Tuesday 6 December 2022

vomiting camel (10. 366)

Planet Money’s partner podcast The Indicator introduces us to a practise called stock price charting or technical analysis that economic academics have long debunked as a poor predictor of market trends and no heuristic for basing future trades though pattern recognition yet for some traders and for many media outlets that cover the markets, this study with its language of line graphs classed as candlesticks, heads and shoulders, flags, pennants and cup and handle patterns is proving enduring and a guide of first resort. Skeptics dismiss this method as ineffective at best and verging on an obsession for a few adherents. Sort of like Doge Coin be created as a joke which gained purchase of its own, one detractor began to see the titular pattern in stock performance and offered this pareidolia as a critique of this sort of divination but it too took off as a telling up-and-down spike to be on the lookout for and be primed to buy—or sell—or hold. What do you think about reading the economic tea-leaves? Is it no better than one’s astrological chart or is there something to this superstition for a system buoyed up by common belief?

Tuesday 18 October 2022

the portrait of dorian grey (10. 236)

The writing staff at Hyperallergic to spookify iconic works of art for the scary season—like Christina’s World (here’s another frightful adaptation) as imagined she’s hiding from Michael Meyers—and is a bit regretful about what nightmares that they’ve conjured into existence. What costume would you give a work of art? More to explore at the links above.

Monday 10 October 2022

elevator pitch (10. 209)

Via Web Curios, just when we thought we had been through the entire, iterative snowclone ‘of this x does not exist,’ we are directed towards This Movie Does Not Exist, which churns out a new film poster and synopsis with every refresh. Maybe our time-travelling heroine convinces a plasma-powered George W Bush not to seek public office.  Give it a visit and report back if you hit upon a combination that sounds more watchable than the fare on offer.

Saturday 1 October 2022

dall·e (10. 185)

As NPR informs, there is no longer a waiting period and assigned window of time for lab use of OpenAI’s text-to-image generating software (previously here, here and here). Pictured are a few responses to prompts about the blog itself. Although the open-source, mini version was fun too, I like how this platform (registration required) curates and saves your put-it-on-the-refrigerator-door history—in all its surprise, serendipity and dread uncanniness—and reminds one of past iterations, whereas before I felt obligated to save a copy in some folder full of errata, feeling guilty I had summoned such things into existence. What computer-aided masterpieces can you dream up?

Saturday 10 September 2022

6x6 (10. 122)

derivative art: online communities are rejecting AI-generated images 

compostable mushroom shroud: when Luke Perry passed away in 2019, he requested that his mortal remains leave no trace—only it didn’t work—via the morning news  

forms of address: the title culture of German—and the UK—via Marginal Revolution 

remember-tini: a Virginia country club is facing backlash for a planned 9/11-themed seafood Sunday brunch—via Super Punch    

temenos: every four years a screening of experimental filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos’ eighty-hour Eniaios is held in the Peloponnese that his magnum opus could spiritually cleanse our over-polluted media diets  

multi-level marketing: the online community bent on undermining crypto-scams and bitcoin pyramid schemes

Thursday 8 September 2022

6x6 (10. 117)

command authorisation code: the timing of the Artemis (previously) launch hinges in part due to its self-destruct system  

best in show: an painting generated by an algorithm won first prize in a competition at a state fair, prompting philosophical questions  

greenday moment: instead of tearing down those out of the loop, bring them up to speed  

cauldron computing: researchers propose liquid crystal machine whose calculations move like ripples through water 

$ape: two American states introduce legislation to tax NFTs  

speculoos: researchers at the University of Liรจge discover (see previously) discover two Super-Earths

Saturday 27 August 2022

pandora’s box (10. 090)

Finally getting some lab time with Open AI (previously), Andy Baio of Waxy shares some of his first impression as he came to the realisation that the apparent virtuosity isn’t just a parlour trick but the unnerving, new uncanniness that comes with the wholesale laundering of the canon of human illustration and creativity—a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle. In addition to the ease of conjuring up any number libellous scenarios and the fraught, inadequate legal framework to address intellectual rights and licensing disputes. Though perhaps not the embodiment of the quandary and more of the magic remixing that make the platform so compelling and conflicted, but we were quite taken with the response to these prompts of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Pizza Hut and the highly specific, not disappointing “two slugs in wedding attire getting married, stunning editorial photo for bridal magazine shot at golden hour.”  See a whole gallery of images at Waxy at the link up top.

