Acedia Part II: An Internet of Narcissism

...hizophrenic implications of social media use, Among the “many narcissistic uses” that Sontag attributes to the camera, “self-surveillance” ranks among the most important, not only because it provides the technical means of ceaseless self-scrutiny but because it renders the sense of selfhood dependent on the consumption of images of the self, at the same time calling into question the reality of the external world. There’s much more to The Culture...

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My Morning Routine: Tarrying With the Negative

...g via the very object that wounded him. Žižek, building on Freud and Lacan uses this as a metaphor for the ways in which we use language and narrative to deal with the struggles of life by reenacting pain and pleasure cycles in order to heal. In the final chapters of the book Žižek moves on to collective forms of ideology via a deep dive into Lacan. Of our current system Žižek says, The elementary feature of capitalism consists of its inherent str...

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When Mushrooms Attack

...al device that allows him to communicate with plants, as one does. Daisuke uses the device to communicate with mushrooms (I know, not a plant, but stay with me here). Handed such a device, let me just say that my first impulse would also be to communicate with the mushrooms to just ask them, like, what the hell are you all up to? Daisuke, unfortunately, gets prodded by a bunch of hoodlum teens to eat one of the mushrooms and a seriously bad trip e...

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Fence Appeal

...ats are alternating sizes which gives some visual interest, the trellising uses the off-cuts from the slats and the central pressure treated 4×4 posts are covered in cedar making them bigger and more attractive. The trellising at the top creates a kind of filtered view of neighboring vegetation while the lower panels obscure stuff you don’t want to see. Alas, nothing is simple at our funky property and I had to interrupt the fence twice to accommo...

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Solar Eclipse 2024

...p antenna. Once you get past the initial setup of the open source software used for these digital transmissions, communication is simple. You choose an open frequency with your mouse using the spectrum display at the top and the software handles the back and forth between you and whoever you are communicating with. The messages consist of an exchange of call signs, signal reports and a closing “73” which means something like “best regards”. The la...

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