And swarms of BEES, too?

Posted on June 18th, 2025 in entry

The temperature’s been a bit off this spring — nothing to run around panicking about or anything, just a bit chilly. Still, who doesn’t enjoy a conversation about the weather? So, out of idle curiosity, I decided to open up a thread for folks to weigh in on the weather around the world, and it turns out we’re all gonna die.

Sure, it’s a weighted argument — if you go looking for The End is Nigh!, you’re going to find it. Plus we all sound like a bunch of old geezers recalling the days when the Midwest wasn’t an ocean and there weren’t swarms of polar bears, bees, and jellyfish coming to eat us all. (Wasn’t it crabs or something a couple of years ago? Whatever. We’re all gonna die.)

links for 2025-06-13

Posted on June 12th, 2025 in outbound links

USB Mix Tape

Posted on June 11th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
new stuff is cool, i just love the aesthetics and care that goes into older stuff.

But wait, Joe — what if you had to stick a piece of tape over a hole in the USB key to get it to record…?

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

The Hauntological Congress

Posted on June 11th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Anyway, it was a really memorable, tangible place!

That’s a difference, I think. Hauntology seems to often summon wandering down back alleys that look really familiar, but the last time you were there you were drunk off your ass, and you’ll never find that one door again, because it’s dead and gone and quite possibly wasn’t there to begin with. You’ve caught your dream train and forced it to circle the vinyl forever so we can all hear it. Burial almost all sounds like it wants you to chase it down, a will’o'wisp in a long fallow field, a voice that’s always three rooms away; Mystery Train sounds like it’s coming closer, and you can’t stop it. Neither is inherently better — I really like Burial, a lot — but they’re very different, to me.

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

The Singularity Thingy

Posted on June 11th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Joshua, I don’t think you can have this conversation without some people wrapping in some of the allure/disgust of the Singularity. Because no matter how it’s being defined, no matter how much you try to refine it down to facts and logical theories — the idea of “post-humans” inspires semi-religious awe and psuedo-atheistic backlash. It’s not the Nerd Rapture for nothing. Yeah, I know what you’re trying to get at here, of course — but it’s really, really hard for humans to theorize a world where they aren’t the same humans they are now without leaning to “Holy Crap we’re gonna be GODS!” or “Fuck you, we’re all gonna die buried under miles of plastic, first.” When you first pitched GMF against Bright Spime Future, y’know, I had this minute of wondering if you weren’t just fed up with all the shiny happy we’re all gonna hold hands and wear white futuretalk, too.

But I think there’s something to be gleaned from why people do or don’t want it, and, more importantly, why people do/don’t think it’ll happen. I mean, you can’t really trend tech without looking at what the population really wants and how they really want it, can you? Sure, in the fifties, everyone (in the US) was talking about flying cars and sky cities… but they were trending towards the suburbs and bigger back yards, weren’t they? Now, sure, the Nerd Delusion says “I wanna live forever” — but are we really trending towards that? News says we’ve got too many Baby Boomers and we’re all going to be broke when we retire (again, US viewpoint, here) — so who’s _honestly_ thinking about living forever? And yes, that’s short term, but it’s always been a balance of our need for movement versus our superstitions that drove us to evolve. Even back when those superstitions were just “Other creature bad” and our need for movement was just “Shit, food gone.”

All my, lemme just amend with this, all my ideas about where we’re going to be long after I’m dead… well they aren’t in this thread, and they don’t make a shit-ton of sense without a lot of prefacing and grains of salt. Which is why I’m just nattering up your space instead of adding anything relevant. But I will say we’re not going to hit an Anylarity, I don’t think, as long as we’re confined to one planet with the same gravity and atmosphere we’ve always had, and our gods haven’t changed much in thousands of years.

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

The June Food Thread

Posted on June 11th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Speaking of piggy bits: I don’t actually eat breakfast — my stomach doesn’t understand anything but caffeine until at least 5 hours in, but here’s how I do bacon and eggs.

051108b
Bacon and Mushrooms and Garlic and Eggs and Toast and Parmesan and Tomatoes and Avocado.

Takes about 20-30 minutes with bacon cooking time — and is all done in one pan and one plate, because I don’t much like cleaning up. See, here’s the thing about bacon. I know some of you make your bacon in the microwave, because it’s faster that way. But what you don’t get with microwave bacon is a nice, sizzling pan of bacon grease. And yes, I smoke two packs a day and eat bacon and one of those may very well kill me someday, but when I keel over after a life of eating piggies and smoking… well I’ll have had a life of eating piggies and smoking. No one lives forever.

