Ok, this is a brief one. I have a bunch of tabs open and have been trying to read where I can (including ‘books’) so this is mostly short stuff. I did a good render and sort of just want to share it now. I feel like there’s something I’ve forgotten to mention.
It was my birthday the other week. I didn’t do anything for it really but had a great day around and on bikes. What really has stuck with me was how many thoughtful and meaningful gifts I got. Just little things where someone had really referenced something we talked about or joked about over the year, or folks who really made an effort to make something. I am so grateful for these types of people in my life. I just don’t have the mentality or perhaps the patience to do this for others. I don’t know why, even with Mrs Revell I am completely thoughtless about gifts, seeing them purely as a transactional thing (as I do most things I guess.) There’s a measure of guilt there at first, these folks have made a real effort for me and I have never done it for them. But maybe that’s it, maybe we are meant to all be different people and I suppose all I can do is hope that I can provide some value or meaning to the folks around me who are so kind. I doubt it, but maybe.
I have a confession to make: A few months ago I set up a mailbox to send all your newsletter in thinking it would be an easier way to consume them. That box just passed 300 unread emails this morning so clearly something has gone wrong. I’m going to have to undo it and get them back in my inbox so I at least pass through them.
Short Stuff
- Speculative space. More and more of these projects to sort of demarcate speculative design seem to be cropping up. They usually have the same few references but this one’s got some weirder stuff in there too so it might be a useful resource.
- This was a really beautiful obituary slash book preview I guess about David Graeber. I am enormous fan and there’s a great little story of his life and interactions amongst his ideas and approaches here: David Graeber’s Possible Worlds.
- Writing of, I need to revisit A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse which was (after Debt) one of the pieces that I loved first of his. I promised ot talk about it on a podcast on Wednesday which was presumptuous.
- Why Video Game Doors Are So Hard To Get Right from Vox on YouTube dot com. I’ll go back to something Ian Bogost once said (which I will now have to paraphrase because this blog is unsearchable) upon seeing a character take off a t-shirt in Last of Us II: ‘Things that are easy in real life are hard in video games, things that are easy in video games and hard in real life.’
- Erik Carter’s newsletter Design Harder is out and I finally read the first edition – The Rise And Fall of Adobe Inc. about the history and future of that behemoth and some alternatives.
- Little bit old hat now but NFT Bay is a 15TB download of ‘all’ NFT images currently (a week or two ago) on the Ethereum blockchain. As a piece of critical technical practice, it’s pretty on the nose and joins a list of happenings exposing the lack of understanding NFT boosters have of the thing they’re boosting. The artist, Geoff Huntley, has an FAQ here.
- Similarly, Wout Van Aert, one of the world’s greatest (and tragically underrated by his team) cyclists has NFT’d images of his victories. Images which he couldn’t possibly have taken and from the article none of the proceeds of which are going to the photographer. What does victory in mean if you’re literally willing to sell the concept for cash?
I still haven’t made this blog searchable have I? It’s on the to-do list. Ok, that’s it and I love you as always and see you soon.