Closed aperture.
Inland, the harbour is being rebuilt.
Stone remembers the tide.
Islands will recognise
each other once again.
Summer Hiatus
In a very sad day for thejaymo.net existing on the open web, I’ve had to turn off comments and replies. I have been beset with a wave of comments and notifications not being caught by the WordPress.com/Akismet spam filters.
This is especially irksome to me as I was only saying at the turn of the year that I thought 2026 was going to be a good year to return to ‘Comment Culture.’
Finally, as social media continues its retreat, one of the things I want to do in 2026 is re-engage with the long-neglected comment economy. I think it would be worth while to move beyond my own walls and leave my thoughts, comments etc on the blog posts I follow. It’s always a thrill when someone leaves a comment here, I assume the feeling is reciprocal.
A return to ‘Comment Culture’ feels like a good way of acknowledging the archipelago we’re all still building together.
At the end of the day, most people turned off their blog comments years ago. I guess over the years I just had a low-enough traffic blog not to be an attractive link/comment farm for SEO spam. But that is clearly no longer the case. What a blurst situation to find myself in.
In other blog admin news, thejaymo.net will be going on a short hiatus over the next few weeks for two interrelated life/blog/creative reasons.
- I need to focus on the next episode of Permanently Moved.
- I am currently in the process of designing a new theme for thejaymo.net.
I have a lot going on AFK coming up and need some brain emotional space!
On the podcast front: I just need to get things over the line. The script is all written, and I just need to do a final edit and record it. At the same time, whilst I’m editing the audio, I need to get the zine’s design files off to the printer. Hopefully, it’ll all line up and the audio will be ready to publish at the same time as the zines arrive.
On that note, I do still have a few issues of the Monsters in the Mirror zine left for sale. Also, if you subscribe before the next episode drops, you’ll ensure you get the new zine right when it comes out and I’ll send you a very generous discount code for Monsters.
On the site redesign: the last refresh was in 2023. I liked it at the time, but I haven’t quite been able to get the site to look the way I want it to, or to do the things I want it to do, especially as the mix of audio, text, and zines has evolved. So, I need a content freeze. This is both to get things copied over into my local dev environment, and then, once I’m happy with that, into staging and production. An upside of closing comments is that I don’t need to faff around with database syncing for them, I guess.
I’d really like to have the new site and the next episode of the podcast done around the same time!
Episode 303 – INTERNET OPERATOR [Update]
Speaking of the podcast, it is shaping up really well but due to .. reasons its late. It’s even longer and more ambitious than episode 302. The main creative task for 2026 is learning how to scope word counts and production timelines on these shows. I’ve had an easier time of it than Monsters In the Mirror, but nevertheless, doing four things a year is a vastly different ball game than one a week, lol.
As a preview, I asked Claude to synthesise the massive script, and it managed to summarise the core thesis better than my own fried brain can right now. I’m looking forward to having it all done!
This podcast argues that online identity is best understood as animation. A digital identity is a figure brought to life by an operator, completed by an audience, and shaped by an apparatus. Platforms intensify this ancient theatrical arrangement by measuring the audience and feeding it back to the operator, so that the operator animates identity while also being operated. The Internet Operator names this condition. The AI persona is the newest animated figure: puppet-flexible, but with a composite operator. The Internet Operator names both the human and AI persona’s who now share the stage with us.
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Photo 365
The Ministry Of My Own Labour
- Had quite a few calls this week.
- Two lunch meetings. Good to catch up and get some tea.
- Prospective call, but just ended up giving some high level advice in the end.
- Finished the podcast end to end its 11.2k words 😬
- LIFE ADMIN. LIFE EVENTS.
Terminal Access
I really recommend this hot off the press post from Myles: implying writing has a future. It’s about how 4chan’s greentext format, despite its rigid, machine-like syntax, is actually a uniquely human invention; one that thrives on ambiguity, irony, and anonymous self-quotation.
Myles argues that because the form relies on the reader internally “running” >be me, rather than on a fixed authorial voice, it remains resistant to AI replication. Super interesting observation!
Greentext is green text. This is thanks to a set of rules in 4chan’s source code and accompanying stylesheet, which cast every line of text preceded by a > in a slightly desaturated green. On paper, that’s all it is—but to this day, few strings of symbols and letters can slot me into a specific way of reading, writing, and thinking as fast as “>be me.”
Dipping the Stacks
Lunokhod 1 has not moved since 1971. There is no wind to erase its tracks, no rain to soften the trail, no biology to break down the metal and glass. The Moon is a harsh place, but it is also a record-keeping surface. The rover’s tracks remain visible in LRO images. That is part of what makes the Lunokhod 1 story so strange. The rover was never gone. It was waiting inside the resolution limit of older maps.
44 years later, King Arnold Schwarzenegger is back for King Conan | British GQ
The whole idea of King Conan is that for 40 years he has been king, he is older now. He is no longer in the shape he was from his heyday, and now people are trying to take him out. He’s the king and he gets a little bit complacent… Look at Unforgiven. It will be a lot like that, but it will be with extraordinary battles.
JAY: This might be the greatest pitch for any movie since the turn of the millennium!
UK must stockpile food in readiness for climate shocks or war, expert warns
These were a “sitting duck” for drone or cyber-attacks by malign states, he said: “The nine big retailers account for 94.5% of all retail food. That’s nine companies, using just 131 distribution centres. In drone war, that’s a sitting duck.”
Scientists discover the oldest wooden tools ever used by humans | ScienceDaily
Scientists have uncovered the oldest known hand-held wooden tools ever used by humans — and they’re an astonishing 430,000 years old. Buried for hundreds of thousands of years at an ancient lakeside site in Greece, the carefully carved wooden objects reveal that early humans were far more skilled and resourceful than once believed.
Your Most Improbable Life – by Kevin Kelly – KK
Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be. Your path, your character, your life, should be the most unlikely, the most unexpected, the least predictable version you can make. Improbable lives have fewer competitors, more unique rewards, and are harder to replace with AIs, since AIs run on the predictable.
Reading
I’m still reading Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe by Rachel Midura. And i’m still reading The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind, and Spirit Possession by Robert Falconer.
Music
Fat Dog – Cancel Me (I’m Tired) (Single)
I sat in a car for 2 hours this weekend with the drummer in my band on the way to a show in High Wycombe and the whole way there we listened to his favourite band Fatdog. Electronic techno-punk I guess? I dig it.
Remember Kids:
Feelings that other people might describe as “disturbing” or “uncomfortable,” the chronic pain patient often describes as painful, sometimes severely so. In other words, more and more types of bodily sensations seem to be interpreted by the brain as meaning “pain.”
How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live by Missy Vineyard
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