in physics, when describing a phenomenom with numbers it is common to have two models: ideal and real. for example, an "ideal diode" has a beautiful, simple equation. when i was young and idealistic the corresponding "real" equation upset me, as it revealed (and compensated for) all sorts of physical realities small and large. reality, a mess.
i wonder how my earlier self would've responded to theories of consensus reality and intersubjectivity.
"Preference falsification is an information theory term for the tendency for people to express a public preference that is different from their private, interior preference. For various reasons, certain preferences may not be publicly acceptable to express; they may be punished by execution, or labor camps, or exile, or social exclusion, or at the very least suspicion and a risk of some of these things. When people do not express their true preferences, they are deprived of the opportunity to coordinate with each other to create a more preferable outcome for both. Preference falsification is not just a political phenomenon, but a product of our dual nature, experiencing ourselves on the one hand from the privileged first-person perspective, and on the other hand from the imagined perspective of others. Pretending to have different preferences than one really does may be necessary to maintain a sense of safety, social belonging, and status."
- sarah perry, weaponized sacredness [web]
landcress. growing near watercress. both are edible and everywhere here.
acephalic - headless
polycephalic - with many heads
(currently reading post capitalist desire by mark fisher, edited by matt colquhoun. encountered and looked up the first word, then located the second. now all i can think about is d&d.)
this morning the sky
burned bright white hiding
the mountains and hiding
the future
lichens cover about seven percent of the earth's surface. [web]
unintentional brutalist shrine/memorial for our 2011 bee colony which didn't survive the hard winter. capturing the swarm involved a willow over a bridge, partial nudity, and lots of running away.
drowning in information
while starving for wisdom
currently reading Lo-TEK, design by radical indigenism by julia watson. tek is traditional ecological knowledge. the book surveys practices which sustained various cultures for thousands of years.
"The nature of modern communication systems is that anything can be said, any context is equivalent to any other context, so that things can be placed in many different contexts at the same time, like photography. But there's something profoundly compromising about that situation. Of course, it allows for a liberty of action and consciousness that people have never had before. But it means that you can't keep original or profound meanings intact because inevitably they're disappointed, adulterated, transformed, and transmuted. So, when you launch an idea for a fantasy or a theme or an image to the world, it has this tremendous career that you can't possibly control or limit. You want to share things with other people, but on the other hand you don't want to just feed the machine that needs millions of fantasies and objects and products and opinions to be fed into it every day in order to keep on going. And that's perhaps a reason one is tempted to be silent sometimes."
- susan sontag, interview with rolling stone (1979)
from social media content removal fail [web] by terre thaemlitz. this qoute resonates deeply with my current aversion to the internet. there's a similar exploration in the interview i linked a couple days ago, describing how mark fisher's concept of accelerationism was quickly mangled and found its way into the manifesto of the christchurch shooter.
“The romantics were prompted to seek exotic subjects and to travel to far off places. They failed to realize that, though the transcendental must involve the strange and unfamiliar, not everything strange or unfamiliar is transcendental.”
- mark rothko
(from an excellent interview with matt calquhoun about mark fisher by holly herndon and mat dryhurst [web])
gemini://nnnnnnnn.co is now alive.
the link above will probably not work in your web browser, so first here are some words about gemini [web]
gemini is a different protocol (whereas the web uses http.) gemini is a very small specification: text, links, and that's about it. images and audio and other media can be displayed by following links, but not inline. in many ways it's more like reading a book.
gemini respects privacy by design (whereas the economy of the modern web is based on surveillance.) the tiny specification makes it possible for an experienced programmer to make a gemini server or client with relative ease, whereas creating a new modern web browser is literally an insurmountable task. since files are so small and clients so simple, browsing is incredibly fast and works perfectly well on old computers.
this project is still in its early stages.
fagradalsfjall is erupting.
ceramics by kelli cain, needlework by ivar heckscher. morning light reflected by window and mirror.
dawn chorus over rumbling brook
snow leaves
birds arrive
slowly chasing diamonds of sunshine
new algorithm. 12" x 8" (ish), black 0.32mm pen.
nature report, this last week: geese flying north, robins abound, first rainbow in a long while, mink runs around barn, red fox runs around house, three bald eagles flying together, mouse tunnel through sill plate into our basement is now closed and hopefully the pipes won't freeze next winter, van stuck and unstuck, mud season.