The Edgy Edge 0001
The Edgy Edge 0001
Hey it's John! You probably subscribed to this newsletter because you read an article I read once about how you shouldn't work too hard. I've been very inconsistent in sending updates here - but I want to change that, so I'm committing to sending an update every Friday for at least four (4) weeks. I will then see how it feels.
In these emails I will include links to updates I've made to my website. I'm also going to try my hand at a bit of 'content aggregation'. I'll be including five interesting links each time along with my thoughts about them. Let's go!
#1 The homogeneity of advertising
This article walks us through some tropes of advertising, and tries to explain why advertising is more homogeneous than other visual industries.
The idea is something like: 'Advertising shoots are expensive, and most people booking them lack any vision'. When people without vision book creative work, they can only feel safe when they're shown precisely what they're getting before they get it. And in order to know what they're getting ahead of time they need to ask their photographers to recreate shoots that have already happened before for other brands and products.
I think this article is describing the 'airspace' of the advertising world, and the conditions that create it.
#2 OG Watch Website
I've been watching Mindhunter recently. It's a really fun show that has cracked into the incredibly exclusive club of 'Non Comedy TV shows that John would actually recommend to people.' (currently about 3 items long - you can guess what the other shows are).
Anyway, one of the leads in that show wears a sick, alien looking, watch. In the course of trying to find out what it is I came across this great piece of early web design - which is also a good repository of weird watch design. This is the page I landed on, but the whole thing is worth exploring. It even has the legendary under-construction gif on the homepage.
#3 Goat’s at work
Paris Roubaix, took place last weekend. It's one of the craziest sporting events in the world that isn't confined to a single English village. Basically a bunch of Burly Belgian and Dutch cyclists ride over poorly maintained roads for a ridiculous distance. I was pleased to hear that for the first time ever the preparations for the race involved a herd of goats, who were employed to eat the weeds that grow between cobble stones the race will pass over.
#4 A very calming video
In the video Nigel Thornberry repeatedly asks for Marianne to help feed him his peas but after every request his voice gets exponentially slower whilst 'Native American music, bohemian imagery and scenes of nature sooth your troubled spirit'.
When video starts, you will find yourself laughing at that familiar voice, the funny things it says. Then it repeats again but slower. You'll laugh again. At this point your body is filled with positive vibes. Things just keep getting slower, gentle sounds slowly fade in - taking you back to ancestral memories of listening to Pure Moods in a room that stinks of Joss sticks.
As the video goes on you're taken on a journey, which veers from comforting to troubling - depending on which part of Nigel's request is being slowly played back. You come out the other side, having learnt more about yourself - spiritually empowered. This video psychedelic trip for those who dare to say no to drugs.
The video was uploaded six years ago and at the time of writing has 519 views. Good luck getting this stuff this good from an algorithm.
#5 Poisoning the AI well
A group of people are offering rewards if you can demonstrate that you've poisoned the training set used for AI code generation tools such that using those tools will lead to vulnerabilities.
I think the world of AI enabled exploits is really exciting, and I can't wait to hear how someone manages to win this prize.
Personally I think there's more juice in prompt injection attacks than attacking training data sets. If we look at the upcoming co-pilot x for example, it seems like it's going to be ingesting your entire code base, and presumably dependencies, in order to 'help you code'. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for malicious NPM packages - or even just for intentionally unhelpful comments. I for one cannot wait.
What's happening on my website?
A design refresh! A new font! And new posts, including: