Over at feber.se I stumbled over the project Google. The work, created by Ben West and Felix Heyes, is based on taking 21000 common English words and parse them through Google image search, and then printing it all and binding it.

Quote from the creativeapplications.net website:

“Conceptually it’s whatever you make of it,” writes Ben. The sad reality of shrinking attention spans, collective media fatigue or how an expert reference book is no match for the convenience of Google, for example. “It’s really an unfiltered, uncritical record of the state of human culture in 2012,” concludes Ben. So, how are we faring? “I would estimate about half of the book is revolting medical photos, porn, racism or bad cartoons.”

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The second video above is from a work I did at Valand back in 2006: The uncontested order of things: A slideshow curated by google. It’s in the same vein, although it used the letters of the alphabet to search for images. I downloaded the top 40 or so pictures of every letter, picked one at random and arranged them alphabetically in the video. The idea being pretty similar to Ben and Felix — how is our language and concept of images shaped by that which we take for granted or don’t reflect over.

In the introduction to the work I wrote:

The motivation for this process, of which the resulting slideshow is but one possible combination (let alone one possible way to present the combinations) is:
1) To see how many apparently random images we can fit into a narrative, and
2) Given the omnipresence of google, how easily received/understood/accepted the images are when
3) A qualitative analysis of the images (and search results in general) shows an (apparently) unproportional US/EU presence, which in turn should
4) Kick us in the nuts for too easily accepting the perceived “freedom of the internet”, and not reflecting enough on what our online behavior tells of ourselves, but also what actual and very manifest power we are supporting by our actions.

Which actually still holds I think. Google is as omnipresent as it’s ever been, and apart from occasionally switching to Duck Duck Go as my main search engine, I don’t actively thing about how I navigate the Internet as much as I used to, or how that shapes our collective understanding of what the world looks like.

I’ve finally signed up for math-class, and am struggling with the “Matematik C” curriculum. I need it to get into any course related to computers or natural sciences, but I’m not putting near enough effort into it. It’s been fifteen years since I last took math, and back then my antipathy to math was so strong I was actively trying to forget what little I learned.

Actually, the course is officially over but I’ve asked for a month extension to allow me to catch up, so we’ll see how that’ll go. I need to do the test the 18th at the latest to be sure that my uni application for fall goes through, but this requires a couple of hours of daily practice. And I’m out of practice.

I might be doing the same mistake I did when studying philosophy, assuming that as long as you put your mind to it you ought to be able to figure things out from first principles. So you start with an intuitive understanding of 1+1 and build on that. But at this level math is mostly about learning by rote, and because I’ve been out to the loop for so long, half the time I don’t even know what problem I’m tasked with answering. “Describe a function” is not an invitation to write an essay, but something with an actual answer, and as always when you’re learning something new, the glossary seems arbitrary and made up by a stupid-poopy-head.

The TI-82 graphing calculator Zenobia lent me has a 150 page manual, and having been spoiled by GUIs for so long it feels as if I’m learning Dwarf Fortress. But it’s fun in a PRESS SHIFT+Ln+min/max way and I’m scouring the second hand market for a calculator of my own. SMBC sums up my findings quite well so far.

On the upside, I designed and printed my own graphing paper, and had it bound. Each page has different colours, and the paper is watermarked and really nice to write on using the extra soft pencil leds I found in the third store I asked. My priorities are not what they ought to be, but at least my notebook is perty.

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As a small vacation, I and Sara took a weekend in Malmö. I haven’t spent much time there, so we had three days walking about, taking pictures of her old haunts and apartments, gorging ourselves on vegan cake and whatnots. Nice city, and it would have been even better if we’d gotten ourselves bikes. Speaking of which, the Malmö initiative Cykelköket has a branch in Göteborg. They seem nice!

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Regardless of how bland and uninspiring you find something — be it music, art, food, whatever — there will be some people for whom it was a defining moment of their lives. For example, Jakob Hellman had some hits twenty years ago and is still fondly remembered for his one and only album. He performed yesterday at the city theatre, and Sara got us on the guest list. The cover charge for this low key evening was 250 kronor, which is 200 more than I would have considered paying, but judging from the 200 odd people in attendance others aren’t as cheap as I.