Monday 27 June 2022

from the 2 d

Apparently to universal acclaim with the vehicle and the venue raising no objection despite the collapse of crypto-currency and that non-fungible token handmaiden are the even better at uncovering the greater fool, established rappers Eminem and Snoop Dogg, in their Bored Ape Yacht Club avatars for the eponymous festival, premiered their new collaboration. What do you think? There are no words for these new heights of what used to be considered selling out and pandering. Reportedly an impersonator called Dupe Shogg showed up at the event unannounced complete with full escourt and entourage and attendees were a bit disappointed it was not the genuine article.

Friday 17 June 2022

7x7

accepting payment in magic beans: professional scammer who bilked people and companies out of hundreds of thousands by posing as a German heiress turning to NFTs  

closed captioned: indexing video subtitles by any phrase of one’s choosing—via Waxy—perfect for creating a supercut  

great choice: award-winning short comedy-horror by Robin Comisar, via Super Punch  

the brautigan library: a repository of unwanted, unpublished manuscripts 

not reading the room: consumption and consumerism overshadow commemoration  

cat righting reflex: ร‰tienne-Jules Marey’s 1894 short is the first motion picture to feature a feline, demonstrating how it lands on its feet—see also 

web3 saint laurent: digital cosmetics for one’s avatars and more metaversal makeup from Web Curios

Monday 16 May 2022

6x6

dandelion wine: slow drinks made with our favourite noxious weed—see also  

give that wolf a banana and before that wolf eats my grandma: Norway’s Eurovision entry—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links  

stablecoin: the collapse of NFT and crypto markets 

 for every bear that ever there was: 1984 reportage of Keanu Reeves covering a teddy bear convention for the CBC—via Everlasting Blรถrt  

homeostatic awakening: new developments in the Fermi paradox—see previously here and here  

quattro bianchi: Italy’s answer to the Long Island Iced Tea packs a wallop

Sunday 1 May 2022

rapunzelstiltskin


Though off-the-shelf as it were an under-nuanced in my hands, we are finding this text-to-image generator inexhaustibly engrossing (previously), especially once we were able to get a better feel of how it operated and could choose an accessible subject and prompt equally familiar thematic variations. We selected a coquetry of “Disney Princesses” with each panel filtered through the style of commercially popular, ideally mononymous, artist. Here is an assortment of some of the better and less nightmare-addled results, and mouse over the images to see the influencing painter. I think Rembrandt is my favourite.  Give Latent Diffusion a try yourself and be sure to share the outcome. 


 

 

 

Friday 25 February 2022

you wouldn’t right click a car, would you?

As JWZ reports, a group of crypto-enthusiasts are advertising their NFTs with street art murals throughout San Francisco’s Mission district, attracting graffiti of their own, ahead of the collective’s ploy for a five-billion-dollar valuation. Late stage capitalism and artificial scarcity is weird and atrocious. Right click them all.

Saturday 19 February 2022

7x7

a fistful of manicules: Shady Characters explores several font specimens of the typographers’ mark—see previously  

la conquรชte du pain: an anarcho-communist bakery going strong in Montreuil  

peeping tom: Facebook’s demise following that of mySpace  

storyliving: Disneyland pre-retirement communities—via Web Curios 

erste jahrzehnten: German Design Awards marks its first decade with a special exhibit  

sold for sol 1800: it appears that Melania Trump purchased her own NTF—via New Shelton wet/dry 

i shot the serif: foundry Neubau Berlin pays homage to Mid-Century international fonts

