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Posts from November 2024
Saturday, 30 November 2024
— Sleaford Mods and Hot Chip is a collaboration I didn’t think could work. But it does.
Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Bluesky is not Billionaire Proof
— I do not believe, not even for one second, that Blueksy is billionaire proof. Bluesky has accepted investor money which makes them susceptible to a hostile takeover in some form and, thus far, it’s not a decentralised platform.
I’ve been looking for a piece that critically examines Bluesky’s corporate structure, the people behind their investment rounds and how both might affect Bluesky’s future. “Without Sky: Social Media and the End of Reality” is a pretty good start.
For several reasons, Bluesky has a target painted on its back. First, it has no plausible revenue model that can make it self-supporting anytime soon. Second, it is facing large and quickly-growing costs as it seeks to scale and fend off adversarial attacks. Third, it has attracted a fairly homogeneous audience of exhausted, well-meaning liberals that would be tempting to target for manipulation. And crucially, it already has a board member who has a fiduciary duty to serve a variety of crypto-related interests.
With the most recent investment from Blockchain Capital and Blockchain Capital’s Kinjal Shah subsequently joining Bluesky’s board comes the necessity to make money, at least at some point. If the returns don’t materialise, investors will try to recoup their investments another way; therefore opening the plausible possibility of a billionaire take-over.
If that takeover happened today, there would be no alternative. The AT Protocol allows for decentralisation, but only on paper. There is only one Bluesky instance.
Bluesky is effectively evolving as a centralized service. Until or unless there is a second company or concern competing with Bluesky using the same protocols and able to somehow fund its operations, it is effectively operating as a clone of Twitter, but with a very selective audience, and similar cost structures.
I said it before, Bluesky is not a distributed system, and probably never will be.
— For Madvillainy’s twenty-year anniversary, the 4K remastered music videos of Madvaillain’s “Accordion” and “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
Saturday, 23 November 2024
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
— Investing is gambling, mostly. Sure there are troves of books suggesting strategies on how to pick the right stock and how to time your investments. But if you assume everyone in the market has access to the same information and whenever you buy or sell stock based on that information, someone else does the opposite thinking, like you, they will profit. Whether you make a profit that way comes down to dumb luck.
Yet, investing in shares seems the best way to save for retirement. Bogle’s approach is indeed a common-sense approach, one that doesn’t suggest questionable tactics but is based on hard numbers. It’s based on a few simple principles.
There’s no way you’ll beat the market, so don’t try. Unless you run your own investment business and have the time to track all news and trades related to your investment, there is a very low chance that you can outsmart everyone else in the market and always buy or sell at the right time. Invest in funds instead to diversify your portfolio and spread the risks, and to hover up any gains the overall market offers over time.
Keep your costs low. Costs, like interest, compound over time. The more you spend on management fees and trades and taxes when you sell, the less money remains in your portfolio. Choose index funds over managed funds.
Hold on to your shares. No matter what. Don’t succumb to short-term movements in the market. Don’t succumb to your emotions. Short-term losses are normal and share prices tend to increase over long-enough periods. So even if your portfolio drops in value, it’s very likely your portfolio value will increase in the long run.
Bogle proves all his points with numbers. He demonstrates that even professional managers of mutual funds have a hard time beating the market, that costs compound and how it affects the value of a portfolio.
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is the first book on investing that made sense to me. The first where I didn’t find myself asking “But wait, what if…?” every other page. It doesn’t try to sell you with advice on timing investments or how to pick a unicorn company. It is common sense advice.
And as a side effect, Bogle’s approach seems almost hassle-free. You pick your funds, and you keep buying. And that’s it.
NOTE: None of the above is financial advice. If you have questions about investing and saving for retirement, you should consult an expert.
Thursday, 21 November 2024
Schönrechnen
— “Schönrechnen” is a German word I love. It means to interpret some inherently bad numbers to put a positive spin on the results. Start-ups do that to improve the looks of their accounts. And it does a lot of work for non-republicans in the US right now.