Hearing a song live which you’ve been singing in the shower for a couple of years can be great fun, and there’s something to be said about seeing the original artist perform it. But I’m not sure if Hellman managed to rekindle the memories of youthful naïveté in his audience, or if he just piddled on the embers.

So, anyway. Last couple of months have been eventful.

I’ve moved in with Sara and Tura in our own apartment. For the first time in forever I have my own name on the door and actually live where I am registered. Beside everything else, it’s a good feeling to be able to greet neighbours without wondering who will start asking questions about when you moved in and if you’re subletting legally. Besides the everyday hassle of arranging to pay bills in someone elses name, and getting the mailman to deliver your post, it’s grating to constantly be nervous that something might break which you won’t be able to fix yourself and can’t call a super about.

We’ve already called the super over twice, and actually getting a busted bathroom tap repaired within a day is a surreal experience. Renting an apartment feels good. Of course, there are some minor issues. For example, since only Sara is on the contract, the super put up only her name on the door. Apparently it’s policy, and besides he couldn’t be arsed to get over here with a Dymo to print a new label. So I bought a Dymo and now have a fancy label on the door, set in a “hollow, italic, fat, border” style, which says “S. Henriksson & M. Pozar.” Yes, I’ll be posting a picture as soon as I’m done admiring it. There’s another option for the styling on the Dymo, a wide papyrus scroll, and I’ll have to see which one is more classy.

Petter showed up with the kids last week and we had the first “guests over for dinner” event, and just the other day Carl-Johan dropped by for lunch, so we’ve checked “someone just casually stopping by” on the todo-list as well. We’re going to throw a housewarming party or somesuch as soon as we have the “somewhere to sit” issue resolved, but so long as we keep to a manageable number of visitors at any given time, we’re open for business.

Unless I’ve explicitly told you to fuck off, we have a standing blood feud, or I owe you lots of money, consider this an invitation to drop by at any time for tea, coffee, beans or wine (bring wine). Look me up in the book, I’m listed at my own adress, dontcha know.

There’s a good chance that you haven’t seen the webcomic Hark! A vagrant! even though you ought to.

Kate Beaton, the artist, also runs a Tumblr with stuff related to the comic over at beatonna.tumblr.com and in a post she asked people to email her links to comics. It’s a very long list, and if you ever feel like you have too much free time on your hands, or if you just don’t care to be a productive member of society, take a gander: Be excellent to each other.

I don’t follow all that many comics these days: Octopus Pie, Abominable Charles Christopher, lackadaisycats Oglaf, Perry Bible Followship, Penny Arcade, Battlepug, Powernap, and I wish that Warbot in accounting would start up again.

It’s kinda amusing when you read the list over at Kates post, and then take a look at the fare that readers of Warren Ellis generally repost.

Two gigs I’ve been to recently. Koloni presented Charles Haywood at Kajskjul Fyra Sex, and Kylesa performed along with two other bands at Truckstop Alaska. Haywood was rather fun to watch as he was making a twisted angry face at the microphone — his music is repetitive and manic, just as his stage presence — and occasionally it’s great fun to listen to good and tight drums.

A week later, four of us took the ferry over to see Kylesa at Truckstop. I thought their melodic trash metal was humdrum and uninspired, and the headbanging so perfunctory they might as well have hired extras to do it. Mine was a minority opinion though, and Petter even bought their record.

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This can be interesting: The Pirate Bay is sharing 3D models for printing, so far only using the category Physibles on the original site. Right now there are mostly dupes of stuff from Thingiverse, and seeing as the interface is the usual forum link-dump there’s no preview or version control, but it’s still an interesting development for two reasons: For one, once 3D sharing sites will start to be harassed on IP-issues, there will be be a chilling effect on the distribution and usage of models, so we’ll need a safe haven for that. TPB has proved rather resilient.

