I'm intrigued by the concept of Quantum computing but, like a lot of big physics ideas, I find it hard to understand on a practical level. There's a lot of language to comprehend (qubits, superpositions, probabilistic output, et al) and it's very easy to get lost in the sauce.

So, when YouTube served me up this Ted Talk from Hartmut Neven called Quantum Computers Aren’t What You Think — They’re Cooler, I assumed I was in for a real treat! Neven is the founder and lead at Google's Quantum AI division so he most certainly knows what he is talking about. For roughly half of the talk, I was following along just fine. Once it hits the real meat and potatoes of the talk, I must admit that I still have no idea how any of this works on a practical level.

Regardless, worth watching and learning about. Seems like it could be a real game changer in the speed of computing or maybe the key to unlocking some disastrous multi-verse disaster. Maybe both! Still, worth a watch.

The bullet list of 3 ways to combat X is great. Read it and follow if you’re still using X… please!

A rather innocent and amusing Australian prank.

not much to see here yet but i saw this short film last night and can not wait for it to reach a wider audience

via @austinkleon. a lo-fi treat.

Awhile back I stumbled on the video for "Her" by Caroline Cronin. It's a delightfully oddball offering that I can't say enough things about. Later, I stumbled on Cronin again with this "Softening" single - which isn't nearly as oddball and it is equally mesmerizing. Can't put my finger on why but there's something about it that keeps it on regular rotation.

another month, another rundown of activities from Malcolm. I do not know him but I appreciate the playlists he creates and the insights he provides on his life activities. just a pleasant dip into a diary.

Through the magic of haphazard searching, I came about this 2020 essay Consider the Arcologies. I was not familiar with the word but an "arcology" is a real architectural term for a structure that is densely populated, has low ecological impact and may even be self-sustaining (think: power, climate control, food production, et al in one building). To be clear, none exist, it's just an idea.

Unless you played SimCity 2000, the urban planning game from Maxis. Arcologies do exist in that environment. However, again, I was entirely unfamiliar (my house was a SimAnt household). Author AV Marracini makes this wonderful observation regarding the game and arcologies:

By the way, at the end of the game you choose to launch the arcologies into space. You abandon the metropolis that you have spent hundreds of hours balancing and maintaining. In SimCity 2000, the apex of the metropolis is its death. Cue the accelerationists. Cue Tacitus by way of Gibbon. We are all, in the end, some simulacrum of the bad emperors.

That's a lot to digest but it could not be more pertinent here in 2024 as we see the rise of Effective accelerationism, aka e/acc, the movement that aspires to propel technology at all costs, guard rails be damned.

The essay is a great read that proposes what life within each of those arcologies may be like. However, even more interesting, is to let yourself continue down the rabbit hole of how SimCity 2000 can be a reflection of our current times. This John Leavitt article, "Sim City 2k, Post-Capitalism, and ‘The Four Futures’" takes a similar tact breaking down each arcology tower and how they could represent our possible future.

All this may lead you Kevin T. Baker's piece "Model Metropolis," which tells the rich origin and history behind SimCity, going as far back as early computing influencers and urban planners. It also touches on the less-than-ideal underpinnings of the assumptions being made in the gameplay. Spoiler alert: a lot of historical urban planning was problematic, misguided and downright racist. SimCity isn't modeled after that but it is modeled upon the historical choices that came before it, which often were. (This can be extrapolated even further once you see the influence the game has on its players, convincing them that low taxes are the only way to go and destroying neighborhoods has no social impact (it's just a game, after all))

Or maybe you'll just end up watching the obnoxiously hypnotic depature of 330 arcologies from a SimCity map; the finale of the game and a sad conclusion to a lot of work.

The popular destinations of the web are closed systems but it's nice to remember there are still loads of websites out there linking to one another and guiding you through a deep dive of thoughtful entertainment.

A friend of mine saw Faye Webster in concert recently and remarked that 5-6 people had fainted during the performance. With a little research, they found that this has become more common post-COVID.

His findings are confirmed by this excellent essay Falling from May of 2023; in which author Max Levin recounts numerous fainting experiences at concerts and the phenomena that may cause it. One such name for this happening is "Stendhal syndrome" - defined in Wikipedia as:

...a psychosomatic condition involving rapid heartbeat, fainting, confusion, and even hallucinations, allegedly occurring when individuals become exposed to objects, artworks, or phenomena of great beauty.

The name goes all the way back to 1817 when French writer Stendhal was overcome by seeing works of "painted frescoes and the tombs of Machiavelli, Galileo, and Michelagelo." Similarly, Lisztomania is the name for the intense crowd reactions at Franz Liszt concerts in the 1840s in which the audience would become overwhelmed with hysteria (and a helluva Phoenix song).

The essay goes on to speak on the shared experience of concerts and art viewing; how that can impact us both mentally and physically. I've not witnessed any bouts of fainting at concerts recently but I certainly can attest to the intense tuned in experience that comes from a particularly good show.

TLDR: good read. Thanks Steve!

Yesterday I posted about the Friend reveal, a new AI necklace that listens to your surroundings, lets you speak to it and responds with texts. The trailer felt dystopian but I tried to remind myself that the older I get there may be new things that take some adjustment. While I personally do love the Friend, I can see that it's a direction we're headed.

What I really want to make note of is that all of these AI powered pieces of hardware have all had some drama attached to them and it's a really satisfying Internet dish. Friend is no different.

