Sunset sky.
Chalk underfoot.
Brother departs.
Hat in hand.
Traffic stalls.
A brief whirlwind.
The Skies Over Thanet
I went home to The Chalk this weekend. My brother has been home from Taiwan for a wedding this week, and it’s my Dads birthday on Wednesday, so it was wonderful to be around the whole family.
Went for a walk along Palm Bay into margate of the first evening and I had to make this little image macro with this quote from JMW Turner. The skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe
When I still had my alt/lit poetry blog on Tumblr in the early 2010’s this is the sort of thing I used to make. LOL. But .. I mean he was not wrong though was he?
Also, I bought a cool hat!
Though Eve tell’s me that the full stop/period feels quite aggressive lol.
Today we had a family outing which involved sitting in enormous traffic jam on the M25, and then dropping my brother off at Heathrow for his flight home. Its been a bit of a whirlwind weekend.
On The Blog
Everything is Fine, Exit Through the Casino
I wrote a bit about the Coinbase advert that since posting, has been banned on TV here in the UK for being ‘too political’. This post has done quite well on socials, you should read it.
The Coinbase campaign is effective because it’s speaking to the public’s justified anger, and explicitly names the rot that we have all been told to ignore: a nation that’s been economically frozen since 2008. But it channels us away from collective political questions and towards individual financial risk.
As good as “Everything is Fine” is, the ad’s satirical despair is basically a marketing funnel for its preferred solution: “exit through the casino.” It reframes systemic failure as an opportunity for a personal gamble.
July 2025 | Photo 365
Photo 365 2025. Year 4 Month 7. Photo-a-day for the month of Jul 2025.
And I continue to post my Hundred Notes on Storydwelling over on my leaflet.pub BYENNE blog every other day.
The world was already talking.
You just walked in.
Late.
Unbriefed.
Yet still responsible.
Subscribing to SSRZ supports my online work and creative projects.
As a thank you, I send you my zine four times a year, just like it’s 1994.
No spam. No email. Cancel at any time.
Photo 365
The Ministry Of My Own Labour
- Finished the restructure of Part IV in SLOP MACHINES. Editing this has been vexing me for weeks and I think I finally cracked it!
- Sent some more experience.computer emails and now i’m trying to organise dates.
- Going on Neomania pod next week will post about it when it’s out.
- I think i’ll also be back on wolf pod at some point soon, probably recording later this month. W/C 18th. Gonna talk about finishing 301, that whole process, what i’ve learnt, where i think social media is, and what’s next.
- Nearly finished this post about CLIPPY. I need to get this history out so I can just blog about things that are coming out using the terms and ideas for reference.
- Continue to ‘Degoogle’ my monthly ‘scrtach pad’ documents. Moving them into Obsidian. By the date the entries were created. Did a lot on the train on Friday, copy pasting.
- Finished up the design and layout for a marketing PDF for the game i’ve been working on at work. Finally can move on to other things and other projects.
Terminal Access
This article on how AI CAPEX is propping up the US economy is really worth reading. I think it speaks to why we aren’t going to see any serious regulation any time soon, and also why there’s a big race. As soon as the build out is done, all this spend/economic activity is gonna fall off the GPD books and in to day to day OPEX.
I have no idea what’s going to happen next. But if AI investment is so massive that it’s quite actually helping to prop up the US economy in a time of growing stress, what happens if the AI stool does get kicked out from under it all?
I personally, have just started thinking about the huge AI build out as an enormous economic stimulus / or bailout of the country by Silicon Valley, and is probably why they were all at the inauguration.
Dipping the Stacks
I Shipped a macOS App Built Entirely by Claude Code
Let me just start by saying that Claude Code (with the latest Sonnet 4 and Opus 4 models) is genuinely good at writing code. It’s certainly not a top 1% programmer, but I would say that Claude’s outputs are significantly better than those of the average developer.
Fans can sustain careers if they start from the right place and if the fandom infrastructure is strong enough, but they can’t add exposure. They can’t do the work of the still-important middlemen.
What I learned after handing marketing to a Gen Zer
Gen Z is rejecting traditional advertising which paints a picture of a happier, more beautiful, successful life. For them, it’s about identity. If your content doesn’t make Gen Z say “That’s so me,” then it’s not worth their time. This could be a video of someone fake-smiling through a Zoom meeting while their laptop teeters on a stack of laundry, a meme about overthinking a simple text message for 15 minutes, or a skit that dramatizes the emotional rollercoaster of getting ghosted after a job interview. The goal isn’t polished perfection—its emotional accuracy, humor, and the unfiltered truth of everyday moments.
When My AI Voice Told the Story Better Than I Could
There’s something fascinating – and slightly uncanny – about hearing your own voice say something you didn’t actually record. This wasn’t just a robotic reading. It had intonation, pacing, and nuance that made it feel personal. And that’s the thing: it was personal, even if I didn’t perform it myself.
In the meantime, do what you can: save yourselves with individual actions. Partner early, move in together and cut your rent in half. Vote in your own interest. Invest as early as you can in equities and a pension. And frankly, move abroad.
Reading
I finished reading two books this week: Tight Hip, Twisted Core by Christine Koth is an interesting look at the trunk and core muscles in particular the Iliacus in the pelvis. It points out that many long term issues around the body, shoulder pain, knee pain etc etc are biomechanically downstream of the core. For example, down in the foot almost all bunions are caused by a tight muscle somewhere way up in the hip/abdomen.
I listened to The Silent King by Guy Haley and burnt though it mostly on train commutes. Book 9 in Dawn of Fire series. I can’t wait to see how they bring this slightly eclectic series together in the last book out late this year.
Moving on from those two books i’ve started reading The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe by Richard Rohr. I’ve listened to so many lectures by Rohr on Youtube, or podcast interviews over the years that this book has been on my list for ages. However, I only feel ready to read it now.
Moving on from the twisted core book i’ve started reading Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing Pain by John E. Sarno the classic from the late 90’s. Only just started it so no opinions yet.
After I finished reading the warhammer book I was doing some tidying up in my audible app and I found No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz. I’ve read a bunch of IFS books, and don’t remember buying this one with a credit on Audible? So i’m listening to it now. Forward is by Alanis Morissette, fun!
Music
Misaki Umei – Asleep Above Creatures
It came up in my Bandcamp recommendations on Monday and wow it’s just incredible.
I’ve have fallen head over heels in love with this album by Japanese Jazz composer Misaki Umei. It just has so much stuff in it! jazz, pop, breakbeats, soundscapes, classical, punk. But not one feels out of place at all, nor does it feel like genre hopping. Its all integrated into the vision of the album.
I think everyone should give this a spin, regardless of what genre of music you like.
Remember Kids:
Hatred thrives on familiarity and intimacy, and struggles to grow in less fertile hearts. He wasn’t a figure of loathing and lies, cackling at the notion of genocide for bloodshed’s own sake. He was merely a man, one we scarcely knew, who turned our talents to unwholesome ends.
The Emperor’s Gift by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Newsletter 📨
Subscribe to the mailing list and get my weeknotes and latest podcast episodes, sent directly to your inbox
Leave a Reply