It’s fine for Trump to crow about his massive election win, but everyone else should realize how historically small his victory actually was. And how he might not have won at all if not for the pressure the Republicans have put on our systems of voting over the past decades (all manner of voter suppression), the billionaires propping up his campaign with hundreds of millions of dollars when he couldn’t keep pace with his opponent in non-PAC fundraising, and the will of post-pandemic voters worldwide who wanted the incumbents out no matter what. Mandate schmandate.
Note: You wouldn’t even need all of those “cumulative 237,000 votes” to go the other way — all you’d need is half + 1. So we’re talking about ~118,500 voters out of ~155 million. That’s razor thin.
Obama’s win in 2008 (365-173) was far larger than Trump’s win this year (312-226), measured either by Electoral College results or the popular vote. Obama’s 2012 reelection against Mitt Romney (332-206) was a larger win than Trump’s now.
[…]
But my god, look at the results Thompson was writing about in 1972. Richard Nixon won the Electoral College 520-17 and the popular vote by 23 percent. He won 49 of 50 states. “Jesus!” indeed. This now is not that. This is bad and dangerous and dark, but while Trump’s win was brutally clear, it was still a very close, deeply divided election.
It’s like they’ve been served a hot pile of shit to eat—which, kids, you must not ever eat—but the chef put some basil and balsamic on top and now look just like in Italy.
The fact is, the US elected an autocratic regime into almost unmitigated power. It doesn’t matter how close the margins were. This is as black and white as it gets. There are no grey areas here. A pile of shit is a pile of shit. The quicker one realises that the better for the country and world.
The Nazis only needed a couple of months to turn the whole of Germany around. Twelve years later, at least 70 million people had died. In 1945, no-one was talking about how the NSDAP didn’t even have a majority in 1933.
— The Guardian revisits Robert Frank’s seminal photo book “The Americans.” “The Americans is one of the most influential and enduring works of US photography. Robert Frank’s exacting vision, distinct style and poetic insight changed the course of 20th-century art and influenced generations of photographers.”
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
— Final Words shows deleted posts from Bluesky in a never-ending stream. According to creator phil, it “listens for all delete events from the firehose, and then shows the just-deleted text one last time in an anonymized disappearing feed.“
Monday, 18 November 2024
— The Hieroglyphics spit their legendary lines over instrumentals from the uber-talented OMA. Has my head bop like it’s 1998 again.
— Soon to be released: The Internet Phone Book, “a physical directory for exploring the vast poetic web. It features the personal websites of hundreds of designers, developers, writers, curators, and educators.”
Saturday, 16 November 2024
— Satire magazine The Onion purchased right-wing propaganda outlet InfoWars.
Nick Heer comments on Pixel Envy:
The CEO may be fake, but this is real: the Onion bought InfoWars with the assistance of the families of Sandy Hook victims. The relaunched site will be supported by Everytown for Gun Safety. What a perfect, full-circle kind of outcome to dilute the influence of one of the worst figures in media.
Congratulations to Collins on being the proud owner of InfoWars’ assets, legally speaking. Given the hosts’ predilection for heavy drinking and indoor smoking, I bet the studio reeks
Well funny that, but what impact have such stunts? A new InfoWars that satires itself will likely be read by people on the left of the spectrum, whereas Alex Jones’ disciples will just look wherever he blares his garbage next? Isn’t the media circus around the purchase just reminding people to find an InfoWars alternative so they can do “their own research?”
— Some headlines, currently, in the New York Times opinion section:
- What Kennedy Actually Gets Right
- Matt Gaetz Is the Perfect Man for the Job
- End the Criminal Cases Against Trump
I don’t know, man, I’m not a journalist or anything, but in the light of Trump’s nomination frenzy this week, isn’t there enough to dig in journalistically? Is defending this shit show really a good use of their time?
Friday, 15 November 2024
Lee
— Throughout her life, Lee Miller was fashion model, fashion photographer, surrealist artist, war correspondent, and cook book author.
This is her story, told in a straightforward way without many twists or big surprises. A clear start and end. If you’re vaguely familiar with Miller’s career you could be tempted to say it’s boring. Nell Minow, writing for Roger Ebert:
It is more about “then this happened, and then this other thing happened” than who Miller was, why she did what she did, and how it affected her.
