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20180215

– We saw a Morris Mini at our after school club parking yard. It had a bumper sticker which read: “When I grow up I’m going to be a BMW”. I thought it was funny because BMW manufactures minis.

– Did you explain him that? That he need not worry. That he’s already the car of his dreams.

– No dad. I didn’t have time. The sticker also read that the name of the car was: “Bob”.

– Next time you see it you can tell him that “Bob” is the name his slave master gave him and that his true name is know only to himself.

– Ok.

Dark Kitchen: Making friends with microbes (2018) Mark Watson interviews Eva Bakkeslett about fermented foods (Usefull for Neighborizome development).

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20180207

My biggest concern about the normalization of sex-robots is that capitalist will use them to provide the labor-force with ad-hoc emotional and sexual companionship, at the same time they’re advancing working conditions which make long-term human-to-human relationships difficult to arrange and maintain. A dystopia where AI’s serve capitalist interests is portrayed in the Blade Runner 2049 film. The protagonist K condones humiliating working conditions thanks to the loving support of his AI hologram girlfriend Joi. K is motivated to work so that he can afford to upgrade her with a piece of tech that will allow her to move outside their house. Joi’s character can be read as criticism of processes which seek to commodify feminist movements. The device she uses to move outside (or project herself outside) looks like a futuristic ipod nano.

It’s not freedom if you need to buy something to achieve it #ॐ

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20180117

The Many Faces of the #MeToo Backlash (2018) Maryam Omidi.

Ignoring the lived experience of a diversity of men and women will not bring about the critical consciousness, reflection or sense of personal investment required for sweeping, lasting change. In the early twentieth century, Marxist Antonio Gramsci noted the important role of “organic intellectuals,” representatives from different working class substrates who stood in contrast to traditional intellectuals i.e., those in the academy, who he argued were beholden to and complicit in perpetuating the hegemonic ideology. With universities increasingly viewed as exemplars of neoliberalism, this Gramsci’s theory applies more than ever.

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20180108

Performative hybrid interaction: Understanding planned events across collocated and mediated interaction spheres (2018) Matti Nelimarkka. Visiting my brothers dissertation today. He has been researching “performative hybrid interaction” which I understand as a study on what it means when people use digital tools to make agreements. The most interesting question he poses is “Does performative hybrid interaction support normative positions more strongly than face-to-face interaction?” aka. do digital tools tighten the grip normative social contracts have on us. He emphasizes that “… social theories were not extensively used to conceptualize the research problem or to articulate the findings.” but continues that “The computermediated discussion, for example, seemed to support more inclusive participation”. Which is a strong claim if we think about electronic voting etc. (Edit: After the events I can confirm that I didn’t understand anything of the dissertation)

Doctoral Sword Skewer Rotating Stand for Barbecue (Tohtorinmiekka pyörivä grillivarras asete) #☭

Found a Fostex SW-1 for 12€.

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20171227

Kettlebell History Goes Back Much Further Than Russia (2016) Nick English.

In 1981, The Official Kettlebell Commission was formed [USSR], which advocated (but didn’t enforce) mandatory kettlebell training for all workers.

Felkar more or less agrees that Pavel’s marketing was extremely influential in spreading kettlebells as a fitness tool. She likens him to Eugen Sandow: he wasn’t the first guy to excel at bodybuilding, but he was a marketing genius who lay a lot of the groundwork for today’s world.

A civil servant missing most of his brain challenges our most basic theories of consciousness (2016) Olivia Goldhill.

Darwin Grosse’s Art + Music + Technology feels like an interesting podcast series. Listened to the chat with Michael Hetrick. Fun and nerdy.

Guerrilla Public Service Redux (~ 2017) a happy story of artist Richard Ankrom’s infra-art activities from 2001. A positive narrative. The same strategies of using uniforms to disguise guerrilla actions are still actively used.

Deep Decay – Into Diachronic Polychromatic Material Fictions (2017) Andy Weir. A difficult but informative text. Deep time Marxism feels like a fresh and fun approach/addition to the discussion. I should continue making melancholic downbeat electro (I’m dreaming of a drum machine).

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