Bits

Sound & Music

Politics & Economics

Music & Sound

A week of big memories occupying the shoreline & raising hell with @blamb

Bits

Well, well, well .. take a look around #july4th youtube.com/watch?v=fqWbHxIQbTk

Politics & Economics

Started watching this series .. the ghosts of power youtube.com/watch?v=Jss5aFrfKII

Comics

“That aggrieved, insecure white Americans with an exaggerated sense of sovereignty have officially declared their existence as above the law, consistent with a long tradition of acting and living above it – propped up by apolitical consumer trends’ normalizing impact. These are the future facist paramilitary participants and their ushers – take them seriously.” #comics #politics #culture https://popula.com/2019/02/24/about-face/

Bits

“data centres owned by Google alone used nearly five billion gallons of fresh water for cooling in 2022. A recent study concluded that #ai global growth will command 1.7 trillion gallons of water by 2027. That’s half of the total annual withdrawal of the United Kingdom. .” #climate #economics #energy https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/06/10/AI-Demands-Be-Fed-All-Servers-Now/

“In the 2025 update of GifCities, we used AI tools to create a semantic-based search index to supplement the original search index to improve discoverability. Each GIF in the search results also links back to the original GeoCities page on which it was embedded (and some of these pages are even more awesome than the GIFs themselves).” #gif #web #history #archives https://gifcities.org/

“Things won’t change, because people are adaptable and want the system to succeed. We consequently take on the responsibility for making things work, through ongoing effort and by transforming ourselves in the process. Through that work, we make the technology appear closer to what it promises than what it actually delivers, which in turn reinforces the pressure to adopt it.” #ai #llm #technology https://ferd.ca/the-gap-through-which-we-praise-the-machine.html

Sound & Music

A Beginner’s Guide to Northern Soul #bandcamp

There have been many #slystone and #brianwilson tributes over the last few weeks, but this #wfmu show from Dave The Spazz was my fav https://wfmu.org/archiveplayer/?show=153042&archive=271782

#NationalIndigenousPeoplesDay #canada #bandcamp https://nativenorthamerica-variousartists.bandcamp.com/album/native-north-america-vol-1-aboriginal-folk-rock-and-country-1966-1985

Poilitics & Economics

” Due to a fluke of publishing and #copyright law, the #jaws shark is #publicdomain ” https://ironicsans.ghost.io/how-the-jaws-shark-became-public-domain/

Music & Sound

“blaring harmonies over a very sloppy guitar track.” #bandcamp https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/paisley-underground-history-dream-syndicate-bangles-rain-parade

Bought a (used) truck this week ..

Bits

mythcloud.eu explores the enduring power of shared stories and their relevance to our everyday lives. It is an open education resource developed as part of Erasmus+ project Digital Mythologies.

“It’s a symptom of a totalizing cultural paradigm in which passive consumption and regurgitation of content becomes the status quo.” https://www.404media.co/teachers-are-not-ok-ai-chatgpt/

“People are already trusting today’s friendly, patient, often insightful AIs for facts and guidance on nearly any issue, and they will be vulnerable to being misled and manipulated, whether by design or by emergent behavior.” #ai #llm #technology What AI Thinks It Knows About You

“Deep learning can act as co-pilot. Without the eye of the humanist, though, you don’t stand a chance at decipherment.” #ai #technology #humanities https://longnow.org/ideas/the-codes-ai-cant-crack/

Gardening

“No class of beings have in any time past made so rapid a movement forward .. Our bondage will steal upon us noiselessly and by imperceptible approaches.” https://orionmagazine.org/article/natural-intelligence/

Travel

Love getting updates from my kids – they are working on Bornholm #denmark this month

Politics & Economics

Fascinating reporting on the role of shortwave #radio in the rise of far-right militias https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/the-divided-dial-episode-2-you-must-form-your-militia-units

Why You Should Shop at Your Farmers Market This Summer https://thetyee.ca/News/2025/06/02/Why-Shop-Farmers-Market/ #food #foodsecurity #economics

Bits

Brock University’s Senate formally approved and adopted an ethical framework for educational technologies. https://mastodon.social/@rajiv@scholar.social/114597401223608167

Gardening

Film & Video

Music & Sound

#canadian #80s #90s #bravenewwaves #cbc fans rejoice .. a collection of 40 home recorded tapes https://archive.org/details/ajpa_20220828

“Segall has taken cues from pre-punk rock styles before—most notably on his eclectic 2018 record, Freedom’s Goblin—but on Possession they’re focused into a tight 10 songs. That brevity is effective. Stripped of filler, the album’s highlights hit harder, keeping them on target in a context where execution is especially important.” #bandcamp https://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the-day/ty-segall-possession-review

Humour

“And when you need to pass, you don’t need to yell, “WITNESS ME!” A simple honk of your horn is just fine.” https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-am-the-only-person-on-the-fury-road-who-still-drives-a-sensible-car