But that’s what you get when you don’t fictionalise someone’s story or add excessive Hollywood pomp. It’s makes this kind of movie, the bio pic, better and more realistic. By just focussing on her time as a war correspondent, the film shines a light on Miller’s most important work as journalist. And you still get that claustrophobic feeling she must have felt in the face of the horrors of the holocaust.
Seeing Andy Samberg, who I’ve only ever known as a comedian, in the role of David Scherman, Lee’s travel companion through a war-torn Europe, was … surprising. Like when Adam Sandler did Uncut Gems, my first thought was “is this going to work?” It did with Sandler but not so much with Samberg. He just can’t shake that characteristic smirk from his face. Even in the face of abhorrent crimes he always looks like he’s just step away from making a silly remark.
(2023) Director: Ellen Kuras. Screenplay: Liz Hannah, John Collee, Marion Hume. Cast: Kate Winslet, Andrea Riseborough, Andy Samberg, Josh O’Connor, Alexander Skarsgård.
Thursday, 14 November 2024
Full Metal Jacket
— After a gruesome induction to the Marines, we follow a group of soldiers to Vietnam. Masculine banter and excitement for a pointless war ensue until they get caught in an ambush.
I hadn’t seen Full Metal Jacket before for some reason. Great movie, no notes.
(1987) Director: Stanley Kubrick. Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford. Cast: Matthew Modine, Lee Ermey, Vincent D’Onofrio
— The Guardian will finally stop posting on X, and using the word “finally” in this context is wholly appropriate.
In an announcement to readers, the news organisation said it considered the benefits of being on the platform formerly called Twitter were now outweighed by the negatives, citing the “often disturbing content” found on it.
[…]
The Guardian said content on the platform about which it had longstanding concerns included far-right conspiracy theories and racism. It added that the site’s coverage of the US presidential election had crystallised its decision.
Better late than never, they say. But it’s too late. If there were “longstanding concerns,” why didn’t they act sooner? By staying on X, along with many other major papers and despite the fact that the cited issues existed for years, they kept posting to and therefore legitimising X as a valid information source.
— A new single from BADBADNOTGOOD and Tim Bernardes: Poeira Cosmica.
Wednesday, 13 November 2024
— 100 visualisations for the same simple dataset, along with a short discussion of pros and cons for each variation. Great resource.
— Is the Love Song Dying? From the Pudding, a visual exploration of the evolution of love in popular music.
The love song didn’t die; it evolved. People are loving, losing, and connecting in more ways than ever before. We argue that modern pop is just as love-struck as ever
Side note: Betteridge’s law of headlines proven correct again.
— Legendary Melbourne espresso bar Pellegrini’s celebrates its 70th anniversary.
I love Pellegrini’s. It’s an original, a Melbourne institution. It’s one of the few coffee places in the city that don’t look like an Apple Store. Plus, they serve pasta for lunch and make a mean watermelon granita.
The Soul of Stax, Vol. III
— From the department of “albums I used to own that I can’t find anywhere anymore”: The Soul of Stax Vol. III, a compilation of recordings from the infamous Stax Records label including some bangers from Otis Redding, Issac Hayes and Rufus Thomas. I put together an Apple Music playlist for your and my listening pleasure and future reference.
Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Rewilding the Internet
— Most of the infrastructure that powers the internet is now in the hands of a few, mostly US-based, companies. Drawing from ecology research, Maria Farrel and Robin Berjon, writing for Noēma, liken the monopolistic internet infrastructure to a struggling ecosystem that needs to be rewilded.
Rewilding the internet is more than a metaphor. It’s a framework and plan. It gives us fresh eyes for the wicked problem of extraction and control, and new means and allies to fix it. It recognizes that ending internet monopolies isn’t just an intellectual problem. It’s an emotional one. It answers questions like: How do we keep going when the monopolies have more money and power? How do we act collectively when they suborn our community spaces, funding and networks? And how do we communicate to our allies what fixing it will look and feel like?
All this requires tremendous effort, first and foremost from regulators who need to put in guardrails to reign in big tech. Too bad, the incoming administration of the country where most of these companies reside will likely do the opposite and weaken, even remove, antitrust and customer-protection legislation.
