Things I found interesting in February 2023
The internet ephemera preservation society
I gave blood yesterday and feel too enervated to finish the posts I have almost ready to go, so this week’s newsletter is a collection of stray thoughts and links.
1. Donating blood
Yesterday, I gave blood for the 25th time for which I received a nice badge. I wish I could say I do it for purely altruistic reasons, but I once read Tim Ferriss saying that men should give blood because high iron levels are carcinogenic (it also appears to slow ageing). My blood type is A+ which is the second most common and currently very low in Scotland. According to Japanese blood type personality theory, this means that I am “well-organized, neat, timid, mild-mannered, reliable, shy, polite, and conscientious.” Hmmm.
2. Chronophoto
Chronophoto is a super-simple game where all you have to do is identify the year in which a photo was taken. You can zoom in and look at cars and fashions that give away the zeitgeist. You get points based on how accurate you are. I usually get between 3000-4000 points.
3. The Robots are Coming!
UX Glasgow, the design meetup I help organize, is running an online event with Sarah Drummond this coming Wednesday about what the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence mean for UX and Service Designers. Her recent essay on the subject is a brilliant analysis of the history of automation full of canny predictions about what comes next. Join us if you can.
4. Seeing yourself as you were
An ‘AI wrangler’ called Memo Akten collected a bunch of TikToks where people in their 40s and 50s use a filter to make themselves look like teenagers. In most cases, this leads to a crisis of mortal reckoning. The phenomenological disorientation of seeing your face move in the phone screen seems to affect people like the rubber hand illusion. H/T to
for linking to this.
5. Loeb Classical Library Online
A lot of those beautiful Roman and Greek classics are out of copyright and have been digitised. I don’t know where I will find the time to begin reading them, but I am happy this site exists as a resource.
6. New £2 Coin
One of those visual tricks that once you see, you can’t unsee. There appears to be a little bird perching on the left side of King Charles III’s ear.
8. Andrea Dworkin vs Anthony Burgess
When I was younger, Andrea Dworkin was demonised as a misandrist and all that was bad about feminism. Her anti-porn stance now seems to be totally vindicated and both liberal feminists like Olivia Laing and reactionary feminists like Louise Perry are hailing her as a prophet. I went on YouTube to find an interview with her and came across this Channel 4 roundtable from 1988.
9. Atherstone Ball Game
People who complain about snowflakes and cancel culture will be glad to know that violent 824 year old ball games are still permitted in England.
10. Wakamai Fondue
Web typography has improved a lot, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it from reading most sites. Wakamai Fondue is a site where you can upload your fonts and see what they are capable of and download a stylesheet to use on your website.
11. Corecore
Fans of Adam Curtis may enjoy the latest TikTok trend, Corecore, which takes unrelated clips and adds a soundtrack to create a melancholy vibe.
12. Glaswegians Love Pubs
To continue the nostalgic theme of this list, my most popular tweet this month consisted of two words—The Doublet—and a photo of the popular pub. This got 100,000 views and brought out a wave of nostalgia. 🤷♂️
13. Substacks I've enjoyed this month
Congratulations to
who has completed his film diary, managing to write about 1000 films in about 560,000 words. Read this one before it is locked.
I enjoyed looking at the dreamy light captured in the travel photography of
. Are there any other photographers I should be following?As well as being a pop star, Pat Kane is also a columnist in The National. This year, fully referenced versions of his articles appear on
. I particularly enjoyed this one on alcohol:
After his dedicated COVID-19 posting,
is now posting about AI. They are long posts and feel comprehensive to me:Finally, if you haven’t had enough links, check out the
February link round-up, which is far more extensive than mine.