fight for the future (12. 189)

On this day in 2012, over one hundred thousand popular (and unpopular, we figured out how to draw the curtains too) sites joined Wikipedia, Google and other prominent social media platforms in solidarity with a twenty-four hour web blackout in protest, formalised and coordinated under the above grassroots aegis, against two bills in the US congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act. Privileging copyright security over online freedom of speech and making hosts, particularly non-domestic ones liable for infringement, the mass movement garnered millions of signatures for a petition as well as millions of constituents contacting their representatives in the American government to express their opposition and ultimately defeated both SOPA and PIPA as senate sponsors withdrew their support.

synchronoptica

one year ago: theosophical Though Forms (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: White House imposes creative input on mission patches

eight years ago: the relics of war plus an atmospheric death ray

nine years ago: the Cosmological Constant plus more links to enjoy

ten years ago: Lovelace and Turing, the Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities plus German currency harmonisation

little red book (12. 186)

The expected consequence of the looming TikTok ban in the United States was for users to find alternative outlets, but an unexpected one is happening with the influx of Americans, some seven hundred thousand, flocking to a similar social media and e-commerce app called RedNote (小紅書, literally translated as the above, as in Chairman Mao’s collected sayings). Despite the US wanting to ban the former because of national security concerns and worries that the personal data of its citizens could be harvested and shared with the Chinese government, many, out of spite and feeling the charges to be trumped-up and parochial at best, are turning to this networking platform, not subject to the usual firewall placed on the outside world, and interacting and communicating with three hundred million native users and with the surprising outcome of forging new friendships, cultural exchanges and even some language learning. The trend may not last and the platform could become subject to the same suspicions that it could become a tool for espionage and indoctrination by the Chinese government.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a classic from Joni Mitchell (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth the revisit

seven years ago: more links to enjoy, a false alarm in Hawaii, the Matt Drudge breaks the Clinton-Lewinski scandal (1998) plus museum doppelgängers 

eight years ago: gas for Europe and Russian aggression in Ukraine plus global net worth

nine years ago: Medieval Death Trip, boreal rings, degrees of temperature plus microscopic detail

ten years ago: artist Aubrey Beardsley, long receipts plus the magic of the Google Translate app

7x7 (12. 177)

alexiomia: from the Greek for no words for appellation, a study of the social anxiety of name-avoidance—via the new Shelton wet/dry  

white knight: Bytedance entertaining contingency plans to allow Elon Musk to purchase TikTok’s US operations ahead of the expected judgment against the platform 

out-of-office reply: a business card whose information only appears in sunlight  

screamboat willie: Disney begins to deal with its loss of IP—apparently a Popeye horror film is in the works too 

tl;dr: AI input and output  

open and shut case: the US Department of Justice election interference report suggest Trump would have been convicted if not re-elected 

 💌: the face of collective grief and the demands of acceptance that are far from passive

synchronoptica

one year ago: AI plagiarism and The Stepford Wives (with synchronoptica), a hands-free rosary plus Queen Margrethe II of Denmark abdicates

seven years ago: the Continental Congress (1784) plus Celtic burial mounds

eight years ago: authoritarians and the press, the former trolley line that ran between the US and Mexico, assorted links worth the revisit, Bart the Genius (1990) plus a secret WWII commando school

nine years ago: the dancing doctor plus genre blindness

ten years ago: more on the refugee situation in Germany plus an animated homage to Davie Bowie’s personae

8x8 (12. 176)

cryptobiosis: a nematode was reanimated when pulled out of the Siberia permafrost after forty-six thousand years 

fresh air, town square: Mastodon is becoming a non-profit organisation—via Waxy  

wrack and ruin: a superlative gallery of abandoned places  

a sprained ankle on a country walk is allowable but you must not go very far beyond this: in praise of Jane Austin 

hollywood hills: architects reckon with the scale of destruction from the Los Angles fires—more here 

luthersadt eisleben: a horde of coins found hidden in a statue’s leg in the reformer’s home church 

the joe rogan experience: Elizabeth Lopatto summarises the three-hour interview with Zuckerberg 

 ™: Sweden’s attempt to copyright Sweden thwarted plus other assorted legal stupidity

8x8 (12. 165)

all the things that we’ve amassed sit before us, shattered to ash: interviews from celebrities who lost their homes in the Los Angeles megafire, which is still burning out of control  

facechan: some words of advice for disillusioned social media employees  

bepicolombo: final flyby of the space mission beams back extraordinary photos of Mercury’s polar region

obit.: Bob Canada’s two volume tribute to celebrity deaths of last year we may have overlooked  

erfolgreich abgemeldet: German and Austrian government and academic institutions leave X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, following the summit between Musk and Weidel  

chip off the old block: apparently in some families, it’s customary to nickname a son named after his father the former, a son named after his grandfather Skip and one named after all three Trip  

you’re so woke—diet coke: corporate America abandoning DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) programs ahead of Trump’s return, hoping to curry favour with the new administration 

delta smelt: fact-checking the fallout over water shortage for emergency responders in California

synchronoptica

one year ago: David Lynch’s 1984 unfinished Dune sequel (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links with revisiting

seven years ago: John Wayne as Genghis Khan (1965), time and dark energy plus more links to enjoy

eight years ago: even more links, misinformation about the refugee situation in Germany plus an anti cow bell campaigner denied Swiss citizenship

nine years ago: the elegance of heliocentrism, RIP David Bowie plus the performer as internet pioneer

ten years ago: a slow news day (1922) 

8x8 (12. 159)

a stranger quest: an award-winning documentary about map collector David Rumsey (previously) available in full online 

stimulation clicker: a new distraction from Neal Agarwal—see previously—see also 

studio city: deadly, life-altering wildfires continue to rage through Los Angeles, reaching Hollywood and threatening landmarks 

lemon8: TikTok ushers US users to sister-site in anticipation of ban 

show bible: a rare copy of the storyboard for Alejandro Jodorowshky’s unmade adaptation of Dune recently sold at auction—see previously  

hangman: a Wordle variant called Phrazle  

camp century: revisiting the Greenland military installation and the US Army Corps of Engineers’ failed Project Iceworm to build a nuclear launch site  

datastorm: a synthesiser with presets from the 1981 arcade game Defender sound-effects—via Pasa Bon!  

not to scale: an illustration of how polar flare and distortions of Mercator projections affect perception—see previously

community notes (12. 152)

In what’s being characterised by some as a radical departure in policy but really just proves how garbage the platform is and always was, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta announced that Facebook, Instagram and Threads will stop referring controversial and potentially misleading posts to independent factcheckers to review and will now instead follow the model of X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, owned by shadow president apartheid Space Karen, and rely on fellow users to add caveats and context to contentious posts. We can imagine who might volunteer for the job of hall monitor and what abusive vitriol that they might have to endure. Just ahead of Trump’s inauguration, which he donated a million dollars to—a quite meaningless sum to him just like the campaign money that Musk contributed to help secure Trump’s win, Zuckerberg, whom like all the technocrats has been trying to secure the incoming president’s good graces, said, “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritising free speech.” Aiming to remove bias by getting rid of moderation and lift restrictions on topics (which were never taboo but had in place guardrails to protect from harassment, hate speech and disinformation) like immigration and gender identity and promote more political posts, the platform hopes to generate discourse reflective of a free society and cites supposed regimes in Europe and Latin America institutionalising censorship and making innovation impossible.  Meta has gone full MAGA and it would be best to vacate this Nazi bar too.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year (with synchronoptica), a folk reckoning of Spring’s arrival plus exceptional fungi

seven years ago: a drive-in recharging station 

eight years ago: recreating the ancient soundscapes of Stonehenge, glass pennies plus the urban history of Istanbul

nine years ago: safety advice for terrorist attacks plus the Scunthorpe Problem

ten years ago: two spirits, peak oil plus theofascism and the Charlie Hebdo attack

the year in memes (12. 094)