Sunday 6 February 2022

9x9

platinum geezer: our London correspondent reflects on the Queen’s jubilee by the numbers  

snow-drifting: artist Alexander Deineka’s celebration of winter sports in the USSR  

nunsexmonkrock: Nina Hagen’s (previously) legendary masterpiece extolled as it deserves  

definitely did not used to be a pizza hut: an investigation into the camouflage (see previously) of franchise blight—via the morning news  

biblioclasm: more books, press outlets, educators under fire as potentially subversive, challenging  

king of the mountain: fours goats play on a sheet metal shelter  

celebrity-ntf complex: the race is on to find the remaining marks and rubes before the bottom falls out

cockney cats: vintage feline photos collected by Spitalfields Life  

hrm: Pietro Annigoni’s 1969 portrait of the Queen

Thursday 3 February 2022

extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds

On this day in 1537 in the flower market of Haarlem, tulips are unable to fetch or exceed their expected price for the first time during the speculative craze of the Tulipomania—results posted the following day, eroding confidence in contract calls and causing the exchange to collapse spectacularly. Though perhaps the Dutch enterprise as the leading economic and financial power of the time weathered the crisis with relatively few lasting scars—the account and effects taking hold in the popular imagination after journalist Charles Mackay’s above investigation in 1841 (perhaps dissuaded from writing about the more recent South Sea Bubble as hitting too close to home) and modern economists dismiss many anecdotes (patrimony and parcels of land for a single bulb) as illogical and inefficient, the new phenomena nonetheless establishes the discipline of socio-economics and how markets can deviate from intrinsic value.

Wednesday 2 February 2022

artificial scarcity

Via Hyperalleric, we have another update from Molly White on how great Web 3.0 is going (previously) with this dispatch from a New Zealand auction house that sold material contact prints and plate glass negatives from photographer and portrait artist Charles Fredrick Goldie—whose work is problematic, considered reductive and promoting the contemporary thinking that the Mฤori were on the verge of extinction as a culture and colonial paternalism though also a snapshot of heritage that might be otherwise lost to time—bundled with their NTF, which fetched much higher prices than they could otherwise garner, complete with a small mallet—inviting the winning bidder to smash the plate and render the lot digital only—see also. The sales were of a self-portrait of the artist at his easel and not of historic aboriginal elders so this provocation is not such an afford to museums and the art world, though one suspects that bidding was driven by investment and looking for a place to park one’s money rather than an appreciation for art or the subject matter.

Tuesday 1 February 2022

6x6

putting the fun in fungible: NFTs appraised on Antiques Roadshow, via Messy Nessy Chic  

anagrams everywhere: the intrusive, obsessive thoughts of a Scrabble enthusiast—via Kottke’s Quick Linkssee also  

maths hysteria: a celebration of vintage calculator manuals  

dishes for luck and prosperity: traditional Lunar New Year cuisine laden with word-play and symbolism  

old brown ears is back: a cover album from under-appreciated Muppet character, Rowlf the Dog  

nasm: Smithsonian Air & Space museum accepts donation from a tech billionaire—notably absent a “morals clause” which would allow the institution to disassociate itself with their benefactor should their values become misaligned

Friday 28 January 2022

blocked-chain

The coalition of all that’s grift and gimmick—courtesy of Web Curios whose latest editions contains a plethora of examined scum and scams besides—we are directed towards an NTF minting operation that affords one the opportunity to document the irrefutable proof that one has been by excommunicated by our social betters. Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s.

Saturday 4 December 2021

8x8

fauxliage: a superlative roundup of architectural photography projects

the ntf of dorian gray: a new, short take on Oscar Wilde’s cautionary tale 

emoji for scale: objects represented by their glyphs from smallest to largest—via Waxy

life plus 50: a Public Domain Advent Calendar in anticipation of the expiring copyrights that the New Year ushers in with a new class of works free to enjoy however one sees fit  

verrillon: revisiting the fragile glass armonica of Benjamin Franklin  

thank you for your patronage: hackers are instructing receipt printers to spout off anti-work manifestos to draw attention to poverty wages  

history is calling: a mobile phone museum—via Pasa Bon!

unbuilt architecture: mock-ups of ten modern monumental structures that were never completed—via Things Magazine

Wednesday 24 November 2021

nifty

As the Guardian reports, Collins Dictionary has selected the abbreviation of Non-Fungible Token as its word of the year (see previously here and here), tracking the stratospheric rise of the blockchain of registry of digital assets that lexically rose above the general din of the COVID crisis, pingdemic and hybrid-working as pandemic-related forerunners, and—regardless of what one thinks of the evaluation--defines a new market and speaks to a broad craze and means for artists to profit online. Other contenders included cheugy and regencycore—referring to cosplay in 1810s style garb.