McAdams. In the film, Strange protects America Chavez (Gomez), a teenager capable of traveling the multiverse, from Wanda Maximoff (Olsen).

I always wondered about the place of X-Men within the Marvel universe.
Watched Birdman by Contributors to Wikimedia projects from Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

Riggan Thomson is a faded actor famous for playing a superhero named Birdman in a film trilogy from 1989 to 1992. He is tormented by the mocking and critical internal voice of Birdman and frequently visualizes himself performing feats of levitation and telekinesis. Riggan is trying to regain recognition by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” However, the Birdman voice wants Riggan to return to blockbuster cinema and insists that he is essential to Riggan’s identity.

An absurd insight into the world of self-doubt and imposter syndrome.

ᔥ “Damian Cowell” in Disco ex Machina – YouTube ()

Bookmarked Self-Assessing Creative Problem Solving (brainbaking.com)

So what’s the point of all this? Well, since we now have a self-test that measures more than simply divergent thinking and is specifically geared towards computing education, we could start experimenting with interventions in courses and measure its effects pre and post intervention using the CPPST

Wouter Groeneveld discusses his development of the Creative Programming Problem Solving Test (CPPST), a self-assessment test that measures more than just divergent thinking. It explores various aspects of problem-solving associated with programming with the intent to help developers test the efficacy of interventions. I am not sure I am really a true ‘programmer’, but a part of my work is involved in creating solutions for problems with the tools at hand. What I liked about the test was the way in which it helped think and reflect through the act of answering the various questions. Whatever the outcome, I felt that there was something in the actual asking of the various questions.

It all has me thinking about the ATC21s project from a few years ago and the attempt to capture the capabilities in themselves. One of my takeaways was that capabilities are often captured through something and the ability to separate the doing from the thing can be very hard.

Replied to Sometime technology s(UX) (daily-ink.davidtruss.com)

Is it just me or is technology getting more confusing and less user-friendly. And no, my sound bar scrolling ‘WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME’ while being fully inoperative is NOT user friendly!

You might be interested in Clive Thompson’s idea of ‘maximum viable product‘, where he discusses the idea of an application doing one thing and doing it well.
Watched American science fiction horror Netflix series by Contributors to Wikimedia projects from Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

Stranger Things is an American science fiction horror drama television series created by the Duffer Brothers that is streaming on Netflix. The brothers serve as showrunners and are executive producers along with Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen. The first season of the series was released on Netflix on July 15, 2016, with the second, third, and fourth seasons following in October 2017, July 2019, and May and July 2022, respectively. In February 2022, the series was renewed for a fifth and final season.

Set in the 1980s primarily in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, the series centers around numerous supernatural events occurring around the town, specifically around their connection to a hostile alternate reality called the “Upside Down”, after a link between it and Earth is made by a United States government child experimentation facility. The series stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Joe Keery, Cara Buono, Matthew Modine, Dacre Montgomery, Sean Astin, Paul Reiser, Maya Hawke, Priah Ferguson, and Brett Gelman.

The Duffer Brothers developed Stranger Things as a mix of investigative drama and supernatural elements portrayed with horror, science fiction and childlike sensibilities. Setting the series in the 1980s, the Duffer Brothers infused references to the pop culture of that decade while themes and directorial aspects were inspired by the works of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, David Lynch, Stephen King, Wes Craven and H. P. Lovecraft. They also took inspiration from experiments conducted during the Cold War and conspiracy theories involving secret government experiments.

I watched Season One of Stranger Things a few years ago after getting a downloaded copy. After finally getting Netflix I finally got around to watching the remaining seasons. Having binged all four seasons, although there were aspects that seemed somewhat stretched, such as breaking back into a Russian prison and Jim Hopper being able to wield a sword seemingly without much training, I think that the story line does a pretty good job in tying everything together. What I liked the most was how the series finds balance between the story and growth of the characters. Whether it be Hopper’s human foibles, Steve Harrington’s maturity beyond being a jock or the various recognitions of failed love, there was something relatable throughout. Although each of these characters seem to achieve a heroic feet, none are traditional heroes. As Debadrita Sur touches on in regards to Hopper:

Hopper is no hero, nor is he an anti-hero. He does not embark on a quest-like journey. The first season sees Hopper as the Chief of Police in Hawkins, whose alcohol-fuelled life is spent in a drug daze of despair. Hopper is trying to drown himself in hedonism to fill the void inside his heart. He is pathetic and human. When his childhood friend Joyce Byers comes to him tearfully to investigate her son Will’s disappearance, he deals with it very matter-of-factly by addressing it as a simple missing person case. However, he is shaken by Joyce’s comments about how he would react had it been his daughter. 

