Via Web Curios, we are directed to a rather thoroughgoing and detailed dissertation to temper shortcomings and disappointment over artificial intelligence, plus our collective, oblique anxiety over what’s going on under the hood, by acknowledging that the large language models that we collaborate with are ludic (from the Latin for ludus or ludi, games—in the creative and playful sense) technology. The central crux of the thesis by Venkatesh Rao is that we find fault in the onerous tasks we seek to automate by dent of outsourcing what we don’t find fun, unwilling to engage with those missteps and the same impatience manifests when it comes to our expectations, misplaced as the off-registered AI outputs when put to more serious work, in not recognising its toy-like nature. 
We’ve identified for the machine a continuum of identity and equivalence for a car, from a sketch, to logo, to image, to video footage, to a model, to an actual car all as the same concept but only the last is not the form of a car with all the inherent physical constraints and requirements, which the AI does not know—being wrong about reality and representation in the same way images and models are, in correspondence with the way we can be duped by deep fakes or confidently wrong answers. Threats to playfulness and toy-making, model-hobbying are instinctive in this context and compensated for through deprogramming, overcoming the perceived infringement on vaunted humanity and genuineness when we are as poised for play and abstraction—which entails taking command of a situation with imagination, marshalling our toy soldiers—and balanced expectations of what we are working with.
Friday, 1 August 2025
text-to-toy (12. 625)
anthropoclastic rock cycle (12. 624)
A couplet of recent postings about synthetic geology caught our eye—first about the accelerated process of material formation reduced to decades instead of the usual millions of years in the cases of slag heap debris fusing into sediment along the English coast and colourful industrial waste prepared with concrete to solidify and stabilise it—allowing for easier disposal without the normal caretaking required for liquid toxic waste and instead leech it out over aeons. We wonder what future archeologists will make of this anthro-littoral strata.
the helsinki accords (12. 623)
Though not binding with status as a treaty to be ratified by national parliament, the attempted dรฉtente between the West and East was signed on this day in the Finnish capital by leaders of thirty-five countries, including Helmut Schmidt, Erich Honecker, Josef Tito, Leonid Brezhnev, Gerald Ford, Pierre Trudeau and all heads of state of Europe with the exception of Andorra and Albania under Hoxha lead to significant reforms and recognised the spheres of influence of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, sovereignty and self-determination and fostered universal respect for human rights. 
The declaration was divided into four baskets covering diplomacy; economic and scientific cooperation; promoting familiar integrity, freedom of marriage and travel, an unhindered press and cultural exchange; and the formation of a multinational committee to monitor implementation. Concessions for civil rights and open dialogue, however, came at a high cost, with the recognition of the Soviet Union’s annexation of the Baltic states and a continuation of the policy of broadcast jamming and censorship of Western media. Both Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter and challenger for the Republican party nomination Ronald Reagan accused Ford of legitimising the USSR’s domination of Eastern Europe and weakening the standing of the US as a foreign policy power during the 1976 presidential campaign. Although eventually seen as the catalyst for later peaceful revolutions, much of the diaspora and signatories were displeased with the outcome of their months of work.
synchronoptica
one year ago: Ford is prepped for his new role (with synchronopticรฆ), the samplers of Lorina Buwler plus cartographic innovations
Thursday, 31 July 2025
11 x 11 (12. 622)
ped x’ing: an urban hawk takes advantage of a crosswalk signal to shield it from view as it stalks its pigeon bounty—via Clive Thompson’s Linkfest
whispering gallery mode: peacock plumage can be induced to emit lasers—via the New Shelton wet/dry
pix: US government going after Brazil’s native digital payment platform—calling it an unfair barrier to trade—meanwhile only President Lula da Silva is standing up to Trump’s tariff bullying
showrunner: Amazon investing in AI start-up Fable that allows subscribers to make their own TV shows
pro-somnolence: the technique of cognitive shuffling to quiet the mind and get back to sleep
the candy factory: the unique artists’ commune in New York City founded by Ann Ballentine—via Messy Nessy Chic
query-agnostic adversarial triggers: feline-related textual asides cause marked increase in AI error rates
one year ago, america was a dead country, now it is the hottest country anywhere in the world: Trump escalates trade war with Canada as Carney suggests they may miss the deadline
living batteries: cable bacteria thriving in muddy harness chemical gradients to create and electrical circuit and get oxygen in an anoxic environment
starling network: Benn Jordan saved a .PNG image to a bird by turning a drawing into audio which could be mimicked and reproduced, see also—via Waxy
endangerment finding (12. 621)
Not only has the world’s biggest polluter under the Trump administration sought to abrogate its responsibilities for damage to the planet that does not respect borders through rolling back of regulations and cancelling vital science programmes that monitor and measure greenhouse, it has undone the underpinnings of the accepted science that conducted during the Obama era that is the foundation of a host laws and environmental regulations. The EPA investigation determined, pursuant to several court cases, that six key greenhouse gases (see previously) threaten both the health and welfare of current and future generations and is the basis for the US Clear Air Act. 
