A quick link to a fascinating and thorough look by David Henkin at the diffusion of the week as a way of organizing social life.
An article from Slate.com describes photography technique used by photographer Jay Mark Johnson to “emphasize time over space”:
[H]e uses a slit camera that emphasizes time over space. Whatever remains still is smeared into stripes, while the motion of crashing waves, cars and a Tai Chi master’s hands are registered moment by moment, as they pass his camera by. Like an EKG showing successive heartbeats, the width of an object corresponds not to distance or size, but the rate of movement. Viewing the left side of the picture is not looking leftward in space but backward in time.
Interesting quote from an article at The Economist about the changing role of taste-makers and how art and media is produced with the rise of algorithmic systems:
The diminishing role of industry taste makers is reflected in the sort of art now being produced. To make it onto computer generated playlists, songs must avoid getting skipped, so tracks increasingly open with a catchy “prechorus”. New re leases may have up to a dozen writers making sure that every section sparkles—a “genetically modified hit”, quips Mr Mulligan, who doubts that “awkward listens” like Radiohead would do as well today. “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, which takes more than a minute to get going, would not be released, he suspects. Songs have become shorter, since artists are paid per stream. Labels are even making sure that the titles are Alexa friendly.
The following articles from The Register report on a current push for changes in some of the terms and metaphors used in software development. I definitely see the change as an improvement, to replace terms such as “blacklist” and “master-slave” to more inclusive use of language. See also the Internet Engineering Task Force draft on “Terminology, Power and Oppressive Language”.
A new article by Input Magazine gives a good example of green washing and why we need the right to repair our own devices. The article is about a “recycling mode” for Sonos devices that effectively bricks a device, and makes it impossible for it to enter the second-hand market. Read the short article here.
Sonos implements a setting called “recycling mode” that bricks consumer’s devices after 21 days, essentially keeping them from being reused or resold on the secondary market. (…) Sonos’ “Trade Up” program is meant to offer its customers an incentive to upgrade, which, naturally, benefits Sonos the most — by reeling customers with older devices back into a new product lifecycle.
Drew Austin writes at Real Life magazine on the new Airpods. Didn’t quite know how they actually worked and make it possible to keep them on all the time. Definitely seeing increasing use everywhere I go, and he makes some great points on how this technology is shaping our social interactions:
AirPods foster a different approach to detachment: Rather than mute the surrounding world altogether, they visually signal the wearer’s choice to perpetually relegate the immediate environment to the background. The white earbuds create what Kantrowitz calls the AirPod Barrier, a soft but recognizable obstacle to interpersonal interaction not unlike that of phone usage. While staring at a phone suggests that attitude indirectly, AirPods formalize it, expressing potential distractedness in a more sustained and effortless manner. You don’t have to look down at a screen to convey that your mind might be elsewhere — that you are dividing your attention between your physical surroundings and other kinds of interactions, hearing other voices. AirPods efficiently communicate your refusal to pretend to be “fully present.” AirPods, then, express a more complete embrace of our simultaneous existence in physical and digital space, taking for granted that we’re frequently splitting our mental energy between the two.