The only viable lever is us customers, and were we choose to socialise and host the infrastructure for the things we build. We can vote with our feet and choose to host a website not on AWS, we can use alternative email and calendar providers, and join smaller social networks or even build our own online presence.
Will we, though, in large enough numbers to move the needle?
— Stones Throw releases the Madvillainy demos on vinyl later this month.
In 2002, before Madlib and MF DOOM finished Madvillainy, the first demo sequence of the album leaked online – early vocal cuts from DOOM, recorded then quickly mixed in LA at Madlib’s Bomb Shelter studio. The leak spread around the world, and while the tracks may have been unfinished, it was clear that this was a hip-hop album unlike any other…
— Today I learned: Those old visitor trackers where you embed an image on your website, they still exist. The Diamond Geezer blog uses eXTReMe Tracking [sic], which has been around since I first laid eyes on the World Wide Web. I had one of these on each of my websites in the late 90s and early 2000s and assumed they all but vanished since Goole Analytics arrived.
Monday, 11 November 2024
The Auditorium, Vol. 1
— There is, as far as I know, no Hip-Hop equivalent to dad rock, the music that reminds white men in their forties of their younger days. There should be because The Auditorium Vol I falls squarely into this category.
Common and Pete Rock are legends of the genre. Anything they touch on their own will likely be good. A collaboration has to exceptional. And this album is. 15 tracks reminiscent of the boom bap era, the golden years of hip hop, paired with Common’s smart create an all too familiar atmosphere. Get some cold Mixery, let’s meet at the skatepark and see what happens tonight.
“Vol I” it says in the album title indicating there might be more. I hope there is.
Sunday, 10 November 2024
— Andy Baio commenting on a Financial-Times piece about a series of elections resulting with the incumbent party loosing their mandate:
inflation was a painful global phenomenon, and every ruling party was punished for it regardless of political leanings
Overly simplistic explanation for the phenomenon. It assumes, for instance, that 14 years of Tory rule preceding this year’s election didn’t happen in the UK; and its constant lying, series of scandals, cronyism, corruption, law-breaking, and gutting of public-service funding.
Drugstore Cowboy
— You can depict drug addiction from the perspective of an outsider in a moralising way: Look at those people and their miserable lives at the edge of society. Pay attention in school, learn a profession, find a well-paying job. Don’t become one of them.
Or you show their human side, which they have despite the crimes they commit, as a tight-knit group of friends, family almost, as they try to navigate their lives. “Drugstore Cowboy” does the latter, which is why it’s so good.
This is not a movie about bad people, but about sick people. They stick together and try to help one another in the face of the increasing desperation of their lives. The movie is narrated by Dillon, whose flat voice doesn’t try to dramatize the material; he could be telling his story at an AA meeting. He knows it is sad but he also knows it is true, and he is not trying to glamorize it, simply trying to understand it.
(1989) Director: Gus Van Sant. Screenplay: Gus Van Sant, Daniel Yost. Cast: Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James LeGros, Heather Graham.
— Amyl and the Sniffers is the kind of music the world needs these days. It’s raw and loud and unapologetically anti everything. Just like the Sleaford Mods or the Idles. It’s telling that this kind of music comes out of Australia or the UK while the US swamp the world with mindless pop music.
Saturday, 09 November 2024
— Jules Roscoe, of 404 Media, writing about the 4B movement going viral online, directly quoting the following gem:
They all have to be punished in a way they can understand. American men need to fix their fellow men. Let them suck the poison out of each other. We have the power to shun them.
Men, of course. Gotta have a scapegoat; sometimes it’s immigrants, sometimes costal elites, sometimes social media, sometimes Joe Biden, and in this case it’s men in general.
Yes, 55% of men voted for Trump, according to exit polls in key states. So did 46% of Hispanics/Latinos, and, brace yourself, 45% women. Had these groups collectively voted for Harris, it would have been a landslide victory for the Democrats. But they haven’t. The reasons are complex.
You can obviously choose to not engage—in any form— with men. But it won’t swing the next election, if there is one. Neither will scapegoating one group of the electorate.