Industries at the time raised strong objections but most businesses have since made peace with the posture for their image and the public good (see also) and have built in mitigating factors into manufacturing and distribution to lessen their impact. After failing during Trump’s first term, the current EPA administrator rescinded the landmark finding at a truck stop in Indiana to much fanfare, an ideological win for staunch denialists which make up much of the MAGA base that stands in stark contrast to decades of evidence and near global consensus. For its part, the agency charged with protecting the environment and averting the climate catastrophe has resigned its commission, offering that because climate change is not localised, it lacks jurisdiction for enforcement, maintaining that the finding failed to balance adverse impacts on manufacturers and distributors (see negative externalities above), or alternately giving up, saying that no policy could make a dent in the problem anyway. Not yet finalised, the decision is already facing legal challenges.
agrovoltaics (12. 620)
Via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest—with back links to previous research on the topic, we return to the subject of growing crops underneath solar panels, addressing some of reasonable objections to industrial scale solar-farms (see previously) taking up arable land. Colocation provides numerous mutual benefits that are only beginning to be factored in—not least of which is public support for solar when it’s dual-use but also the symbiosis between plants and their artificial photovoltaic counterparts, many plants growing better with the added shade and the panels trap water vapour, yielding quite impressive leafy greens and the photovoltaic array also get the advantage from the undergrowth by regulating ambient heat and helping to maintain an optimal operating temperature by their off-gassing. Much more at the links above.
synchronoptica
one year ago: mandatory voting in Australia (with synchronopticรฆ), psychometric scales plus prosperity and apocalypse
twelve years ago: daily affirmations plus more fairy tale Germany
fourteen years ago: goblin holes plus toponymic etymology
fifteen years ago: for profit privacy
Wednesday, 30 July 2025
lolita express (12. 619)
Half-way into Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel, narrator Humbert Humbert, recounting his obsession, victimisation and eventual kidnapping of a twelve-year old girl after becoming her step-father, pens a poetical classified:
Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand and three hundred days
Profession: None, or Starlet.
Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze,
I cannot get out, said the starling).
Where are you riding, Dolores Haze?
What make is the magic carpet?
Is a Cream Cougar the present craze?
And where are you parked, my car pet?
Who is your hero, Dolores Haze?
Still one of those blue-caped star-men?
Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays,
And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen!
Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts!
Are you still dancin’, darlin’?
(Both in worn Levis, both in torn T-shirts,
And I, in my corner, snarlin’).
Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Ploughing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.
My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister?
L'autre soir un air froid d’opรฉra m’alita;
Son fรฉlรฉ—bien fol est qui sy fie!
Il neige, le dรฉcor s’รฉcroule, Lolita!
Lolita, qu’ai-je fait de ta vie?
Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,
Of hate and remorse, I'm dying.
And again my hairy fist I raise,
And again I hear you crying.
Officer, officer, there they go—
In the rain, where that lighted store is!
And her socks are white, and I love her so,
And her name is Haze, Dolores.
Officer, officer, there they are—
Dolores Haze and her lover!
Whip out your gun and follow that car.
Now tumble out, and take cover.
Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Her dream-gray gaze never flinches.
Ninety pounds is all she weighs
With a height of sixty inches.
My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust.
The fragrance mentioned in the seventh stanza Soleil vert (Green Sun, Humbert was previously an ad copy writer for the industry) is a fictional perfume but is also the French title of the 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! and the cinematic adaptation of Soylent Green set in the year 2022 (close), in possibly another authoritarian manoeuvre to normalisation and acceptance—after all Romeo and Juliet were underage. I suspect that Nabokov did not suspect that his work would, unironically, become such an American cultural touchstone, ignoring the observations on culture and becoming the same monster of incuriosity as the protagonist, sanitised and made family-friendly like what may be yet to come.
8x8 (12. 618)
eight limes, no more: a list is a map, a compass, a prayer—via MetaFilter
ะบะปััะตะฒัะบะฐั ัะพะฟะบะฐ: volcanic eruption in Russia’s far east sets off earthquake and tsunami warnings
windrunner: turbine manufacturer—in defiance of Trump’s claim that windmills are killing us—building world’s largest aircraft (see also) to transport huge blades to remote wind-farms
foredone: useless etymology and some very cromulent words
twin primes: pairs that only are separated by an even number in between grow rarer as one looks at greater ranges of values but no one knows if they run out altogether
evrรณpusambandiรฐ: Iceland considering resuming accession talks with the supranational body
this guy is taking people from the spa: Trump reveals to press-pool that falling out with Epstein was over him stealing staff
an oral history of atlantis: a conversation about metafiction with author Ed Park
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