I finally got around to reading Mandy Brownâs excellent Coming Home. Thereâs a lot in here that Iâm chewing on, including the feeling that she describes in the ledeâŚ
Iâve written before about the restlessness inherent to screens, the inability to ever linger or pause or catch your breath. Itâs a strangely disembodied experience, a sense of ceaseless, rustling motion when nothing is moving at all: electrical pulses flash and gasp beneath the oceans, your mind strains to catch up, your body remains still save for a few twitching digits, the shell thatâs left behind when your spirit evacuates for the mirage of higher ground. We become as smooth and reflective as the screen itself, all glassy surfaces and metallic edges obscuring the hollowness within. No need to fantasize about what it might be like to upload your consciousness to the machine â most of us are already there.
Virginia Heffernan on the counter intuitive sin of despair:
But another way to see despair, in secular terms, is as a profoundly counter-adaptive philosophical position. Having no hope puts a living being in a terminal state. Why eat, if you have no hope of satiety? Why see people, if you have no hope of love or friendship? Why bathe or see the sun, if you have no hope for health? Why do anything but dull the pain and wither?
In our democracy, despair is also a hazard. If too many people despair, and start making the despair calculationâthe why-bother, nothing-matters calculationâwe find ourselves with an unsteady, unpredictable population who have given up faith in our collective American project. The despairing themselves might see themselves as harder to subjugate, and theyâd be right. But fulfillment and joy and the pursuit of happiness are closed off to them too.
And just as individuals in despair canât be brought around to hope or wellbeing by argument, or carrots and sticks, a despairing population canât be brought around to sound citizenship with appeals to reason, passion, moral principles, or even self-interest.
For obvious reasons, I love this Syllabus Project from Rena Tom.
This syllabus explores the concept of fake objects, defined as material replicas of originals that are absent, fictional, immaterial, or otherwise unobtainable. Fake objects are created to satisfy the desire for things that never were. Their worth is not necessarily tied to the rarity of the original or the fidelity of reproduction. Value is found through fakeness, not in spite of it, giving the fake object the potential to be even better than the real thing. Weâll first look at what fake isnât, then investigate examples of fake objects used to celebrate, mourn, and preserve moments in time.
Real dolls, the Cayce Pollard jacket, joss paper Gucci bags, fake melting ice cream cones, crocheted representations of coral reefs. Fantastic.
Not a new theory, but the golden age of streaming really was a ZIRP thing. I mean, Patriot anyone?
RIP Cool Rick.
I saw the Jenny Holzer show at The Guggenheim this week; close friends will know that I have a strange relationship with her work. The exhibition, which closes next week, is sort of a reprise of her groundbreaking show there in 1989. Hereâs Roberta Smithâs review in the Times from December of that year (emphasis mine):
Ms. Holzer has been given the run of the Guggenheim, or more precisely half of it, and she has come up with a trio of installations that nearly strips the building of art yet fills it in her own way. She has focused her activities almost entirely on the Guggenheimâs great tiered atrium, leaving the walls of its coiled ramp bare. The museum has never looked, nor felt, quite like this.
In effect, the building has been turned into a vast darkened cave with glowing embers at its center: a 535-foot-long moving message that snakes its way around the first three tiers of the museumâs coil, offering a retrospective of Ms. Holzerâs writing as it goes.
This mixing of Ms. Holzerâs different texts emphasizes the range of her writing and the different voices she has called into service. She can offer wise words to live by, put you in touch with your most private memories or make you fear for the future of the planet.
In addition to the meaning of her words, there is the perceptual power and wonderful spatial disorientation of their upward-circling stream, which are heightened by shifts in color, typeface, speed and, upon occasion, direction. Standing on the ramp with the words moving above and below, the viewer feels like a small blip in some giant video game. As one moves down the ramp, the words circle at about the same pace - an effect that proposes each viewer as the center of a slowly revolving universe.
Fast forward to 2024, and the Guggenheim appears to have made some upgrades. Hereâs Sarp Karem Yavuz in The Art Newspaper:
While the museum statement heralds Installation for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as a significant archival project that involved reverse-engineering the LED screens used in 1989, the entire activity seems to eschew any practical consideration in favour of laborious reverence⌠or perhaps a kind of insistence on authenticity. Like a VHS-tape filter on a TikTok video, despite mimicking the form of the older installation, the new and improved LED screens feel lacklustre in their nostalgia. In 1989, using inherently commercial LED-screen technology to reimagine the Guggenheimâs exhibition capabilities was refreshing and innovative. This time around, the hardware is neither vintage enough to be quaint nor cutting-edge enough to be a commentary on technology or capitalism today.
