Beneath my soles a living death.
Flint, chalk, and sand
Histories hide,
corners turn to stories—smugglers’ tunnels, and ghosts that linger in names.
Low sun sketches shadows,
field and fingers aligned.
Xmas 2024
I got back from The Chalk yesterday evening after a wonderful week back home at my parents house. It was a super chill week at home, saw my Uncle, went on some nice walks and ate way too much shortbread and trifle. I think I’ve put on a kilo in less than a week. LOL.
My brother arrived back from Taiwan into Heathrow on the 27th, but due to a huge accident on the M26 we the family basically spent a whole day doing the round trip collecting him from the airport. But all was well, and it was lovely to see him before I came back to London.
Currently prepping for NYE – what a weird year it’s been. Spent the train ride back re-reading my Year End posts – Wondering what to write about my life 2024.
Permanently Moved
Permanently Moved (dot) Online is a quarterly audio personal podcast, written, recorded and edited by by @thejaymo
Quarterly zine; my gift to you ✉️
Photo 365
The Ministry Of My Own Labour
- Obsidian Copy Pasting
- Notes
- Zine #12 production
- Taking a Break
Terminal Access
Who gets shipped and why? A fantastic data driven piece from one of my favourite websites/outlets: pudding.cool
Fanfic originated out of fandoms that catered to men, which naturally led to more ships with characters who were men. Repeated exposure to men protagonists makes their perspective the default, leading to lots and lots of non-men writing about characters who are men.
These genres also appeal to women, nonbinary, and queer authors because they allow them to flip the script from the heteronormative, straight, mainstream perspective.
Media grounded in historically men-dominated genres can adopt the internalized machismo or homophobia one might expect from a high school sports team. Haikyuu, an anime about a high school boy’s volleyball team, is one of the most popular fandoms for romantic ideation, despite having virtually no romance at all in the source material.
Dipping the Stacks
Concrete Built The Modern World. Now It’s Destroying It. | NOEMA
“Our modern engineering tools are quite inadequate in explaining how safe these buildings are,” he said. Sometimes, he went on, digital engineering models of old buildings concluded that there should be no way they could still be standing, that they should’ve collapsed centuries ago. But there they were, solid, unmoving. Maybe, Block thought, there was something wrong with the models.
The internet is rigged against great stores
greedy landlords are the enemies of small shops carrying fire clothes near you!
the Telephone Reference Division was a high-stress environment, and most staffers, myself included, burned out within a few years. Now that reference librarianship is a shadow of its former self, psychological gamesmanship rarely takes place. You look up your information in a bland, seemingly (seemingly) trustworthy source like Wikipedia, and that’s that.
When AI summaries replace hyperlinks, thought itself is flattened | Aeon Essays
Most discussions of AI are concerned with how soon an AI model will achieve ‘artificial general intelligence’ or at what point AI entities will be able to dictate their own tasks and make their own choices. But a more basic and immediate question is: what pattern of activity do AI platforms currently produce? Does AI dream of itself?
‘The vibe may be British, but the money is not’: how the US quietly conquered UK TV
That new British show you love? There’s a fair chance it is being backed by a US studio. What’s behind the Americans’ sudden influence over our TV – and will it mean more Ted Lassos, and fewer Only Fools and Horses?
Reading
I got Saints: A New Legendary of Heroes, Humans and Magic by Amy Jeffs for Christmas and have been working my way though that for most of the betwixmas.
I just today finished listening to Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee. Amazing book – so well researched it’s insane.
Still reading:The Ordinal Society, Playing with Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World, and Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and the Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte – though should have this finished by the new year.
Music
Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan – Your Community Hub
A sort of 70s utopian electronic revival album .
It’s all a bit Tangerine Dream while embedding a distinctly British nostalgia. The album feels like a sonic time capsule, 70s optimism with its lush, pulsating synthscapes and vintage timbres. There’s also a touch of British Rail’s “The Age of the Train” soundtracks in its atmosphere.
The whole album is a masterpiece of ambitious retro futurism. I listened to it on the train though Kent at Dusk yesterday.
Remember Kids:
Sensory motor amnesia occurs when your muscles are so tight that they simply won’t relax.
Move Without Pain by Martha Peterson
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