Far from the Google Cloud
hello,
I’m writing this on the first day of holiday. I’m obviously not really that far from the Google Cloud I just thought it was a good line. If anything we’re closer to it. We’re not far from Porthcurno and Apollo North. It is also a reality of internet life that although it is a good line someone has undoubtedly used it before. Fortunately I’m strong enough (or not strong enough) to not google it to find out.
Anyway. 5 things:
This episode of 99% Invisible and this of the LRB podcast both point out that ships, just floating in the sea doing nothing, decay and sink really quickly. They need to be constantly and consistently maintained. (They’re not about that, but they touch on it) In the LRB piece there’s also this great section about what happened when the Suez Canal was closed by the Six-Day War:
“The canal stayed shut for eight years... (The crews were allowed to rotate. They formed the Great Bitter Lake Association to manage their pooled resources and lively social lives. They issued stamps and had their own version of the Olympics.)”
They issued stamps!
(The combination of 99% Invisible and the LRB obviously makes me some sort of terrible media-diet cliche. Is someone doing cartoons of media ‘types’ in the way you used to get such things in magazines? Probably.)I’ve been watching a lot of Adam Neely videos recently. I wish I could play the bass like he can. His video on Music Theory and White Supremacy isn’t typical but it is great. Youtubers keep inventing new ways to do video.
And here’s how TikTok video and Dr Amy Kavanagh bring to life the problems of guide dogs and people living with visual impairment. Clever. Quick.
The heat in Portland and Canada just makes me want to tell everyone to read The Ministry for the Future again.
This talk by Ellen Broad brings some of those things together. A new way to do talks, to do video, to think about the Climate Crisis and data and AI.
Until next month. Stay temperate.
russell
(There are 694 of you. “A synthetic ruby crystal became the gain medium in the world's first optical laser, conceived, designed and constructed by Theodore H. "Ted" Maiman, on 16 May 1961 at Hughes Research Laboratories.[32][40] The concept of electromagnetic radiation amplification through the mechanism of stimulated emission had already been successfully demonstrated in the laboratory by way of the maser, using other materials such as ammonia and, later, ruby, but the ruby laser was the first device to work at optical (694.3 nm) wavelengths. Maiman's prototype laser is still in working order.”)