Back to Smith in 1989:
While the moving-message piece is the exhibitionâs main event, it is balanced by two installations using carved benches that provide a needed sense of stillness. On the ground floor of the atrium is a large circle formed by 17 red granite benches that suggests an ancient campfire or a church meeting. In the two-story gallery at the beginning of the rampâs first tier, 27 white granite benches are placed in closely regimented formation like markers in a crowded cemetery. Carved with phrases that also appear in the moving-message sign, these bench works, as they might be called, point to the ancient communal rituals of storytelling and mourning that inspire much of Ms. Holzerâs work.
I wish the museum curators had reprised not only the snaking text work up the museumâs coil, but also what appears to be remarkably daring restraint with the rest of the 1989 show. I loved this yearâs main event, but the walk up the ramp was forgettable. I donât think Lee QuiĂąones added much of interest to the wall full of Inflammatory Essays; the Trump Tweet pieces were painfully obvious; the redaction paintings didnât work in the odd Guggenheim galleries. Honestly if youâre in New York, you should step into the museum lobby, admire the snaking Light Line, snap a few pics for the âgram, and head to the Met.
Iâll never stop loving her work, though. For me, Holzer is all about the truisms. Hereâs what New Yorker critic Jackson Arn had to say in his review from this year.
âTruisms,â a cycle of almost-aphorisms that Holzer began scattering across New York in the late seventies, has no signature color or typeface or look of any kind, with the upshot that it can thrive anywhereâwalls in SoHo, T-shirts, Spectacolor signs in Times Square, a Vegas marquee, a Qatar airport. The words speak with the authority of whichever billboard theyâve crashed, only to squander it on advice that is either too obvious or too obscure to help us. What they reveal is not capitalismâs secret messaging so much as an absence of all messages, nothing but surfaces desperate for eyeballs.
Iâd tell you to follow @jennyholzer on Twitter, but talk about surfaces desperate for eyeballsâŚ
Greg Allen goes deep on Untitled (Yellow and Blue), a Mark Rothko painting from 1954 that is coming up for auction this fall. His write up of the provenance could be a treatment for a Wes Anderson movie.
Untitled (Yellow and Blue) is one of nine Rothko paintings Bunny and Paul Mellon acquired from Marlborough Gallery beginning in 1970, immediately after the artistâs death, and so right in the thick of the fiduciary malfeasance that prompted Rothkoâs children to sue.
Some time between Paulâs death in 1999 and 2006, when it was shown at the Palazzo Grassi, Bunny sold the painting to François Pinault.
In June 2013, Pinault sold it through his auction house, Christieâs, along with a Fontana, to Eric Tan, a cutout for Jho Low, the Malaysian money launderer. [According to the Feds, the $79.5 million invoice was $36m for the Fontana, and so $43m for the Rothko.] In October 2013, Tan gifted the works, along with a $3 million Calder, to Low, with three copy & pasted âgift letters.â
In April 2014 Low borrowed $107 million from Sothebyâs Financial Services, pledging up to $285 million in artworks as collateral, including the Rothko, then he instructed them to sell artworks until the loan was repaid. Sothebyâs put the Rothko in their May 2015 Modern/Contemporary sale, where it was purchased by Russian oiligarch Farkhad Akhmedov for $46.5 million as part of his attempt to conceal $600 million while divorcing his wife Tatiana Akhmedova.
Tatiana was awarded title to the Rothko, other art, a yacht, and an apartment, in 2016, but some of the assets had been secretly transferred to the feuding coupleâs son, and in 2020, she was still suing to receive them. When Sothebyâs publishes the updated provenance, perhaps weâll know if Tatiana is the present seller.
I loved the Anna Wiener profile of Grant Petersen, founder of Rivendell Bicycle Works. Wiener has a way with paragraphs.
About halfway through the ride, I came to a fork in the road. I didnât know which path the others had taken, and I stood for a while, appreciating the shade of the oak trees, the quiet, the bandanna crisping around my neck. I tried to channel an essay of Petersenâs, written in 2002, on what he calls âunderbikingâ: taking a bike somewhere it isnât obviously built to go. âRiding an UB changes how you look at any terrain,â he wrote. âYou ride where it lets you ride, walk when it wants you to, and rely more on your growing skills than on the latest technology.â This struck me as a harmonic way of moving through the world â not my way, but whatever. I pushed off, found the group, and followed them down a steep, exhilarating slide. Dry earth sputtered against my calves. I loosened my hold on the brakes. Even in the heat, with friction shifters I didnât understand how to use, I felt a flicker of my favorite feeling: competence. The wide tires were emboldening; the saddle height was psychologically fine. It was by far the longest, heaviest bicycle I had ever been on, and it moved with a surprising grace.
File under: land art, 2024 edition. Cards Against Humanity is suing Space X.
Seven years ago, 150,000 people paid us $15 to protect a pristine parcel of land on the US-Mexico border from racist billionaire Donald Trumpâs very stupid wall. Unfortunately, an even richer, more racist billionaire â Elon Musk â snuck up on us from behind and completely fucked that land with gravel, tractors, and space garbage.
From the complaint:
SpaceX and/or its contractors entered the Property and, after erecting posts to mark the property line, proceeded to ignore any distinction based upon property ownership. The site was cleared of vegetation, and the soil was compacted with gravel or other substance to allow SpaceX and its contractors to run and park its vehicles all over the Property. Generators were brought in to run equipment and lights while work was being performed before and after daylight. An enormous mound of gravel was unloaded onto the Property; the gravel is being stored and used for the construction of buildings by SpaceXâs contractors along the road. Large pieces of construction equipment and numerous construction-related vehicles are utilized and stored on the Property continuously. And, of course, workers are present performing construction work and staging materials and vehicles for work to be performed on other tracts.
And I know this is just boilerplate, but after you read the whole complaint itâs really satisfying to read this:
CAH demands a trial by jury.
Having very recently experienced Doug Wheelerâs Day Night Day, I can report that it is absolutely mind-blowing.
Upon entering the gallery, the viewer first encounters two luminous, rectangular thresholds or âwallsâ of light, which function as points of entry into an expansive environment that simulates the experience of limitless space, or a âganzfeld,â where light appears to shift from day to night and back again. The viewerâs perception is heightened to a degree in which, as the artist articulates, âspace appears as a volume, almost as matter.â
On view in New York until October 19th. Go.
Dynomight does a deep dive on consciousness.
I guess life makes sense: For some reason thereâs a universe and that universe has lots of atoms bouncing around and sometimes they bounce into patterns that copy themselves and then those patterns go to war for billions of years and voilĂ â you.
But consciousness is weird. Why should those patterns feel like anything? We understand life in the sense that weâve worked out the ruleset for how atoms bounce. The ruleset that produces consciousness is a mystery.
I loved this bit.
Say I scan your brain and upload it into a computer that simulates the physics of every neuron. I then hook that simulator up to a you-shaped robot with cameras that mimic your eyes and microphones that mimic your ears. Finally, I ask the robot, HOW ARE YOU FEELING?
What will it answer? I assume something like, CONSCIOUS. TOTALLY CONSCIOUS! AM I A ROBOT? IF IâM A ROBOT PLEASE LEAVE ME ON.
How could the robot not claim to be conscious? After all (1) thatâs what you would say, and (2) youâd do that because of the laws of physics operating inside your brain, and (3) the robotâs behavior is governed by the very same physics, just simulated.
By the way, if I am a robot (non-zero chance of this, TBH) please leave me on.
I like this framing of product opportunites from Jason Fried around âquestions and answersâ instead of âfeatures and benefits.â
When making products, you can think of them as a collection of features or answers.
Some people may say âyou mean features or benefits?â No, I mean answers. Answers are counterpoints to questions people have in their heads. Answers fill holes, answers snap into sockets. Benefits donât have such places in peopleâs minds.
For example, you could make a feature that shows you which tasks are overdue. Or, you can build something that answers the question âWhatâs late?â
Emphasis mine.
Iâm tired of the song of the summer, itâs time for the song of the fall, âTheyâre Eating the Dogs, Theyâre Eating the Cats.â
Never mind the fact that my one year old iPhone 15 wonât run a bunch of the new Apple Intelligence features when theyâre eventually shipped in iOS 18, M.G. Siegler nails the word salad around Appleâs announcements this week, in Apple Needs an Editor 2:
âŚPresenters during the event this week were doing oral gymnastics so as not to verbally trip over talking about the iPhone 16 powered by the A18 and the iPhone 16 Pro Max powered by the A18 Pro running iOS 16. Which can now be paired with the AirPods 4, powered by the H2 chip. But they also still work with the AirPods Pro 2, which remain more premium than the AirPods 4, despite the naming scheme and also having the H2 chip. Both are also less premium than the AirPods Max â not the AirPods Max 2, which donât yet exist â even though it only has the H1 chip. Meanwhile, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 also isnât the Apple Watch Ultra 3 this year, but is now available in black. Sorry, âSatin Blackâ. Not to be confused with âJet Blackâ or âSpace Blackâ or âSpace Grayâ (which is basically black) or âMidnightâ. That premium smartwatch still features the S9 chip, while the Apple Watch Series 10 features the S10 chip. Both of these will soon run watchOS 11.
16 Pro, 16, Series 10, 4, Ultra 2, Max, Pro 2, A18, 16 Pro Max, A18 Pro, 16, H2, H1, S9, S10, 11. What the hell is goin on? This all reads like a riddle that Desmond on Lost must not forget.
And just because I canât pass up an opportunity to embed a LOST clip, hereâs the riddle in question.
Via Werd.io, David Allen Green of The Law and Policy Blog does a close reading of Taylor Swiftâs endorsement.
In essence: this endorsement is a masterpiece of practical written advocacy, and many law schools would do well to put it before their students. ⌠Like any good advocate, Swift is careful to make the listener or reader feel that it is their own decision to make, and again this is skilfully done:
âIâve done my research, and Iâve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make.â
Note the rhythm: I, I, you, you, you.
The most effective persuasion is often to lead the listener or reader to making their own decision â and to make them feel they are making their own decision.
Absolutely worth reading in full.
From Artsy, Julie Mehretu to create facade work for Obama Presidential Center.
Uprising of the Sun spans 83 feet by 25 feet and features 35 painted glass panels. This installation is directly inspired by Obamaâs speech in 2015 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches in Alabamaâa key moment in the civil rights movement. In fact, Mehretu initially started this work with an image of Obama and the late U.S. representative John Lewis crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma during the anniversary in 2015. She manipulated this image using various digital mapping and design tools while adding elements from Robert Seldon Duncansonâs Land of the Lotus Eaters (1861) and Jacob Lawrenceâs screenprint Confrontation on the Bridge (1975). Another inspiration is Ethiopian artist Afewerk Tekleâs giant stained-glass window in Africa Hall in Addis Ababa, where the artist was born.
I love her work, and Iâm very excited to see this once itâs complete. Hereâs a rendering:
Love this post from Rex Woodbury about eggs & instant cake mixes, the IKEA effect, and how product teams are working to figure out just how much human should be in the loop of AI-heavy product features.
Over time, as we see AIâs application layer evolve, I continue to feel strongly that the egg theory is a crucial lesson. A key question for builders right now: how much human involvement is too little, how much is too much, and how much is juuust right? As we become accustomed to using AI, we intuitively search for the Goldilocks productâthe product that delivers just enough automation, yet just enough control.
I know youâre probably full up on the news this morning, but Heather Cox Richardson has a fantastic summary of last nightâs debate, and all of the pre-debate ad spots the Harris campaign ran to get his blood boiling before they even took the stage.
The question for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in tonightâs presidential debate was not how to answer policy questions, but how to counter Trumpâs dominance displays while also appealing to the American people.
She and her team figured it out, and today they played the former president brilliantly. He took the bait, and tonight he self-destructed. In a live debate, on national television.
Iâm not on Instagram, so a friend texted me a screenshot of Taylorâs endorsement. Like everyone, I cackled at the closing line, âChildless Cat Lady.â Now itâs time for the Kelce brothers to step up.
Scott Chacon, co-founder of GitHub, on Why GitHub Actually Won:
We cared about developers. But it wasnât about when [our competitors] added Git, it never really mattered. They never had any taste. They never cared about the developer workflow. They could have added Git at any time and I think they all still would have lost.
You can try to explain it by the features or âvalue addsâ, but the core takeaway that is still relevant to starting a startup today is more fundamental than if we had an activity feed or profile page or whatever. The much simpler, much more fundamentally interesting thing that I think showed in everything that we did was that we built for ourselves. We had taste. We cared about the experience.
What I love about this is he links to the classic Steve Jobs interview where Jobs blasts Microsoft (who now owns GitHub) for not having any taste.
Michael Lopp (aka Rands) on founder mode:
Youâve heard of the stories of sucessful founder because theyâve become famous (or infamous). However, the majority of start-ups fail. No one tells and retells the stories of these companies because they never launch. No one became rich or famous. It is their defining characteristic. In his recent essay, Paul Graham talks about the successful founders. However, itâs not âFounder Mode,â itâs âSuccessful Founder Mode.â Lumping all Founders together would mean we should â statistically and more descriptively â call this âFailing Founder Mode,â which is neither clever nor inspirational.
As a person deeply in love with naming things, I like the framing of Founder and Manager Mode because itâs clever and instantly useful. If youâve been reading me over the years, youâve noted Iâve begun to detest the term manager for some of the reasons Graham highlights: unfamiliar with the details management at a distance, lousy hiring, and siloed decision-making. Iâve gravitated towards the word leader both because I want to make it clear any motivated human can execute the skills of a good manager â leadership comes from everywhere â and, more importantly, I believe managers tell you where you are. Leaders tell you where you are going. Itâs a philosophy thing.
Kieran Healy cuts deep:
Hi Iâm Paul Graham and Iâm here to talk to you about the unfathomable wisdom of sampling on the dependent variable. If you disagree with me this is itself evidence that you are incapable of thinking in Founder Mode.