Catch-up links
To extend the discussion of some of the posts over the past few months. For browsing, study, and amusement.
Read time: Nope. Very much depends on what you click. This week: Some of the posts of the past have been extended by others over the month. Here’s a selection to catch up. Next week: Plans for the next quarter.
The Boulangerie offers glimpses of what’s in a warm place rising or already in the bakery oven. This past week, world famous tuba collection and Mattias Adolffson’s wondrous drawings. I think I’ve run into Adolfsson’s drawings before, but I never dug into them. I only announce when something happens in the Boulangerie with my Mastodon loudspeaker: @mrdelong@mastodon.online.
Share this one with someone, please. If you got this from a friend, how about getting your own copy? A subscription is free, and it’s only another email delivered on Thursday morning.
I often run across articles that relate to topics I’ve written about. Readers send me links, too. I think it’s good to share a selection of them, grouped under the titles of posts I’ve written, just so that people can catch up if they enjoyed a post or so that they can catch up on one they missed.
Such grouped resources simplify diving in — even if it’s just into a new rabbit hole. Some of the links may lead to paywalls, the spawn of the devil. You can avoid them sometimes by doing a web search of titles. Often authors or others have posted PDFs of academic articles — legally, too, I believe.
If you run across a resource that you think I’d enjoy, let me know with an email to technocomplex@substack.com.
The ladies out back turned me into a hoarder
Algorithms are good for something, I guess.
Google Photos coughed up a photographic reminder from two years ago — back in the Covid era. New chicks, our “Olivers” and a couple of Wyandottes, I think. All little babies. Today, now grown, they’ve decided it’s Spring and are laying eggs, the colorful gifts of the season. I couldn’t help but share the picture of them huddled indoors when they were new to the place.
Maybe too late anyway, if you’re trying to save a buck. Egg prices are coming down. Wolfe, Rachel. “Raising Chickens for Cheaper Eggs Gets Expensive Fast.” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2023, sec. Life. https://www.wsj.com/articles/raising-chickens-egg-prices-coop-cost-11675113477.
“Try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose”
Well, Reimer’s article is still a good read. “In my decade-plus of full-time copyediting…, nearly all the books I’ve worked on were unremarkable, and most have been or will be soon forgotten. I edited zero books that people will still be reading in one hundred years. That’s not to say they were all bad, even if most of them were; I edited plenty of good books. It’s just that, in the sad sweep of history, almost all the books ever written and that have yet to be written are mediocre, at best, and destined for few, if any, readers.” Reimer, Jeff. “The World Through a Copyeditor’s Eyes.” The Bulwark, January 20, 2023. https://www.thebulwark.com/the-world-through-a-copyeditors-eyes/.
Look for the one-armed bandit thing with a green visor on its metal head and pencil in its mechanical hand. Williams, Henry. “I’m a Copywriter. I’m Pretty Sure Artificial Intelligence Is Going to Take My Job.” The Guardian, January 24, 2023, sec. Opinion. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/24/chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-jobs-economy.
Shaping the shapers
Adegbuyi, Fadeke. “The Quest for a Dumber Phone.” Every, January 17, 2023. https://every.to/cybernaut/the-quest-for-a-dumber-phone.
Of course, it’s paywalled, but you can find the article if you do a search. Vadukul, Alex. “‘Luddite’ Teens Don’t Want Your Likes.” The New York Times, December 15, 2022, sec. Style. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/style/teens-social-media.html.
Reason finally comes back … thanks to exhaustion. Yang, Mary. “Marie Kondo Revealed She’s ‘kind of given up’ on Being so Tidy. People Freaked Out.” NPR, January 29, 2023, sec. World. https://www.npr.org/2023/01/29/1152149068/marie-kondo-revealed-shes-kind-of-given-up-on-being-so-tidy-people-freaked-out.
Yes, really, probably the phones. Smith, Noah. “Honestly, It’s Probably the Phones.” Substack newsletter. Noahpinion (blog), March 2, 2023.
Robots. Once again, with feeling! & Sex robots and human emotion
Every once in a while, LA Times lets me read something without going through a paywall of some sort. Schwitzgebel, Eric, and Henry Shevlin. “Opinion: Is It Time to Start Considering Personhood Rights for AI Chatbots?” Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-05/chatgpt-ai-feelings-consciousness-rights.
Not matter of etiquette, yet. But does the urge to be polite to bots tell us something about the technology’s grip on empathy? Capelouto, J. D. “Should We Be Polite to ChatGPT?” Semafor, March 11, 2023. https://www.semafor.com/article/03/10/2023/should-we-be-polite-to-chatgpt.
Technological rubble
“Technological rubble” is a guest contribution from who writes .
In the past year or so, the hand-wringing, terror, excitement, gleeful anticipation about AI has been disorienting and at times even humorous. Few think that AI is inconsequential, and even those who think that AI is grossly hyped consider AI as consequential because everyone thinks it is.
I have held off writing about ChatGPT and its ilk so far, but I’ll probably wade into those treacherous waters sometime in the next quarter. The dust seems to be settling to reveal, perhaps, a murk? GPT-4 debuted this past week, and so the hubbub, hype, and hysteria has heightened a bit. I do wonder when we humans will grow accustomed to a new, silicon, hallucinating thing at our elbow at our desks. Or, if we can reject it.
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Music and computing. Art at the fringes of life? Stilgoe, Jack. “Give the Drummer Some: What Drum Machines Can Teach Us about Artificial Intelligence.” Aeon, February 28, 2023. https://aeon.co/essays/what-drum-machines-can-teach-us-about-artificial-intelligence.
Kyle is now on The New Yorker staff, having moved from The Dirt, which he co-founded. His book on algorithms and culture comes out in January 2024. Chayka, Kyle. “Is A.I. Art Stealing from Artists?” The New Yorker, February 10, 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/is-ai-art-stealing-from-artists.
Chayka, Kyle. “Generative AI and the Death of the Artist.” Substack newsletter. Kyle Chayka Industries (blog), February 26, 2023.
You want a preview of the 2028 model of the Chevy Corvette? Comin’ right up, after some programming and stuff! Burnap, Alex, John R. Hauser, and Artem Timoshenko. “Product Aesthetic Design: A Machine Learning Augmentation.” SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY, November 1, 2022. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4253967.
Friendly, yearned for skies
The last 747 rolled off Boeing’s line. Gardner, James Ross. “The World the 747 Didn’t Predict.” The New Yorker, February 3, 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-world-the-747-didnt-predict.
Imagined, but somehow real & "Time to BeReal"?
Hazel, Alexa. “The Virtual Condition.” The Point Magazine, February 22, 2023. https://thepointmag.com/criticism/the-virtual-condition/.
From a Duke student, a consideration of BeReal, which may not be an anti-social media thing anymore. Kelly, Pilar. “Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?” The Chronicle, February 21, 2023. https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2023/02/022023-kelly-be-real.
Lettink, Anita. “Meet Me in the Metaverse.” Substack newsletter. Future of Work (blog), February 8, 2023.
Muzak. Like the air, only sweeter
My friend ’s ruminations on music and his life have good foundation: Cimons, Marlene. “Why Music Causes Memories to Flood Back.” Washington Post, February 27, 2023, sec. Well+Being. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/02/26/songs-music-memory-connection/.
Clubs, friends, cars, memories. Changing mixtures. (A podcast)
A bullet-point history of The Met on radio. Quite a long history, too, at ninety years: Browner, Christopher. “Spirit of Radio.” The Metropolitan Opera. Accessed March 13, 2023. https://www.metopera.org/discover/articles/spirit-of-radio/.
Got a comment?
Loved the one on editing.