Hyperalleric curates a collection of the best viral shared images that sought to dull or cushion (a big ask from any inanimate object pushed beyond its breaking point by the harshness of the past twelve months) by trying to forge some connection and temporary reprieve in a landscape of atrocities, violence, degradation and disappointment. The chronology, which feels like a million years ago, include the Willy’s Chocolate Experience, the presidential debates, coconut tree/brat summer, that baby hippopotamus and the public beatification of Luigi Mangione, which sets the stage for the coming year rather perfectly. Much more from contributor Rhea Nayyar at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: ransomware shutters a library (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit 

seven years ago: an exhibition on knots plus more links to enjoy

eight years ago: more needful words from The Meaning of Liff

ten years ago: gut flora, the history of chess plus an unreleased parody of North Korea

eleven years ago: the grammar of comic strips

 

11x11 (12. 086)

top fifty: a review of the biggest literary stories of 2024—including the Brontë sisters getting their diaeresēs 

we all live in the ruins of the rot economy: a long-read about the abusive and exploitative ways that the tech industry treats people at scale—see previously  

bottle episode: the amazing dioramas of folk artist Carl Worner—via Messy Nessy Chic 

emporia: Kottke’s 2024 gift guide  

chirality: scientists warn strongly against research into synthetic biology and “mirror life”—compare to the handedness of thalidomide

do not obey in advance: in agreeing to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump, the network is courting further nuisance claims over critical coverage, forgetting the first lesson of On Tyranny 

body-horror: an AI-generated impossible gymnastic routine 

velben goods: premium and surge-pricing 

sovereign citizens brigade: group in England claiming extrajudicial standing tried to kidnap county coroner, accusing the officer of the Crown of necromancy   

the network effect: social media fire-exits 

home box office: the cable network’s December 1982 previews

instavest (12. 079)

In 1962, Kenneth V Anderson (whom we imagine to be a prolific inventor) of La Crosse, Wisconsin secured a patent for his filing of a literal photo-jacket, an outer garment with pockets for displaying “friendship pictures” and shared snapshots, marketed specifically to teenagers and college students. Written to exacting tailoring details, Anderson suggests that the photographs could be turned inward facing at the wearer’s discretion and an empty sleeve could be used to convey a “hint” or invitation (see also, see previously) to another that it should be filled.

footnote (12. 065)

Once the preserve of daisy-chains of ideas that built off another, the ability of AI to abstract and summarise the answer to a query in the search engine itself (see also), the loss of linkages threatens to flatten out the architecture of learning and the serendipity when one diverges from the affiliated index and embraces the flowchart, algorithmic (albeit cosmetic and reliant for now on those vast, networked underpinnings until, unless it becomes recursive regurgitation). Collin Jennings invites us to consider Alexander Pope’s mock-epic The Dunciad, considered a broadside of word in print by Marshall McLuhan, which lampoons the agents of the goddess of dullness who champion tastelessness and imbecility through publishing and the press presented over four editions as hypertextual with its appendices and commentary that far exceed the lines of verse in subsequent issues. AI doesn’t google like people google, to investigate, check spelling, check or outsource memories, and I certain am not looking for a tee-shirt version of my last search. The linear nature of the printed page and packaged answers—which great writers have always striven to transcend—was a limitation of the medium and its successors did rise above in the internet, collaborative and full of serendipitous deviations but artificial intelligence becomes an inscrutable blackbox not so much in its magic predictions but moreover when one is shielded from the tapestry of associations that inform its results.

A Lumberhouse of books in ev’ry head,
For ever reading, never to be read.
Next o’er his books his eyes began to roll
In pleasing memory of all he stole.

More from Aeon at the link above.

disenshittify or die (12. 031)

Albeit coming up to speed to an extent but recognising the continuing diatribe, Macquaire Dictionary has selected enshittification as its World of the Year for 2024, defining the term as the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking. Derived terms (none yet honoured in other authoritative lexicons) include enshittocene and the great enshittening, although all seem to do a disservice in deflecting from the bait-and-switch tactic sold under duress as the only sustainable business model, immediate rather than informed. Honourable mentions include brainrot, social battery for the stamina that one has for engagements and rawdogging, an unfortunate, awkwardly glossed and prevalent alternative to self-denial and asceticism.

8x8 (12. 025)

the mccallisters: Maculay Culkin digitally inserted in other Christmas movies by the Brothers Bell—via Waxy  

to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news: what a second Trump term means for journalism—see previously  

predatory pricing: Elizabeth Warren calls out industry over .com domains  

firehose: Bluesky posts as they happen 

this hour has twenty-two minutes: US national coding lessons have the look of extended commercial advertising  

walk right in—it’s a round back, just a half a mile from the railroad track: the title figure of the seasonal Arlo Guthrie song, Alice Brock, has passed away, aged 83 

life with grandpa: an unsettling example of perverse puppetry from the cult The Family International  

holidays are coming: Coca-Colas’s AI commercial spot improved—via Web Curios

𝚒𝚖𝚐_𝟶𝟶𝟶𝟷 (12. 016)

Via Waxy, we are directed towards this fascinating clip-culling project from Riley Walz, which scoured the video-hosting service for the default naming convention that the iPhone camera app employed for their feature “Send to YouTube,” circa 2009 until 2012. The service saw a whopping seventeen hundred percent increase in uploads but Apple eventually parted ways after sharing became less technically encumbered and bandwidth was less of an issue. Randomised they make interesting for snapshot of moments from the lives of strangers, unrehearsed and unedited. There’s a lot of baby and pet antics, trips to amusement parks, concerts, talent shows and even forgotten trends, like the Ice Bucket Challenge—anonymous scrapbooks. Although there are a few actual accidents, natural disasters and surprise proposals, most of these short videos are wholesome and wholly unspectacular although one feels a bit of tension building for the unexpected that fails to materialise but are nonetheless fascinating to watch, as a time-capsule barely seen and hardly searchable—see previously.

salacious crumb (12. 007)

On Life Day no less, we get the perfect allegory for Elon Musk’s parasitic and co-morbid relationship with Donald Trump, a cantankerous, destructive, nit-picking lizard-monkey to his host, a minor boss in the Hutt family crime syndicate, with further news of Musk outsourcing decisions to popular vote on his social media platform, a self-selecting “wretched hive of scum and villainy—we must be cautious”—although Nazi bar is a more succinct way of putting it, as well as using his promised position within the coming administration to badger and berate foreign governments (the latest target is Italy’s judiciary after attacking the UK’s migrant policy months earlier) whom feel more obliged to respond rather than ignoring the trolls. Vox populi, vox Dei is something not best left up to American public, as evidenced by last week’s election and we wonder how long this symbiotic arrangement can last, given both have huge egos, easily bruised.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus Osama bin Laden on TikTok

seven years ago: a virtual cocktail, a record-setting auction for an alleged Da Vinci plus a kitty takes over Times Square

eight years ago: more links to enjoy plus Google’s Quick Draw

nine years ago: optimal seating arrangements plus solidarity with France

ten years ago: lore and language 

9x9 (12. 004)

if you really care about women having autonomy, you should stop questioning our decision to elect a guy who wants to take it away: sure, I voted for someone whose policies might kill you, but now’s the time to put aside our differences  

with some account of the judicial “congress”: John Davenport’s 1869 collected essays on Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs  

operation bear claw: four Los Angeles residents charged with insurance fraud for dressing in a costume and damaging luxury cars  

goldeneye: a tour of Ian Fleming’s estate in Jamaica where the author wrote all the Bond novels  

blue days, all of them gone—nothing but blue skies from now on: the alternative social network’s growth is attributed to privileging user choice over algorithmic engagement  

ai granny: telecom O2 has created a scambait protocol to keep fraudsters on the line as long as possible and away from potential human victims 

feat. rowlf as king herod: Muppet Christ Superstar—see also  

lysistrata: as Trump’s next term approaches, more women are seeking to disassociate themselves from the men in their lives, withhold sex  

subway therapy: the exhibition inviting New Yorkers to share their thoughts on the presidential election returns after eight years

