⤳ How is it October already?
⤳ This week has mainly been about working and writing. I’ve been trying to use this blog more and get back into a rhythm of writing more than just these ‘week notes’ here, and there were a few deadlines at work, so there’s been quite a few hours spent in front of the keyboard.
⤳ Related to that… I bought a pair of reading glasses this week. I knew this day was coming, and here we are.
⤳ On Thursday, after work, I went to an event organised by Mazí Housing a charity that “provides safe, stable housing and support for young displaced men who are homeless and unaccompanied in Athens.” You can read more about what they do here ** **⤳ Some interesting things I’ve read this week:
As I mentioned here I finished Cory Doctorow’s latest, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation this week. I feel like it’s an essential read; and full marks to Cory for making a book like this enjoyable to read and for making me come out of it feeling optimistic and not despairing.
Craig Mod’s latest newsletter has a great part on why ‘working together in person’ is so needed sometimes
“After the last couple of weeks of in-person work, I have to say: Some things simply can’t be done as efficiently — or at all — unless done in person. The bandwidth of, and fidelity of, being in the same room — even, maybe especially, during breaks and downtime, but during work periods, too, of course — of being able to pass objects back and forth, to have zero latency in conversation between multiple people. To not fuss with connections or broken software (Zoom, a scourge of computing, abjectly terrible software (I prefer … Google Meet (!) by a mile)) or cameras that don’t allow for true eye contact — where everyone’s gaze is broken and off and distracted. To dispatch with all of those jittery half-measures of remote collaboration and swim in the warm waters of in-person mind-melding is a privilege for sure, and a gift.”
Related to that: Kate Lindsay’s latest Embedded newlestter talks about how ‘we’re all lurkers’ on the internet now:
“Social media has become less social and more media—a constellation of entertainment platforms where users consume content but rarely, if ever, create their own,” a recent Insider piece explains. “Influencers, marketers, average users, and even social-media executives agree: Social media, as we once knew it, is dead.”
This, from the recently-created 404 Media, on the MGM Casino hack is absolutely fascinating:
“People in every line I stood in and at every table I sat at were *talking about the hack, and while I was there, Larry Flynt’s Hustler strip club began offering ‘free lap dances to those affected’ by the hack… None of the few customers had come from to take advantage of the MGM deal.”*
There’s a chance I will get to see Stop Making Sense on the big screen later this week. In the meantime, I had to make do with reading about it and in the New Yorker:
“T_he band’s expanded lineup in “Stop Making Sense” is similarly self-aware. In the collective imagination, forming a band is one version of redemption from the inner loneliness of the white, suburban middle class._”
(also - watching this clip on repeat)
⤳ Listening to:
After reading the Cory book this week I am even more nervous about the future of Bandcamp, following this week’s news, but I’m going to continue supporting it and keeping my fingers crossed: