• Not Too Much

    Another thing I like about Micro.blog: by following a limited number of posters, I see all new posts in pretty short order. Which means I can put away my screen and get back to non-screen living in pretty short order. (If I do want more MB, I can always tap “Discover.")

  • Not a Bug

    Nicholas Carr:

    Through their ever-flowing stream of messages, each offering a simulation of connection, social platforms promise to alleviate the sense of loneliness they provoke. Turning social interactions into symbolic transactions, they reconstruct society on a foundation of anomie. Bots fit seamlessly into such a society, upping the monetization potential substantially.

    When Facebook’s News Feed introduced us to what Zuckerberg termed “frictionless sharing,” we learned, or should have learned, that friction is the essence of sharing. Freed of any investment of effort, time, or care, sharing loses all meaning. It becomes mere transmission. The frictionless friendship offered by chatbots, by removing the need to adapt one’s self to another self, to make room in one’s life for a different being, will be similarly empty.

  • Poetry Unbound with Pádraig Ó Tuama

    Often, a highlight of my week is a new (to me) poem shared by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Today’s, “Neanderthal Dig” by Don McKay, is especially rich.

  • The Winter Garden, Regents Park

    More from Spitalfields Life

  • Linky Goals

    @simonwillison.net says,

    I wish people would post more links to interesting things ... Sharing interesting links with commentary is a low effort, high value way to contribute to internet life at large.

    That sounds right. I'll make that a goal for this year, and I'll start with Simon's (may I call you Simon?), "My approach to running a link blog." His custom-built image-size reducer is a real gift.

  • Hot Stuff

    From the incomparable Spitalfields Life: a collector’s collection.

    A matchbox cover showing 18C boy in blue blowing a horn
  • London's East End in the Last Century
    From the wonderful Spitalfields Life: "In the seventies, while living in Mile End Place ... photographer Philip Cunningham took these tender portraits of his friends and colleagues."


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