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Sound of Music (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: The Book of Life: The Spiritual and Physical Constitution of Man

eight years ago: the lost art of correspondence plus WoTY: post-truth

ten years ago: lucid dreams plus a selection of random t-shirts

eleven years ago: the Asylothek, retro Christmas cards plus more fallout from US dragnet espionage tactics

10x10 (11. 981)

peer pressure: Australia proposes a ban on social media for under sixteens 

this is the hour of lead: a few cathartic, consoling verses  

affiliate marketing: the banal world of recommendation-culture—via the New Shelton wet/dry  

airborne microplastic: our pollution influences more than sealife and can facilitate cloud formation and disrupt a whole of ecological systems 

club dei 27: a profile of the very exclusive group of Giuseppe Verdi super fans—via tmn  

augury: from the Greek for “bird talk” plus bonding with poultry 

you won’t believe this: research suggests that people can be inoculated against misinformation by warning them that they might be manipulated and eyebrow-raising antibodies  

die dame von kölleda: Merovingian burial chamber in Thüringen shown to the public  

word of the day: recrudescence: n— the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve 

bytedance: Canadian government orders TikTok to shut down operations in the country but still permits the app and users license to create content

i’m feeling lucky (11. 952)

A court in Moscow has imposed a symbolic fine of ₽2 undecillion (around $20 decillion, a thirty seven digit figure that far exceeds all the money in the world but still magnitudes less than a googol) on the parent company of search engine Google and YouTube for blocking seventeen of the country’s media outlets and news channels following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, to curb the spread of disinformation and propaganda. The calculation comes from an original ruling that penalised the company with one hundred thousand roubles per day (around a thousand dollars) per plaintiff that the channels were not restored, doubling weekly—hence the exponential growth—for non-compliance. Youtube remains available within Russia though threats to ban it for not showing state-controlled broadcasts remain on the table. For its part, Alphabet is not to concerned about on going litigation.

the volfefe index (11. 945)

Despite heavy financial losses since its inception and low overall traffic (monthly users are estimated to be between six and eight hundred thousand), Donald Trump’s TRUTH Social platform (and its parent company) has surged recently in terms of stock price and presently has a higher valuation reportedly than Elon Musk’s X. The former US president first launched a website called “From the Desk of Donald J Trump” for sending out tweet-like dispatches (despite having a press secretary and a pool of journalists dedicated to covering him) after being banned from Facebook and Twitter in the wake of the 6 January attack on the US Capitol but the venture failed to attract many visitors and folded less than a month later, founding the social network by late February—with the help of two former contestants from Trump’s reality television show The Apprentice. The title refers to the portmanteau of volatility and covfefe for the disruptive market swings that Trump tweets caused, and of course the high stock price, more than tripled in the course of weeks, has little to do with fundamentals or inherent worth but is rather speculation on the election outcome.

welcome to the future (11. 917)

The Verge presents a series of interesting articles about the pivotal tech year two decades ago that informs our present with a thoroughgoing survey of Napster and KaaZa and successor music sharing sites and the question of copyright and ownership of one’s media, the launch of the social web, Gmail and one’s permanent digital demesne, podcasts, migration to the cloud and more. The piece on the gap in photos from circa those years was particular resonant and relatable, like this grainy snapshot of the one time I visited Schloß Neuschwanstein in 2004 from among about forty or so bad pictures I could scrounge up.  Whilst there have been innovations and choices in the interim, a lot of this architecture and underpinning infrastructure is locked in and legacy that we are living with today.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Big Foot on film (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: tonal passkeys, the dangers of know thyself, French naming trends, a utopian city plus GIF mashups

eight years ago: the immunology of Tasmania Devils

nine years ago: story-telling and maths serving the same human need 

thirteen years ago: coin collecting plus the occupy-movement