With the Rabbit R1 (which I felt intrigued by), folks quickly figured out that it was just a device running Android and the "Large Action Model (LAM)" was not quite as fancy as the founders would lead you to believe. The Humane AI Pin (which I felt intrigued by) got some terrible reviews and the parent company is exploring a sale.

With Friend, founder Avi Schiffmann raised $2.5 million in a fundraising rounder - a rather small bit of seed investment relatively speaking. Apparently, they spent $1.8million on the domain. Many are clarifying that it's on a payment plan so they didn't just squander 75% of their available funds but still. It's a helluva lot of money for a device that costs $100 and, frankly, isn't stirring much genuine interest. It feels like vaporware and I'll be shocked if it's around in a year. Bonus: this Wired interview is quite cringe-y - the bravado of a 20-year old trying to sell some futuristic tech rarely goes down well.

We finally did it! We have blurred the line so heavily between "actual technology advertisement" and "satirical commentary on a dystopian future" that it's impossible to tell the difference! Watch this product reveal commercial for the new Friend device and tell me you are positive it's a real thing. The device itself is always-on, listening for your surroundings and allows you to speak directly to it. The responses will be texted to you from your virtual friend.

The video was created by Sandwich, so it's incredibly well made and quite believable. I've pored over the website and the sparse socials and I'm still not convinced it's not a teaser for a new season of Black Mirror.

Assuming this isn't revealed to be a promo campaign, it does seem like an inevitable future. The Rabbit R1 and the Humane AI Pin covered the exact same ground. Personally, I don't think we're ready for specific hardware that does this and provides any sort of actual value. Yet. Could I see a version of this in ten years that works like a Babel Fish? Yea, I totally can. I also can't completely hate on the idea of having a digital friend or personal assistant or whatever you choose to call it. Here in 2024 it feels out of place to have such a close digital companion but I can't imagine that will be true forever.

I regularly remind myself that the future is slippery. Technology changes both extremely quickly and very slowly. Social norms can shift in the blink of an eye (remember when wearing Bluetooth headphones in public was mocked and now it's not even something you notice?). I don't love this particular product for myself but I am fascinated by the development of these kinds of products. Looking forward to seeing how they continue to market this (and won't be too surprised when I find out Charlie Brooker is involved).

just doing some cursory reading on the history of Yellow Magic Orchestra. As you do.

"The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet" you may already be familiar with the concept. Basically, it's music of any genre, typically found online, that has no connecting information pertaining to its origin. In other words, uncredited music. Maybe it's an unlabeled mp3, or a youtube video with no information or an archive.org zip file devoid of metadata. The Lostwave community will take it upon themselves to try and figure out who created a specific song that catches their collective ear.

One such Lostwave song that made the rounds was called "Downfall" or, more specifically, "Downfall of a Well Known Actress." It turns out that's an unreleased song from the late 90s Nashville band Fair Verona. This is of particular interest to myself because one of the songwriters of Fair Verona is Beth Cameron, who later went on to form forget cassettes and Black Bra - two bands that I have worked directly with and feel very proud to support.

Very long story short - the "Downfall" song was found by a Lostwave community, researched heavily and discovered to be Fair Verona! Shawna Potter, another primary member of the band, has a rather compelling podcast called But Her Lyrics... and managed to bring everyone together to discuss the song, the band and the discovery process. I'm biased but it's definitely worth a watch.

note to self: listen to this Adam Lisagor chat

the 2024 nominees are all fantastic. if you have ever thought the web was not creative anymore, carve out some time to spend with these. via @waxpancake

Apparently playing at the Paris airport is a thing. Recently, Air played, performing "Playground Love" for the first time in 20 years - complete with Gordon Tracks!

Supposedly the entire concert was streamed live on Twitch in partnership with Amazon Music but I've seen no clips surface. Fingers and toes crossed for more to come of this but I'm happy with the current treat.

Great to see that Menomena has been fleshing out their discography with new expanded editions. Their 2003 debut, I Am the Fun Blame Monster (my favorite), has a nine track extra edition, there's a 22-track expanded edition of Friend of Foe (2007) and, now, a 21-track track deluxe edition of Mines (2010). The band is also playing a pair of reunion shows in August. If you can attend, please attend.

A wonderful interview from 2022 with Tom Persky, the self-proclaimed “last man standing in the floppy disk business.” He owns and operates floppydisk.com, a shockingly active business that still deals with a fairly high volume of disks (relatively speaking).

Persky speaks to how he got into the business, how it's still going in 2024 and, most importantly, how the floppy will never really ever die. Fingers crossed.

Sometimes you just stumble on a video of a cat yawning that's been visually processed by guitar pedals. I can't claim to understand it one bit but I certainly enjoy the results. Will seek out more in this realm of "SSTV" - Slow Scan TeleVision.

Disregard the thumbnail that belies the insightful nature of this conversation* - take some time to listen to Benn Jordan talking Spotify on the Top Music Attorney channel. It's just 21 minutes and brimming with insights and predictions about how fragile the music industry is.

There's a particularly nice bit at 4:30 talking about Spotify's house of cards with funding. Is it accurate? I dunno! But it's a good listen!

* interviewer Miss Krystle is insightful and challenging to Jordan, it's unfortunate the thumbnail is reducing them to a sex symbol.