s08e07: *gestures at the world*
0.0 Context setting
So apparently I last sent one of these on 7th March which is technically only 11 days ago. I don’t know about you but I feel like that was several lifetimes ago now.
For those of you who’ve been reading for a while, something I try to do with this newsletter is to keep the line blurry between what-it’s-like-to-be-a-human and things-about-technology. I would like to promise that there won’t be anything about coronavirus in here, but I don’t think I can: what-it’s-like-to-be-a-human is, frankly, pretty terrifying at times right now.
I mean, look: I pretty much broke down and had a very messy cry in the kitchen yesterday morning with my family. We were rushing around getting ready for the 7 year old’s first remote day at school (I’d spent the weekend helping his first grade class get set up with Zoom and Slack), he was supposed to have built a boat for his main lesson (which otherwise would be awesome) and everything was just… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’d had even less sleep that night than you’d expect for parents of a 3 and 7 year olds, with the bonus of having read Imperial College’s 9th COVID-19 report, the one with the megadeath forecasts. The report’s pretty readable - and if you want to get the gist of it, pages 14-16 are probably good enough and yes, thanks, I’m aware of the shortcomings of the model. The thing about models though is they can be updated and if they’re published, other people can criticize them. Science! Who knew.
(An aside: I went to type in ic.ac.uk in my browser’s address bar to get Safari to autocomplete to the report and also nearly accidentally typed sunsite.ic.ac.uk, which People of A Certain Internet Age In The UK may well remember).
I don’t know how long any of this will last, but I’m planning for no schools and a general social distancing quarantine — or whatever you want to call it — to last until August at the very least.
I don’t think we’re going home again.
1.0 Some Things That Caught my, etc.
Some short ones this time:
A long time ago I had the idea of a pre-literate, invite-only, closed/small-group social network for preliterate kids after watching my own kids mess with emoji. So here’s a thread from The Internet’s Gretchen McCulloch with examples of preliterate kids using emoji and her associated Wired article:
You know, I’d been going on a whole while about how the internet is people and that means horrible people as well as gosh-darn, make you tear up, no really I’m only crying because I’m watching a movie on a plane and isn’t there that thing about the dry air on a plane that makes you cry? and, well, one of the bestest things about the internet right now is not just seeing all the self-organization, not just something like last Friday, when a Slack of group of friends who met in 2000 on an IRC channel got together on a group Zoom and we got to see each others’ kids (KIDS! SOME OF THEM ARE GOING TO COLLEGE NOW!), but also people getting on Instagram or whatever and just reading bedtime stories.
The internet gets a lot of shit but sometimes, just sometimes, you see the people breaking through the platforms and well, they’re people doing people things and it’s fucking lovely.
Via the Orange Place (sorry, if you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you for your own good), here’s an NFC-powered 4.2 inch and 7.5 inch e-Paper display. The NFC-powered bit means that it works without a battery so yes, this is just like a bit of paper that you’d stick on the wall but also, kind of, an electronic bit of paper that can display whatever’s on your phone? I kind of really like these and they’re only $42/$70 for the respective sizes and because they’re NFC they don’t work with Apple’s locked-down iOS.
This is kind of a joke but also, in my humble opinion, a very precisely targeted killsat burn, a rods-from-god delivered at millimeter level precision: Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, whose specifications were announced the other day, is the Best Mac Pro That Isn’t A Mac Pro. It is kind of ridiculous that Microsoft are doing this and that games consoles are honestly the closest thing to Apple’s Macs right now (well, this had been true ever since the PS3/Xbox 360 generation), and it’s even more true now that everything has moved to x86-64, and even more hilarious past that because of Apple’s rumored move to Yet Another Instruction Set.
An O’Neill Cylinder is the kind of space station that is, well, a giant cylinder and the world curves up and around you so that when you look up, you see… more land. Normally, this kind of place looks super futuristic and like a gated community with white people barbecuing out on the deck and manicured goddamn lawns IN SPACE.
Or, even more awesomely, it can look like a baroque city:
Look I’m not sure if I want to believe this or not, and I’d seen the 1993 promo video Jonathan Frakes shot about corporate computing set on the Enterprise, but apparently that’s one of the main reasons why we call Enterprise computing, well, Enterprise computing? Techcrunch makes a compelling case using Google Books ngrams that Riker telling us to “monitor your entire Enterprise from a single point of control” really was that moment.
If you were the kind of person who was on the fence about getting the Lego International Space Station set (and, really, why would you be, if you’re reading this?), then you should check out Sacha Judd’s adorably excited first ever electronics project to make a Lego ISS that lights up when the actual ISS passes overhead and OH MY GOSH, SHUT THE FRONT AIRLOCK.
Herman Miller are making a gaming chair with LG, so now I am expecting the Herman Miller AERON BALLISTIX ULTRAKILL XG FOUNDERS EDITION WITH FULLY PROGRAMMABLE RGB LIGHTING.
Last thing: here’s a wonderful announcement to staff that the Wikimedia Foundation made public, and to me the most important part is this excerpt, on moving everyone to half-time:
We’re only asking people to commit to working 50 percent of their normal hours. This isn’t a holiday. If people are able to work more normal hours, our mission needs them. But we are not tracking their time.
Why? We knew schools would be closing around the world, and a childcare stipend won’t help when caregivers are unable to leave their homes. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect someone to be fully present, eight hours a day, when they have a three-year-old with crayons drawing on the wall, or an elderly parent who needs help navigating the stairs. We all have loved ones who need care, groceries that need purchasing, doctor’s appointments to keep, neighbors who need a phone call. And you know what? We trust our colleagues. People will work when they can, and when they can’t, we trust they’ll be right.
Okay, that’s it for today, I think.
Hey, would anyone be interested in a group Zoom chat? Everyone’s doing them. I’ve done like what feels like a million now. If you’re interested, drop me a line and I’ll figure out something to schedule.
How are you? Here’s how I was yesterday and, for what it’s worth, if you click through, each and every reply applies to all of us:
It’s hard and I’m probably going to burst into tears again and *gestures around at the world* but, in the words of my good family friend Anna:
We only have each other
It’s just you and me
What are we going to do?
I am sorry not sorry.
My best,
Dan