A day later, 404 publishes a piece lamenting the loss of subscribers in the wake of the election, making a point why their work is still relevant and necessary under a second Trump regime. Not repeating any half-baked, dumb-founded opinion from Reddit would be a start.
J. Edgar
— This isn’t the right time, I find, to watch a movie about an American strong man building an inventory of fingerprints of anyone he deems “communist” and who deports adversaries for no apparent reason other than the fact that they are adversaries. Let alone one that is strutted with talent, yet so boring. So boring, in fact, that I fell asleep half way through.
(2011) Director: Clint Eastwood. Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black. Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer, Josh Lucas, Judi Dench.
Friday, 08 November 2024
I wonder how much it stings to be reminded that all the money in the world cannot buy dignity. I wonder too, what taste Cheetos-dusted 78-year-old testicles leave in one’s mouth. Whatever the flavor, I hope it lingers.
— Jeff Jarvis:
The fault is in our nation. We must come to the realization that America is deeply racist and sexist, incapable of electing a Black, Asian woman to its highest office because of our culture’s innate, widespread, and unreconciled bias and hatred. That is the root of it. That is the weed that will now grow unkempt no matter how much media wish to groom the nation to make us look as if it were not so. Its aims of oppression will grow daily.
That. This outcome isn’t an accident.
It’s not algorithmically-curated social media, or Fox News, or right-wing misogynist podcast hosts that swing elections. Each one is merely a symptom. None of these would exist if there wasn’t an audience big enough and receptive enough to these thoughts and opinions. That audience is made of real people, who keep these platforms going, by spending time on these platforms, consume and sometimes create that content. This isn’t a chicken-or-egg problem, the thoughts existed long before the internet and Fox News, they just manifest more publicly now.
Tuesday, 05 November 2024
— “The Powerful Density of Hypertextual Writing.” Kottke on the Times’ editorial board’s somewhat endorsement on Kamala Harris, which is written in a way that would never work in print:
What makes this piece so effective is its plain language and its information density. This density is a real strength of hypertext that is often overlooked and taken for granted. Only 110 words in that paragraph but it contains 27 links to other NYT opinion pieces published over the last several months that expand on each linked statement or argument. If you were inclined to follow these links, you could spend hours reading about how unfit Trump is for office.
A simple list of headlines would have done the same basic job, but by presenting it this way, the Times editorial board is simultaneously able to deliver a strong opinion; each of those links is like a fist pounding on the desk for emphasis. Lies, threat, corruption, cruel, autocrats — bam! bam! bam! bam! bam! Here! Are! The! Fucking! Receipts!
Monday, 04 November 2024
— “We were wrong.” Early staff of HotWired, WIRED’s original online version, discuss the early days of the site
Sunday, 03 November 2024
Bluesky lacks the one federated feature that is absolutely necessary for me to trust it: the ability to leave Bluesky and go to another host and continue to talk to the people I’ve entered into community with there. While there are many independently maintained servers that provide services to Bluesky and its users, there is only one Bluesky server. A federation of multiple servers, each a peer to the other, has been on Bluesky’s roadmap for as long as I’ve been following it, but they haven’t (yet) delivered it.
By definition, a federated service is one the is part of network of independent services that interact for a greater good. Call your proprietary network protocol “open” and “decentralised” all day long, but if you allow only one instance to use the protocol you have a closed system. Mastodon is federated, Bluesky is not.
I doubt Bluesky will ever be federated. The AT protocol was never more than a marketing gimmick to fit the Zeitgeist during Twitter’s meltdown; to position Bluesky as a viable alternative. Bluesky is on a Twitter’s beaten path. The “open” protocol will be locked down as soon as the service attracted a critical mass of users big enough for VCs to monetise. Bluesky will end up as a walled garden, like Facebook, or Twitter.
— Why Are Democrats Having Such a Hard Time Beating Donald Trump? asks the New York Times, concluding:
The simplest answer is that the national political environment just isn’t as conducive to a Democratic victory as many might imagine.
If by the “national political environment” you mean spineless journalists refusing to call Trump what he is: A senile Nazi, who is unfit to lead anything, country or businesses. In that case, yeah, spot on.