So, I put the pan on the stove and slap four thick-cut slices in it before I turn the burner up to medium heat. It’s always tempting to try and cook bacon at a higher temp in an already hot pan — but it’s just not meant to be. While the bacon is warming up, I wash and dice a few mushrooms and some garlic (all my recipes have garlic. Well, the cookies don’t, but pretty much everything else does.). After I’ve turned the bacon a couples of times, I drain off a bit of the bacon grease (with thin-cut bacon this step can be skipped, there won’t be as much. With thick cut bacon you’ll have a bit too much oil if you don’t drain a bit) and toss the mushrooms and garlic in to brown along with. Then I grab two eggs and a slice of bread (I buy the short and wide loaves pretty specifically so that I can do this next bit) and cut two holes in the bread at the top and bottom corners.

The bacon should be about 2/3 done at this point, so I pull it out, chop it into manageable bites, stir the mushrooms and garlic around a bit, and toss everything back in the pan and push it over to the edge. (You may need to drain a little more grease off at this point. There’s death by arterial clogging, and then there’s just too much fat to deal with.) Then I toss the bread in the pan and let it sop and toast on both sides, and crack the eggs into the holes.

051108

Yum, yes, it’s a double egg in a basket. Delicious enough under normal circumstances, but double delicious with two eggs and triple delicious with bacon. While the eggy-eyeball-toast is cooking on one side, slice up a few cherry tomatoes and half an avocado. There’s something like 8 million % of your daily RDA of protein in the pan, so you really do need a little fruit to even it out. When I flip the egg/toast, I sprinkle a little grated Parmesan on top and — as the bacon is done cooking now — move all the meat/mushroom/garlic on top to help the cheese melt before the eggs are done. I like my eggs a bit runny, so that’s how you do that.

Slide everything onto a plate, artfully arrange (read: scoop and toss) the tomatoes and avocado on top, and eat with fork and knife and yums.

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

Mexico Advice

Posted on June 10th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Aside from not bringing anything of value, what’s the best way to go about not getting killed, arrested, or abducted?

Don’t be a dick. Don’t offer people money if you get lost and need to ask directions. Start smoking if you don’t already, and trade in cigarette currency if you feel the need to repay the kindness of strangers. Say please and thank you. Smile a lot. Don’t drink anything but beer and bottled water, but don’t get drunk. Don’t fuck beautiful strangers. Don’t get drunk and fuck beautiful strangers. Don’t get drunk and offer to pay to fuck beautiful strangers. If you absolutely have to fuck a beautiful stranger, say please and thank you. And pay with cigarettes.

That should do it.

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

The Weekly Listening Thread (9 June 08)

Posted on June 9th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
I don’t know if I’m liking The Black Angels’ Directions To See A Ghost better than/as much as/less than Passover — it’s… hm. It’s, well the recording quality seems a little bit better, but it’s taken the edge off. Or put a new edge on. I can’t decide. It’s less Vietnam, and more the drugs to beat the PTSD after, y’know? Maybe it’s a logical progression. It’s got that drone-edges-into-dizzy-psychedelic edge that really sounds like painkillers and self-medication, to beat a metaphor. I like “Mission District”, “Science Killer”, and “You on the Run”.
[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

Forum Xposting: Or, it makes more sense, for me.

Posted on June 9th, 2025 in entry

I’ve mentioned before that I’m lousy at blogging, not because I don’t like writing, but because I don’t do one-sided conversations very well. It takes a very strong thought for me to unhook and go into essay mode… and even then I’d rather corner someone and rant at them for a minute (or twelve) than just shoot my brainload out into the hinternets. I’ve even got difficulty with microblogs — if you glance at my twitterstream you’ll see I’m one of those chatty bitches that prefaces half (at least) her messages with @’s.

The internet (and since I work from home, I fair live here at least 10 hours a day) is my place for information and communication. It’s a big fucking library with a bank of comm units in the back. Only, I work here, see — instant message software doesn’t work for me, because I’d never get anything done. So I rely on asynchronous chat systems to keep in touch with friends, acquaintances, and strangers.

And where the tech doesn’t yet exist, I build my own. What-ever it takes to keep up with the whorls of vice, y’know?

So: Making my own signal networks.

Look to the right, and you’ll see the core of my network. Those are the folks I think of as my fellow satellites. We’re not all of us on the same orbit, but we cross paths often enough that they’re familiar and important to me. I track their circuits and smile when we do flybys. And I could drop their logs into a private reader and keep up just as nicely, but if you’ve come here because you’re curious about me, chances are you’ll find them interesting, too. And since I want to communicate with you, random readerperson, I want to communicate to you the people that influence my path with their gravity.

But I don’t really say a hell of a lot, here. I’ll get a wild hair every now and again and post something, but it’s mostly tumbleweed central up in here. I’m getting a little chattier as I get older, but content doesn’t happen overnight, y’know? If I’m talking online, it’s probably in the comments of a friend’s blogpost, in email… or over on Whitechapel. Only in the forum, I’m not just talking to myself (okay, sometimes I am, be fair, but) most of the time I’m in the middle of a conversation with a huge pool of clever and crazy interfolks. I mean, it’s a community, right? Granted, some of the zoo threads turn into no-fly zones fast, but there’s always a wide variety of interesting back-and-forth going on over there.