Bits

“Users were granted a somewhat awkward email address of username@davidbowie.com, along with 5MB of personal web hosting.” https://hackaday.com/2025/05/19/remembering-the-isp-that-david-bowie-ran-for-eight-years/

“Jazz must swing – #jazz musicians agree on that. However, even a century after the beginnings of jazz, there is still no general agreement what exactly constitutes the swing feel. With a dedicated experiment and data analyses on more than 450 well-known jazz solos, we have tried to unravel some secrets of swing.” #audio #sonification https://www.ds.mpg.de/swing

Music & Sound

It ain’t the banks
And it ain’t the taxes
It ain’t the pay day loans and the high rent homes
And predatory fees and practices
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6vjaimSK4E

Fascist Discotheque https://soundcloud.com/desdemonas/fascist-discotheque

“a triumphant return for #stereolab echoing past glories while remaining analytical, steadfast, and inquisitive.” https://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the-day/stereolab-instant-holograms-on-metal-film-review

“Over the last four decades, McCaughey has been the Mad Hatter at an eternally rocking tea party where pals from Wilco, The Decemberists, The Bangles, R.E.M., Death Cab for Cutie, NRBQ, The Dream Syndicate, The Posies, and others help bring his slightly skewed visions to life.” https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/scott-mccaughey-album-guide

Comics

“Those who see journalistic neutrality as an aspirational myth will value the narrative and moral force of the work and appreciate how openly the artist journalists reveal their own values and conflicted perceptions.” #comics #graphicnovel https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2025/05/22/Comics-Power-Moral-Horror-Spiegelman-Sacco-Gaza/

Politics & Economics

“Get in the room with other people (more D.I.Y. and I.R.L.). Embrace the analog, which can’t be surveilled by artificial intelligence. Reach out to unexpected, even problematic (I prefer “problemagic”), allies, with different but compatible definitions of justice.” https://archive.ph/85QND

“Psychedelics have been swept up into the well-rehearsed capitalist playbook where private players are fabricating exclusionary rights over what are ultimately the products of collective human struggle and intellectual achievement.” https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/05/22/Rise-Psychedelic-Capitalism/

Bits

“Since last year, the #Nextcloud app hasn’t been able to upload non-media files like documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, etc., due to Google’s restriction on file access permissions. Following widespread complaints from users, Nextcloud raised many appeals with Google, seeking a resolution to the issues. However, despite these efforts, they received no meaningful responses or solutions from them.” #foss #opensource https://news.itsfoss.com/google-gatekeeping-nextcloud/

Photography

#photography #film #cinema Light fantastic: the road trip that inspired Paris, Texas – in pictures https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/jan/30/wim-wenders-paris-texas-road-trip-in-pictures

Music & Audio

A Goldmine for Beat Diggers in the ’90s, Folk Funk Makes A Comeback https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/paul-hillery-folk-funk-feature

It’s wicked fine, fine, fine
They say while they’re whalin’ on short line
And vanish right out of my sight ..
https://kimdeal.bandcamp.com/track/coast-1

Politics & Economics

“At the end of the day, any progressive government should see steady improvement of the quality of life of working people as its lodestar of legitimacy and political strength. Redistribution is part of that, but so is organizing for growth. Leaving #Canada coddled corporate class to steer our economy in partnership with a government unable to resist giving it virtually everything it wants is no longer tenable.” #economics https://thewalrus.ca/corporate-welfare-is-canadas-most-expensive-addiction/

“..this effort to separate the price of one family’s home from the broader price of a home on the market is nonsensical. If you want to drive down the cost of purchasing a home, you have to also reduce the price of existing homes. If you don’t want to reduce the value of these homes, then you are in fact committing to having demand exceed supply — the very issue that led us to the #housing crisis in the first place.” #economics https://archive.ph/NeOnF

Bits

“It is not necessary to bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old. One of the tools for building the new world has been here all along.” #capitalism #economics #standards https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-anti-capitalist-case-for-standards/

“Over time, technical necessities become conventions, conventions become habits, and habits eventually fade away when they no longer serve a purpose.” #web #internet https://hackaday.com/2025/05/05/what-happened-to-www/

“The invisible hand isn’t invisible because it’s magical; it’s invisible because we’re not supposed to see whose hand it actually is.” #ai #economics https://www.chrbutler.com/we-cannot-talk-about-ai-without-talking-about-capitalism

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/i/160889241/flyover-country #speculativefiction #economics

Film & Video

“Certainly he remembers everything he reads. Not only that, he makes cross references which produce logical conclusions.

Then he has a mind? A human mind?

Well, basically, yes, l suppose he is human. l’m teaching him to think, to reason, to perform. But he’s still a creation,a machine. lf he has any emotional responses, they’re the ones he acquired from me.”

“Certainly he remembers everything he reads. Not only that, he makes cross references which produce logical conclusions.

Then he has a mind? A human mind?