(Further on, it’s easy to foresee 3D-printers which won’t print non-signed models, taxation on printing materials used privately, consumer protection laws which are stretched to encompass personal fabrication, etc, so there will have to be forums to discuss circumvention and open source practices)

Think about it this way: If piracy of IP today mostly is a concern for a few companies in the western world – regardless if it’s clothes, movies or medicine — what will happen when the manufacturing industries start to feel threatened by the infringement on their manufacturing prerogative? Previously, someone ordered 1000 Gucci bags from your factory and you spat them out, regardless if the person you ordered them from was a pirate or Gucci; either way, you had a business model – making stuff. If now the pirates are not only threatening the IP of some of your clients, but also the necessity of including you in their piracy, you’re suddenly standing with a factory without orders.

I think that fabbing can be a boon to humanity in many ways, but as always with disruptive technologies there will be a huge backlash, and the sooner we can build infrastructures for dealing with reactionary policies the better. Which ties in with the second reason this is interesting, which has to do with the development of a public discourse on the subject.

So far the ideas surrounding fabbing are best described in science fiction and by those in the field – Bruce Sterlings Shaping Things comes to mind — but they’re slowly gaining mainstream attention; Petter told me he saw 3D printing mentioned in a lifestyle & decoration magazine which usually is concerned with spring colours and feelgood food. Just as in art though, the debate will sooner or later come down to what we are printing, rather than that we are printing, and if TPB can be a platform to foster experimentation with fabbing, we’ll have another generation which is used to remix and copy and paste and mash things up, only now with physical objects rather than media. But for that to happen there needs to be practice and debate, and tpb putting it’s weight behind the issue can only accelerate that.

—It’s miserable, utterly and totally miserable.
—Miserable, really?
—Yeah, really. It’s not clean enough, people leave stuff everywhere, and then someone does something like this.

She waves at the noise from the two furthermost washing machines. Someone had had the temerity to use the machines she had booked, and hadn’t left a note explaining that the two other machines were free to use; the guy had shown up early and switched sets. —Really, how thoughtless and stupid can you be?

One has to sympathise with anyone who gets up early on Saturday to disorder sown by an interloper, who doesn’t even have so much courtesy as to be present for a good telling to. But “misery” is something I’d reserve for suffering dysentery on a bus with overflowing bathrooms, or losing an arm in an industrial accident because you’re worn out by pulling double shifts to afford chemo. Poor scheduling just doesn’t fill out the burlap sack of “misery.”

The woman doing the complaining was my age, perhaps slightly younger, and I was surprised that she chose me to commiserate with. Granted, I was the only person available, and possibly she suspected that I was the culprit and tried to shame me, but still; What did she expect once I’d mumbled sympathetically to the first two stanzas?

When I moved to my own place a while back I had to engage with a lot of stuff that I hadn’t given a thought of before. On Facebook, I asked for advice on which dish rack to get. The post received more comments than any other I’d made, so clearly I had touched a nerve. I took it as an informed debate on the merits of different materials and designs, but I got another perspective on the matter when I spoke to Anna some time later. She was upset exactly because the question had garnered so many replies.

And I can understand the unease and even anger: Is this really something which is worthwhile to think about, let alone discuss? Isn’t this a typical example of the banalities we complicate to give ourselves meaning? There’s an impulse there to say “fuck it, we’re googling ‘dish rack’ and ordering the first hit,” but to give up conscious thought in favour of apparent randomness, seems misguided at best and possibly disingenuous.

Of course, I think that being upset at the smaller preoccupations of everyday life only has a limited use. It’s good because it forces you to set clear goals for yourself, and make manifest your values and those expected of your surroundings. On the other hand, if you sweat the small stuff too much you’ll soon start to think of yourself not as someone who has control and ambitions, but as someone who has to obey certain rules and keep standards, and then you lose track of the bigger picture. In fact, you might end up wondering why your idiot neighbour doesn’t understand the importance of lint in the dryer.

The holidays passed with little fanfare, I spent them in Stockholm with the closest family at hand and the rest at Skype distance. Mom isn’t her full self at the moment, and the dinners were slightly less elaborate than the five course meals we usually make. I rediscovered how much work goes into making the potatoe-dumplings, which I wolf down by the dozens. Christmas Day I and Tomasz joined in the public celebration of the birth of beer, and sat with Admas in a bar and discussed ambitions, and fashion, and then I think I had Calvados?

On a recommendation from Miss Walker I visited Tevere, a bakery which also carries vegan pizza. Rather on the expensive side, but the pizzas were awesome both times I ate there.

New Years day was spent at the gym with Sara, where I nearly passed out. I can only assume that my body shut down out of fear that I would become too fit and muscular. In the evening a bunch of us gathered at Petters new place. We saw the fireworks over Hissingen skyline, although I saw most of it through the viewfinder, being concerned with capturing it. Next year I’d like to be somewhere where the explosions can actually be felt. It’s well know that arrhythmia heightens ones appreciation of sparkling things.

Andreas visited for a short while, and then he left for New York — or as it’s henceforth known: Nävvan. I’m still working on the mixtape he’s getting for birthday. I’ll have to make up for it by making it really good, and perhaps actually sending him a magnetic tape. I have half a sack of those just waiting for coming to use…

And speaking of having a bunch of old stuff laying around, I’m trying to getting rid of as much of it as possible, as we’re moving in together. This is momentous and exciting, and a first for me. We’re already discussing wall colours and such, and my suggestions of stripes the colours of a 1920 ice-cream stand have met with tacit approval. Perhaps it’s not so much approval as acceptance and stoic suffering; “Enduring love” as it were. Or perhaps it’s just an understanding that I talk a lot and will likely have changed my mind before we move in.

I’m moving out of my place as soon as possible and have hopefully already found a taker, and we’re moving into our new place beginning of March. This is going to be an exciting spring! I’m gonna Sawyer y’all into plastering and painting walls, so you might as well start digging out your coveralls. I’ll consider offering light snacks and coffee to sweeten the deal even further. But before we get to that, there’s the whole “moving” thing. You’ll be happy to know that you’re welcome for that as well, as there’s no end of the enjoyment my friendship offers.

Then, you start interpreting the high heart rate, and odd feelings, as you being *really* aroused. And lo, people end up with things like zombie fetishes, from masturbating late at night while watching horror movies. Or, your particular kink. Seriously, I wish this was something that was covered in sex-ed. Kids! Don’t masturbate to something unless you are willing to develop a fetish for it!

→ Ask.metafilter, Elysum: Comment on How does one get rid of ones scat fetisch?

The initial scale of thirteen classes (zero to twelve) did not reference wind speed numbers but related qualitative wind conditions to effects on the sails of a man-of-war, then the main ship of the Royal Navy, from “just sufficient to give steerage” to “that which no canvas sails could withstand.”[2] At zero, all his sails would be up; at six, half of his sails would have been taken down; and at twelve, all sails would be stowed away.[3]

→ Wikipedia: Beufort scale

Toward the end of the 1950s, N. W. Ayer reported to De Beers that twenty years of advertisements and publicity had had a pronounced effect on the American psyche. “Since 1939 an entirely new generation of young people has grown to marriageable age,” it said. “To this new generation a diamond ring is considered a necessity to engagements by virtually everyone.” The message had been so successfully impressed on the minds of this generation that those who could not afford to buy a diamond at the time of their marriage would “defer the purchase” rather than forgo it.

→ The Atlantic, Edward Jay Epstein: Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?

Your piracy is only ultimately ‘costing’ the overall economy anything if you then reduce your working hours and take a pay cut that exactly offsets the money you would otherwise have spent on music. If instead you do the same amount of work and take the money and do something else with it – anything else – then the overall world economy has lost precisely nothing. That money winds up going to someone, somewhere. It stays in the system. It isn’t magically destroyed.

→ Slashdot comment, AdamWill (604569): Swiss Gov’t: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal