These weeknotes are sent by Jay Springett.
He has been writing online as @thejaymo since 2001.
The Horizon Line
We went down to Folkestone today for a flying visit for birthday lunch with Eve’s Dad. Because of the train times we got quite early, so we walked down though the town, to the harbour. mostly because I wanted to see the sea.
I’ve written about the horizon before but it is something that is very important to me.
It is hard to speak about this with people who grew up amidst city or hills. But I find a deep peace in the presence of that vast line. My eyes, and my mind, rest upon it and relax.
The edge of the world, as far as the eye can see, a boundary between the knowable and the mysterious. Everything between you and it is knowable. When I look at the horizon the complexity of life fades away, leaving a line on which everything can be settled. A surface on which to hang all existence.
I said to Eve whilst we were standing in the sunshine that it ‘resets my eyes’. And in a way, it resets my place in the world too. “Everything between you, and it, is knowable”. The limits to ones perception in the world. There are, of course, things beyond it, destinations, concerns, etc.
The sea exposes the horizon, as do the tops of mountains. Cities meanwhile are close and twisty. Places that reveal themselves with the turn of every street corner. It’s not good at all to spend your life in the city. Makes you crazy.
I think having a relationship with the horizon is healthy.
The Horizon Line
You look out.
You remember.
You are here.
Small.
Still.
And then
you turn,
and go.
On The Blog:
May 2025 | Photo 365
Photo 365 2025. Year 4 Month 5.
Photo-a-day for the month of May 2025.
Permanently Moved
This weeks episode has already caused quite a bit of comments and feedback from people. Glad I wrote it.
More Distant Than Ever
Growing up in Britain in the 1990s, America felt like a country that existed only on television and in toy boxes. A place across the pond that shared a language, but also seemed so alien.
Full Show Notes: https://thejaymo.net/2020/10/09/301-2040-abstract-objects/
Experience.Computer: https://experience.computer/
Worldrunning.guide: https://worldrunning.guide/
Subscriber Zine support the show! https://startselectreset.com/Permanently moved is a personal podcast 301 seconds in length, written and recorded by @thejaymo
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Photo 365
The Ministry Of My Own Labour
- Gave a demo for our new engine at work, and pitched what we want to build next.
- Met up with Ross from impossible object books
- Worked on my IF story a little bit
- Re-read parts of Slop Machines made lots of notes
Terminal Access
There’s been some chatter about the need for video game journalism recently, this long read on gambling mechanics published by Polygon (post layoffs, so I hope this is where they are taking the site in future) is FANTASTIC. Nobody understands gambling, especially in video games
Where do we draw the line? Is it gambling to play any game that is also played in casinos, like poker or blackjack? Is it gambling to play a game that evokes the aesthetics of a casino, like cards, chips, dice, or slot machines? Is it gambling to wager or earn fictional money?
Gaming has always been a lightning rod for controversy. Sex, violence, misogyny, addiction — you name it, video games have been accused of perpetrating or encouraging it. But gambling is gaming’s original sin. And it’s the one we still can’t get a grip on.
Dipping the Stacks
Why I Was Part Of The Neoreactionary or Dissident Right Movement In 2020
I also had a deep, deep alienation. My family and everyone I lived with was Blue Tribe. My information diet was increasingly different from theirs. I tried to be non-confrontational about it, but now I was siding with Red Tribe on other issues, not just the crime stuff. Of course, this isolation and alienation set me up for a bad relationship.
Re: AI and the new junior engineer – uncountable thoughts
Circa 1985 the kids making the best stuff were those whose brains were capable of picking up a book on assembler and being able to navigate it.
2025 I think any kid can make stuff, since natural language is so democratizing, so maybe the kid with the biggest imagination wins.
Why Good Ideas Die Quietly and Bad Ideas Go Viral
Recent discourse attending to a “vibe shift” has tended to emphasize a renewed acceptance, even in erstwhile liberal circles, of obnoxious or retrograde cultural attitudes—the removal of taboos, say, on certain slurs. Another way to look at the vibe shift is as a more fundamental shift to “vibes” as the unit of political analysis—an acknowledgment, on the part of liberals, that their initial response to an informational crisis had been inadequate and hypocritical.
How a videogame taught my generation that Earth is alive
While SimEarth was scientifically ambitious, perfection wasn’t the goal. Many aspects of the planetary model are vastly over-simplified, while others are just plain wrong. For instance, SimEarth’s geologic model includes a “massive upwelling event” every 30 million years that triggers a spate of earthquakes and volcanic activity around the world. There is no evidence for any such recurring tectonic shakeup on Earth.
The MUBI Moment – Why Sequoia just bet $100 Million on the Death of Mainstream
This infrastructure play reveals MUBI’s long game. While CDN ownership typically reduces delivery costs by just 10-20% compared to using third-party providers, and infrastructure is only one slice of total expenses (dwarfed by content and salaries), it signals something deeper. Building your own CDN requires patient capital and technical sophistication – qualities that suggest MUBI isn’t just another content aggregator but a company building defensible technological moats alongside its curatorial ones.
Reading
I finished reading The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life by Paul Millerd. Not impressed, do not understand the cult around this book at all. Picked up Right Story, Wrong Story by Tyson Yunkaporta.
Back to Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation by Mark J.P. Wolf
Music
Chiminyo – NRG 4
I’ve been listening to this new album from jazz/electronic/live drummer Chiminyo this week. Recorded live at Ronnie Scott’s recently. It’s a improvised jazz album, mostly held together by the syths, its gooves are extremely contemporary and it sounds like the sound of post brexit London. I really want to see if I can get to some of RS’ Late Late Electronic nights now.
Also, Chiminyo is one of the best drummer’s I’ve ever head. Check out the album it rocks!
Remember Kids:
The imagination, filler up of the void, is essentially a liar.
Gravity and Grace – Simone Weil
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