Well, basically, yes, l suppose he is human. l’m teaching him to think, to reason, to perform. But he’s still a creation , a machine. lf he has any emotional responses, they’re the ones he acquired from me.”

https://archive.org/details/the-outer-limits-s02e09-i-robot

Music & Sound

Monotheism, but in Stereo #itsallinyourhead https://youtu.be/YPzwHGOZ8gI?feature=shared

Politics & Economics

“That myth of cowboy individualism became central to the culture of Republican politics as a way for Republican politicians to convince voters to support the destruction of federal government programs that actually benefited them.” https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/heather-cox-richardson-phil-lend-lecture-1.7522817

Bits

“At https://tv.garden we value simplicity, reliability, and a seamless viewing experience. Our aim is to connect you with engaging content from around the world without clutter or broken links. By focusing on channels that actually work, we’re here to spare you the hassle of buffering and frustration—letting you simply tune in and enjoy.” #streaming #media #web

Chad won’t stop talking about #ai. Shut him up with the right answer or lose health https://playchadgpt.com

“In a world saturated with technology, we already have to remind ourselves to put down our phones; to go outside; to see friends in person; to go places instead of staring at them on our screens; to have non-technological experiences, such as boredom. If we’re not careful, then our minds will do less as computers do more, and we will be diminished as a result.” #ai https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/why-even-try-if-you-have-ai

Music & Sound

The Unstoppable Mike Watt .. “There is no reason to think that great artists stop being great artists as they age, and we do them a disservice to celebrate their past output while ignoring their present. What follows is a list highlighting some of Watt’s most impressive recent releases, to inspire you to listen to his body of work in full as he continues to redefine what punk rock means.” https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/mike-watt-album-guide

“10 of the best Peel-focused collections on #bandcamp plus a bonus pick that digs into a particular corner of the Peel Session universe.” #peelsessions https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/peel-sessions-album-guide

Great #pereubu #davidthomas tribute from Fabio https://wfmu.org/archiveplayer/?show=151429&archive=269384&starttime=0:41:01

A #bandcamp release from my son & daughter https://punchtheband.bandcamp.com/track/vanilla-string

Local artist sums up the feeling of a homesick Maritimer https://acadianembassy.bandcamp.com/track/gone

#album #art — first as marketing material, then as pure creative expression — turned an audio-only medium into a multi-sensory experience. https://matthewstrom.com/writing/album-art/

Bits

“as long as anything is centralized it is subject to one day experiencing exactly what Twitter experienced and why using domains to verify anybody is who they say they are is so important bc it’s one thing the platform does *not* have a say over” #fediverse #bluesky #atproto #activitypub https://bsky.app/profile/bubbaprog.lol/post/3lndkshqgxs2r

“There’s camaraderie here. People come in to chat about their lives while we fix their items, and it does wonders for their mental health.” #repair #righttorepair https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-13/fixing-more-than-broken-stuff-the-growing-impact-of-repair-cafes/104727868

“The deity of the Hebrew Bible should not be confused, of course, with GOD (the Generalized Omniscient Dialoguebot), which is included with your LMS. You can ask it for help with your homework, request advice about relationships or major life decisions, or simply talk to it when you’re lonely or afraid.” #ai #lms https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-ten-commandments-annotated-for-use-in-your-ai-enhanced-classroom

Music! Art! Games! Poetry! Dreams beyond the Walled gardensl New programs daily! A celebration of the handmade web! A patchwork quilt of hypertext! Nothing on-demand! Nothing algorithmic! Enjoy the moment! #web https://hypertext.tv

Film & Video

“the government had created the incentive in 1975 wherein 100 percent of an investment in a film could be written off, the heyday of this inglorious period of Canadian filmmaking began toward the end of the decade, as word of this insane loophole spread, and continued through the early ’80s.” https://thewalrus.ca/david-cronenberg-cinema/

Music & Sound

Let me feel my dory lift
To the broad Atlantic combers
Where the tide rip swirls and the wild ducks whirl
And old Neptune calls the numbers
https://www.cshf.ca/let-me-fish-off-cape-st-marys-song-induction/

Politics & Economics

“What do we have if the freedom to read isn’t ours anymore?” #libraries https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16141613-libraries-fighting-freedom-democracy

tooth fairy #economics .. #canada #cdnpoli https://thewalrus.ca/tax-cuts-election/

Film & Video

Music & Sound

Dylan & The Band August 31st 1969 – Isle Of Wight Festival https://youtu.be/4sumWXxPOAg?feature=shared

What’s your favorite song mean to you? thissongmeant.me

Hours of phrases I’ve memorised
Thousands of lines on the page
All of my notes in a desolate pile
I haven’t touched in an age
https://thebethsnz.bandcamp.com/track/expert-in-a-dying-field

Politics & Economics

There’s no universal definition for the word freedom, according to American historian Timothy Snyder. He divides the word into two categories for people — the freedom “from” and the freedom “to” various things …True freedom, he says, is to thrive for the sake of our common future. https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16140356-do-truly-live-free-society-its-complicated

Photos