Which is where my newly mad idea of forum crossposting came into play. I was playing around with the RSS feed for the forum, fixing some validation issue or something, and I realized that just one side of a great conversation is interesting enough to make someone want to read the rest, sometimes. I mean, that’s what the blockquote tag comes down to most days, isn’t it? Or the @ on twitter? Or, hell, Overheard in [insert city here]?

Now, I don’t think the concept works all the time. Part of why I’m getting something like posts out of my RSS from Whitechapel is because I’m a wordy lady — I don’t stop with a one-liner if I can just keep talking, oh no. And I got into the habit years ago of quoting the person to whom I’m responding in my reply, so there’s some frame of reference for what the fuck I’m saying. And, again, it helps that I’m linking off a forum that’s full of actual conversation — a linkfest or imageroll thread would probably work in a tumblelog sort of way, but it wouldn’t necessarily lead back to the source.

But it works for me, for now. I get weird traffic, a lot of linkthroughs and little retention — mostly because this place is more-than-half sandbox for nutty projects and playing with designs — so I’m not terribly worried about running off my readers, y’know? And, in a week or a month I may get tired of seeing myself talk again and strip the functionality off again. But it’s an interesting game, in the meantime, isn’t it? Hearing me talk on the phone with little frame of reference unless you decide to pick up the line and read through the rest of the conversation? Maybe it stays. We’ll see.

Whitechapel June Flickrgeist

Posted on June 9th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Warren’s been doing these most recently under the heading of ZEITFLICKR, and I love them like delicious candy. So I want MOAR NOW. It’s a pretty easy set-up to point and click with fd’s Flickr Toys, so let’s play along at home, yeah? No rules — you can use your own flickr account or your contacts, recent or wayback. Go with a different layout if it works better. Go nuts.

1. my tree #7, 2. Isengart [7060], 3. I’m a big NERD, 4. IMG_0539.JPG, 5. > I took it for Brightkite, but I like it for a lot of reasons, 6. Untitled

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

The June Food Thread

Posted on June 8th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Omnomnom I am eating delicious pork chops nom. I make a lot of fifteen minute meals. Pigs were pretty much invented for single servings and fast cooking, seriously.

What I do for chops of piggy is take the little skillet — the six inch one that doesn’t get too much action other than eggs — and pour a little olive oil in it. If there’s more than one of you, use a bigger pan, obviously. While that’s heating (medium-highish), I’ve popped out to the patio to cut some oregano, snip a little marjoram, thyme, and basil from the window garden, and diced that up with two cloves of garlic. Then I toss all that nonsense in the pan and stir it around, letting the hot oil infuse with all the deelicious herbs. Once the garlic is starting to brown a little, I clear out a space in the middle of the pan and slap the pork chop down. I brown the chop on both sides (and you only need to turn it once, the timing’s about the same for an egg on a thin cut chop, a titch longer on a thicker one) and then move it to a plate. The pork is finished cooking at that point, and you could just spread the garlic and herbs onto a piece of toast and make a sandwich if you’ve gone with a boneless cut and you want to stop there.

But, if it’s dinner time, what you want to do is pour a little white wine in the pork-greasy pan and make a tasty reduction. Stir the wine around, getting all the browned pork drippings and garlic and herbs mixed together while about half the wine cooks off. Then dollop in some stone-ground mustard, a spoonful of honey, and stir that into a honey mustard sauce. Or sauté some mushrooms and onions in the pan before you add the wine, and stir a little brie or buttermilk in for a white or cheese sauce. Or, if it’s a little chilly out still, thinly dice some apples and use port instead of white wine to make a sweet sauce.

Throw the pork chop back in the pan for a minute to get it nice and toasty again, and let it soak up some of the sauce, and then serve with a salad, or over a bed of rice, or with some chips you’ve thrown in the oven before you started anything. Or, if you’ve suddenly realized you really did just want a sandwich, pour everything onto a slice of toast, dice a tomato or some cheese on top, and you’ve got a fancy one.

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

Temes: Self replicating Memes?

Posted on June 7th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Yeah, I personally think the ‘meme’ is just a fun/useful tool for analyzing the spread of ideas. Once it gets woven into polarized, alarmist rehashings involving aliens, religion, and the singularity, &c.,

…Then you’ve got Scientology.

Which would, come to think of it, explain why one of the foremost meme-machines of our time suddenly decided to go after one of the largest organizations actively seeking to clear humans of their malevolent sentient alien thoughtwaves…

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

Will space travel ever be truly feasible?

Posted on June 6th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Most modern physicists are pretty convinced the graviton exists.

C’mon. Everyone knows that the real trick is to anchor our ships to Dark Matter with thin, nearly transparent transfer cables and let the equal-but-opposite orbit pull the vehicles through space at doublespeed. It’s in all the old television sci-fi serials, even.

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

Temes: Self replicating Memes?

Posted on June 6th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Susan Blackmore is, of course, absofuckinglutuely bugnuts. Her anthropomorphism of data is little more than thinly-veiled demonology. As with “Flying Spaghetti Monster” and “Singularity,” it helps when reading Blackmore to replace every instance of “meme” with “malevolent spirit.”
[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

FREAKANGELS Episode 0016

Posted on June 6th, 2025 in quote

[This is only my side of a conversation, and may make more sense if you visit the original discussion on Whitechapel.]
Hello hello, it’s FREAKANGELS!

Happy Friday, Whitechapel. Check in, say hello.

[Comments are closed, but you may respond in the Whitechapel thread.]

The Low-Tech Gastrorevolution via Libby Bulloff

Friday June, 20 2025 03:10 PM PDT

…or, Adventures in Breadmaking

Since I moved to high-speed Seattle a little over two weeks ago, ironically, I’ve buried myself in the acquisition and creation of the low-tech. Sometimes the things that work the best to provide nutrition and amelioration, both physical and emotional, aren’t powered by fancy-pants futuristic transhumanism. I’ve built a vermicomposter (images to come) to help manage my vegetable refuse and my lack of garbage disposal, found pure joy in growing herbs and carnivorous plants, and today, I baked bread. Sure, it’s cheap enough to grab a loaf at the market, but god knows who and what touched it before it reaches my table, and oh my lord, it’s FUN to fill the house with the delicious stink of fresh loaves. It’s a shame that many people won’t eat bread because of dieting/health issues–it is total comfort food for me.

I spent a few hours making vegan pita bread using a simple recipe garnered from The Anarchist’s Cookbook, a new leftist (and tasty) food blog. I chose this specific recipe because it didn’t call for many ingredients, and seemed to be a gentle start for someone who’s previously eschewed hand-baking leavened breads.

I didn’t find too many problems with the directions, though you’ll want to read through them all the way before you get started, otherwise you may find yourself accidentally missing a step. I finished some of my pitas with garlic salt and some with lemon thyme for flavor goodness, but let me know if you try topping them with anything else of mention.

It took some serious self-control to take photos before eating! Yum!

LEVERAGE via Warren Ellis

Friday June, 20 2025 03:04 PM PDT

Promo video for the new tv show by my friend John Rogers. (Who struggled so mightily with GLOBAL FREQUENCY.)

classy racially sensitive advertising 101 via Irene Kaoru

Friday June, 20 2025 02:25 PM PDT

IreneKaoru posted a photo:

classy racially sensitive advertising 101

God I hate Vegas.

shiney death mobius terrorizes mall via Irene Kaoru

Friday June, 20 2025 01:00 PM PDT

IreneKaoru posted a photo:

shiney death mobius terrorizes mall

photo.jpg via Matt Fraction

Friday June, 20 2025 12:44 PM PDT


blogged from my pants:

photo.jpg via Matt Fraction

Friday June, 20 2025 12:09 PM PDT


blogged from my pants:

typography at miracle mile mall via Irene Kaoru

Friday June, 20 2025 12:08 PM PDT

IreneKaoru posted a photo:

typography at miracle mile mall

I actually really like this.

Jasmin via Irene Kaoru

Friday June, 20 2025 12:05 PM PDT

IreneKaoru posted a photo:

Jasmin

ooh la la via Irene Kaoru

Friday June, 20 2025 12:02 PM PDT

IreneKaoru posted a photo:

ooh la la

uh huh via Irene Kaoru

Friday June, 20 2025 11:35 AM PDT

IreneKaoru posted a photo:

uh huh

Paris Vegas via Irene Kaoru

Friday June, 20 2025 11:31 AM PDT

IreneKaoru posted a photo:

Paris Vegas

get it? via Irene Kaoru

Friday June, 20 2025 11:29 AM PDT

IreneKaoru posted a photo:

get it?

zeitflickr 20 june 08 via Warren Ellis

Friday June, 20 2025 10:02 AM PDT

1. Collapsed bridge 2, 2. In The Dark., 3. MPITA, 4. Untitled, 5. scavengers, 6. why you have no second dates

he doesn't bite via Trixie Bedlam

Friday June, 20 2025 09:57 AM PDT

trixiebedlam posted a photo:

he doesn't bite

Todd watches Lisa via Trixie Bedlam

Friday June, 20 2025 09:56 AM PDT

trixiebedlam posted a photo:

Todd watches Lisa