Sediment of thought; tides of intent.
Half-built arguments.
Ghosts of self circle.
Completion recedes;
thinking remains.
This Is What I’ll Think Next Year
Every six months or so, I end up writing something here about how much unfinished writing I have.
It’s a life long pattern at this point. The tide goes in, the tide goes out and I find myself sitting on the shore surrounded by half-built sandcastles, wondering which ones to finish before the next wave.
The wave I was riding the other week is provisionally called Monsters in the Mirror. It’s a long essay; it might even become episode 302, if I can finish it soon enough. But that’s a big if.
The problem is that it builds on a whole strata of other unfinished things. Sedimentary layers of thought and writing that have never quite hardened. The kernel for SLOP MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE (which I’ve spent most of this year working on) arrived exactly a year ago this weekend. It then became slides and a talk in early January. Now it’s sitting at over 40,000 words, with another third still to write, and I can’t quite bring myself to push through and finish it.
The problem is that it builds upon other things i’ve written and not finished. The kernel for SLOP MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE which i’ve spent most of the year writing was exactly a year ago. And then it was a talk in early Jan. It’s well over 40k words and I still have 1/3 left to expand on and finish. But I can’t bring myself to do it.
Monsters in the Mirror assumes Slop Machines is already done . Which means the new essay feels a little… unmoored, unhinged? A bit manic. But maybe that’s fine? It’s not a bad place to be considering everything thats happening in the world. It’s just feels like I’ve skipped so many steps. Ideas and terminology like like: In Game, Classification Culture, Code Space, etc are ghosts haunting the edges of this newer writting.
Still, I’m enjoying the longer form. Even when the sections or ‘chapters’ are just 1,500–2,000 words, there’s way more space to stretch out. I feel like I’m learning to think across the gaps — to build arguments that can’t fit in a 1,000-word episode or a 5-minute script. It’s new to me, but it feels right. Only … finishing it is hard.
Anyways, I need to pull it all together. Slop Machines, Monsters, episode 302, a zine for it. The whole lot. I want it all done and dusted before mid-December, before I go away for three weeks.
So I can go into 2026 saying: ‘This is what I think’
On The Blog
Forest Bed | The Party’s Over
I’m really happy to announce that my alt-country / folk rock / cosmic Americana, band Forest Bed has a new single out! The Party’s Over is available as a digital download on Bandcamp now!
A Tale of Two Little Guys: Sony AIBO + FURBY
Two Bots, Two Little Guy Philosophies.
The framework I introduced in my last post helps clarify the fundamental difference between these two creatures. Both are Inhabitants living in our physical world, but their initiative separates them into distinct categories. AIBO was conceived as a true Companion; Furby is an Oracle or more generally, an NPC
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Photo 365
The Ministry Of My Own Labour
- Finished the Sony AIBO / Furby post *Finally*
- All the words that fell out of me the other week are finally turning into something. 302? coming soon? Maybe
- Sorted out more Berlin stuff for this coming week.
- Couple of calls
- Had to pass on EGX as I’m in Berlin. Sad to be missing the gamedevs i’ve been working with in town.
Terminal Access
Andrew Hudson over a Solarshades posted a fascinating dialogue with Lizzie Wade exploring the idea of ‘Thermocolonialism’ and the need for Theromocultures rooted in place. Here’s two snippets from their conversation:
Colonialism has always run on an engine of reality denial, including by imposing one place’s thermoculture on others where it manifestly has no relevance. And yet we all have to pretend it makes sense, and the people who point out the absurdity are the ones who get shouted down as being ridiculous.
(T)here’s something so weird about stringing Christmas lights on palm trees. Or seeing Santa in a big fur coat in Phoenix, where Christmas is a day on which I tend to push up the sleeves on my lightest sweater around noon. Compare that to the sense of rightness-in-place I felt this summer when I went on a solstice group bike ride, celebrating the beginning of the sun’s retreat by jumping into a bunch of Tempe fountains.
It’s a fantastic longread and left me with lots to think about.
Dipping the Stacks
Double harvest: Vertical solar panels and crops thrive side by side
And because the panels only occupy about 10% of the field area, the combined system requires much less land than separate installations. “If we were to produce the same amount of electricity and food using separate land, we would need 18–26% more area,” the researchers calculate.
Universities are not businesses and why they can’t be run like one
In Australia we are seeing the results of running universities like businesses without adequate governance: wage theft from staff, fee theft from students, and the academic equivalent of shrinkflation. Students pay more but get less. Face-to-face teaching is reduced, final exams are replaced by group assignments, and the bulk of teaching is done by poorly paid sessional staff on short-term contracts with no security or career path. This is not business efficiency; it is exploitation dressed up as managerial necessity.
Cleanup Group Says It’s on Track to Eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Nonprofit environmental organization the Ocean Cleanup has announced that it’s on track to eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by 2034.
Most of all, I felt myself delivered of a new kind of boredom, an active, productive boredom in which I didn’t want to reach for entertainment, for other human voices. I just wanted to pass through the world. It was in this state that I noticed a new physical sensation; a few hours into each day’s walk, my heart rate would rise, and for a short period – perhaps twenty minutes to half an hour – I would enter a euphoric state in which my perception of the world and my place in it was heightened to one of great joy. I began to think of this state as a Transcendental Boredom, in which my lifelong obsession with the consumption of mediated images and ideas dissipated. I simply was, and was bored, and was boring, and walked, and that was fine.
We Wont be Missed: Work and Growth in the Era of AGI (PDF)
This chapter explores theoretically the long-run implications of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) for economic growth and labor markets. AGI makes it feasible to perform all economically valuable work using compute. I distinguish between bottleneck and accessory work—tasks essential vs. non-essential for unhindered growth.
Reading
I finished The Autistic’s Guide to Self-Discovery: Flourishing as a Neurodivergent Adult by Sol Smith. It was ok. If you already know you are riding the A-train I wouldn’t recommend spending a audible credit on it. Though I did learn that there is a term fora thing that I’ve experienced my entire life: ‘Pathological Demand Avoidance’.
I read Tales of Heresy filling some gaps in the Horus Heresy series I skipped hald a decade ago. A filler collection of short stories.
I also read Declutter Your Home and Simplify Your Life by Sophie Largen … don’t cultter your life up with this short book. Just read Discardia by Dinah Sanders or Marie Kondo.
Music
Artificial Angels – Grimes
New Grimes track is a total banger right? Not quite as Raxy as previous work? Dunno. I dig it.
Also, on the subject of Grimes she did this crazy interview with Time earlier this year. LOL
Remember Kids:
When challenged about his appearance, Lint said ‘Appearance runs like clockwork. I always have one.’
Lint by Steve Aylett
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