Hopper is a tough guy. He punches people before they can respond to his interrogation — the archetypal strong man. But under this tough exterior lies a grief-stricken, unhappy soul. Imagine losing the apple of your eye to a disease where you can do nothing but helplessly watch her fade away. That is exactly what happened to Hopper.

Or as Guy Dolbey touches on in regards to Donnie Darko.

The difference between these modern reimaginings of ‘80s childhood and the stories they homage is their priorities in terms of character. While these classic entries are often ostensibly coming-of-age stories, this is generally approached in the abstract with their journey representing something grander as opposed to digging into the characters themselves.

On the other hand, Stranger Things and the modern It are heavily character-focused with the former especially using its supernatural elements almost entirely as a catalyst for drama. In this sense, Donnie Darko is the missing link between the original texts and their romantic reimaginings, specifically in the approach to the internality of its characters.

For me there were times the series reminded me a bit of Donnie Darko’s eighties suburbia, Harry Potter’s battle of Voldermort and other times of Buffy and the hellmouth, but in the end with the plethora of references and references the series comes out rather original.

Watched American streaming television series by Contributors to Wikimedia projects from Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is an American television miniseries created for the streaming service Disney+. It is part of the Star Wars franchise and stars Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, reprising his role from the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Set ten years after the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), the series follows Kenobi as he sets out to rescue the kidnapped Princess Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair) from the Galactic Empire, leading to a confrontation with his former apprentice, Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen).

The project originated as a spin-off film written by Hossein Amini and directed by Stephen Daldry, but it was reworked as a limited series following the commercial failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). McGregor was confirmed to be starring in August 2019, and Deborah Chow was hired to direct a month later. Production was scheduled to begin in July 2020, but the series was put on hold in January 2020 because Lucasfilm was unsatisfied with the scripts. Joby Harold was hired to rewrite the series and serve as showrunner in April 2020, executive producing with Chow, McGregor, Kathleen Kennedy, and Michelle Rejwan. Additional casting took place in March 2021, with co-stars such as Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Jimmy Smits, James Earl Jones, and Christensen reprising their prequel trilogy roles. Filming began by May 2021 in Los Angeles, using StageCraft video wall technology, and wrapped by September. Natalie Holt composed the score, while Star Wars film composer John Williams wrote the main theme.

This was an enjoyable piece of what-ifs, filling the gaps. It creates the opportunity to introduce various new characters, such as Tala Durith and Reva Sevander, as well as continue to explore others, such as the evolution of Darth Vader. However, there is something challenging about a story which you kind of already know the outcome of.
Watched 2014-2020 American science fiction television series by Contributors to Wikimedia projects from Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

The 100 (pronounced The Hundred [2]) is an American post-apocalyptic science fiction drama television series that premiered on March 19, 2014 on The CW, and ended on September 30, 2020. Developed by Jason Rothenberg, the series is loosely based on the young adult novel series of the same name by Kass Morgan.[3] The 100 follows post-apocalyptic survivors from a space habitat, the Ark, who return to Earth nearly a century after a devastating nuclear apocalypse. The first people sent to Earth are a group of juvenile delinquents who encounter descendants of survivors of the nuclear disaster on the ground.

The main characters of juvenile prisoners includes Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), Finn Collins (Thomas McDonell), Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley), Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos), Jasper Jordan (Devon Bostick), Monty Green (Christopher Larkin), and John Murphy (Richard Harmon). Other lead characters include Clarke’s mother Dr. Abby Griffin (Paige Turco), Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick), and Chancellor Thelonious Jaha (Isaiah Washington), all of whom are council members on the Ark, and Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan), an engineer aboard the Ark.

The 100 is an interesting series. In some ways there was a lot of repetition where the same scenarios were raised again and again, but from different perspectives. This came up in regards to nightbloods and sacrificing for the greater good, as well as the place of artificial intelligence. Jason Rothenberg has explained how he actually treated each season as a new beginning:

“For me, every season was designed to be almost like a new show and a new story,” says Rothenberg, who was pitched the series by the CW and wrote the pilot at the same time Kass Morgan wrote her young adult novel, on which “The 100” is loosely based. “I approached it as a feature writer coming into television for the first time, as each of these seasons was a movie broken down into 13 or 16 parts. That’s why the show changes so drastically season to season, which is one of the things I love about it.”

As much as I enjoyed the general story and the evolution of the characters, there were some aspects of storytelling and world building that felt somewhat circumspect. In the beginning we have supposed monsters in the water and deformed beasts, yet they seem to magically disappear beyond Season 1. In the beginning Bellamy has seemingly embraced a life of debauchery, yet this seems to quickly wane. Another niggle is the ability to magically traverse between so many different biomes so quickly to me felt odd. We jump from desert to rainforest to ice all within a days driving distance or a few days hike, especially as the series went on. (This is all made somewhat absurd with the discovery of the worm holes.) Also the various chance discoveries, such as the Second Dawn bunker and that there is a second nuclear holocaust coming. Maybe the reality was not always the point or strength of the show, instead it was all about the maybes and what ifs associated with the environment, technologies, society and identity. As Richard Harmon discusses in regards to her character, Murphy.

“I definitely had worked quite a bit playing a certain type of character for years,” Harmon says. “Always bad guys. This show gave me the opportunity to expand what I can do as an actor because I never thought I would play a hero. Here I am seven years later and Murphy is trying his darnedest to do the right thing. People can change, it’s just hard.”

In the end I think Maggie Fremont captures it all best in her discussion of the conclusion of the series:

So much happened in seven seasons! And I didn’t even get into all those City of Light shenanigans or the cannibalism-in-the-bunker situation or the fate of our precious Lincoln. Just know that if you stuck with The 100 for all seven seasons, you have seen some things.

Liked So, the next Red Hand File is #200! What are The Red Hand Files? I mean what are you trying to do with them?… by Molly CairnsMolly Cairns (The Red Hand Files)

Today, John and Marina, my advice is to go out and save the world. Smile and say ‘hello’ to the mean old bastard who lives next door, or the cranky cow at the corner shop, for they suffer too, and watch this small act of unsolicited kindness gather momentum and begin its journey around the world – watch it thunder and roar through the ages and change the nature of the cosmos itself.

Bookmarked If You’re Not Paying for the Product, You Are… Possibly Just Consuming Goodwill for Free by Troy HuntTroy Hunt (Troy Hunt)

What gets me a bit worked up about the “you’re the product” sentiment is that it implies there’s an ulterior motive for any good deed. I’m dependent on a heap of goodwill for every single project I build and none of that makes me feel like “the product”. I use NWebsec for a bunch of my security headers. I use Cloudflare across almost every single project (they provide services to HIBP for free) and that certainly doesn’t make me a product. The footer of this blog mentions the support Ghost Pro provides me – that’s awesome, I love their work! But I don’t feel like a “product”.

Conversely, there are many things we pay for yet we remain “the product” of by the definition referred to in this post. YouTube Premium, for example, is worth every cent but do you think you cease being “the product” once you subscribe versus when you consume the service for free? Can you imagine Google, of all companies, going “yeah, nah, we don’t need to collect any data from paying subscribers, that wouldn’t be cool”. Netflix. Disqus. And pretty much everything else. Paying doesn’t make you not the product any more than not paying makes you the product, it’s just a terrible term used way too loosely and frankly, often feels insulting.

Troy Hunt marks the argument that just because you are not paying for the product, it does not necessarily mean that you yourself are the product. Sometimes, he posits, we are simply consuming goodwill. On the flipside of this, he points out that when you pay for products such as YouTube or Netflix, this does not all of the sudden make you less of a product.

For me, this reminds me of Austin Kleon’s discussion of the power of an email list:

The model is very simple: They give away great stuff on their sites, they collect emails, and then when they have something remarkable to share or sell, they send an email. You’d be amazed at how well the model works.

Bookmarked https://story-machines.net/ (story-machines.net)

Get 20% discount with code STORY BUY IT NOW
“A masterful and highly accessible overview of exciting developments in computer-generated literature by two experts in the field.” Arthur I. Miller, author of The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity

“A lot of fun to read… …

Another example of an AI story generator. Here is my example:

I wake up each morning to the same gray sky. The same unremitting cold. It’s been like this for months. I don’t know what’s wrong with the weather, but it’s driving me crazy.

I go to work every day, and each time I come back, it’s the same. The office is dark and dingy, and the clock on the wall says it’s already after five.

I go home, and the same thing happens. I try to watch TV or read a book, but it’s all so dull and lifeless.

I can’t take it anymore. I get up from my chair and go outside.

It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, and the sky is a bright blue. I walk around for a while, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my skin.

Then I start to feel a little better. I start to feel like I’m home again.

I sit down on the steps of the porch and start to think.

I remember the first time it happened. It was the middle of summer, and I was out on the porch with my friends. The sun was shining, the air was clean,

I am really intrigued with the idea of starting with something like this as a provocation or something to continue.

ᔥ “Steve Wheeler” in Story Machines: Can computers become creative writers? | Learning with ‘e’s ()

Bookmarked Raspberry PiMac (steve-best.github.io)

While I have long been familiar with the Raspberry Pi (I have one running Retro Pi), I wish I had known about this option to revive older hardware sooner. Debian with Raspberry Pi Desktop is fast and reliable, and it has made our iMac a truly usable machine for day-to-day computing tasks. Before I found this operating system, I thought our iMac was not too much longer for this world. macOS was clearly no longer an option, given the general lack of support and the system resources needed to run even non-supported versions of macOS. ChromeOS (Cloudready) had a lot of bugs, including extremely slow network speeds. I could barely get 10 mbps over Wifi. Ubuntu worked well, but in its standard form using the Gnome desktop environment, it was very resource intensive. Even lighter desktop environments like XFCE, while a little better, were still taxing. That said, Debian with Raspberry Pi Desktop uses a minimal amount of RAM, and as such, it is really fast. I also think the UI looks great.

I really should try this with my old Macbook that I no longer use.
Replied to Interrogating Our Stuckness by wiobyrne (digitallyliterate.net)

We Are Not Living in a Simulation, We Are Living In the Past

L. M. Sacasas with an essay on the premise that life online is lived in the past.

The essay is organized into seven points.

  • On the internet, we are always living in the past – There is no present online, there is only recreation and memorialization of events of the past.
  • On the internet, all actions are inscriptions. We steadily create digital versions of events to create documented reservoirs legible to humans and machines.
  • On the internet, there is no present, only variously organized fragments of the past – We spend time, and effort looking busy by endlessly re-interpreting, reshuffling, recombining, and rearranging the past.
  • On the internet, fighting about what has happened is far easier than imagining what could happen – We fight about the past, and because our fights are documented online, there is no resolution…only more conflict and overwhelming/silencing/canceling others.
  • On the internet, action doesn’t build the future, it only feeds the digital archives of the past – I’ve written about this as digital breadcrumbs as we look to the trail we’ve created, as opposed to looking forward.
  • Because on the internet we live in the past, the future is not lived, it is programmed – As we spend time documenting and digitizing our past, these data points are scooped up, aggregated, and form the structure that dictates future actions.
  • On the internet, the past is a black hole sucking the future into itself – Our capacity to live in the present and imagine the future deteriorates as attention, energy, and creativity are devoured.

Two things are sticking out for me. First, I’m thinking about some of the focus in last week’s issue of DL in which we discussed reading and time for reflection and how this impact the way we think, interact and make sense of the world.

Second, it makes me wonder why I continue to write this newsletter. ┐_(ツ)_┌━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

Ian, I was left thinking about L. M. Sacasas’ argument that life online is lived in the past.

On the one hand, I am left thinking about my breadcrumbs as possibly leading to slow hunches. The thought that ideas for the future are produced from pieces over time.

On the flipside of this, I was also left thinking about the way in which we have become content machines.

Like yourself, this all makes me wonder about why I do what I do? Why make it public? And why publish my newsletter? I think that I actually like the habit and find it a useful exercise in regards to taking stock of things, but maybe I am just fooling myself. I have long given up on taking much notice of the ‘clicks’. In general, I only POSSE now days when I feel there is purpose.

Anyway, I best get back to the past.

Liked TikTok: Trojan Stallion by Scott GallowayScott Galloway (profgalloway.com)

The network is massive, the ripple effects hidden in the noise. Putting a thumb the size of TikTok on the scale can move nations. What will have more influence on our next generation’s view of America, democracy, and capitalism? The bully pulpit of the president, the executive editor of the New York Times, or the TikTok algorithm? A squirt gun, a musket, and a Tsar bomba, respectively.