Author Archives: -

We used AI to extend eleven notable theorists

Bourdieu
Now with 35% extra statistics about the beverage, biscuit and musical preferences of 1960s French lower and middle class citizens, neatly divided up between city, town and rural dwellers. If you simply could not get enough graphs and diagrams in Distinction, this AI-extended version is for you

Foucault
For those who read through Discipline and punish and thought, what this needs is several more excursions about peculiar archival findings regarding spectacular local individuals of marginal note – then this AI-extended version is definitely up your alley. Featuring no less than fifteen somewhat historical anecdotes mostly backed up by historical records, the book is now longer than ever

Derrida
But we digress

Deleuze and/or Guattari
Forget the meanderings about whether it is one or several wolves. Our high-powered AI can instantiate so many different lines of flight, ensuring a steady supply of wolves that will last you through whatever mad shenanigans capitalism throws at you. Better yet – the wolves form a cohesive whole, a veritable rat pack ready to obey your every whim. No longer will you have to contend with loose assemblages and rhizomatic modes of indirection – it’s AI wolves all the way down

Habermas
Did you put down Theory of communicative action and think – gee, that part about cultural differences with regards to drinking a beer for lunch was too short? Well look no further! With the power of AI – possibly beer-powered – the book now boasts a double page count, most of which are dedicated to this most crucial issue. Do not wait, read now!

Spivak
No matter how we tried, the foreword to Of grammatology only became shorter the more we tried to iterate. This might be a bug

Augustine
The extended content can be divided into three subsections. The first of these can subsections can be divided into two subcategories. The first of these subcategories can be divided into for examples. The first example

Wittgenstein
So this is why small children like sand

Locke
Those who create something are entitled to the fruits of their labor. This pertains both on a small scale – such as a person – and on a large scale – such as when the Lord Almighty created the world. From this simple premise we can derive the fundamental principles of modern liberalism. What our extended AI edition offers is an even longer excursion on why a strict application of this logic does not end up, as intuition would have it, in a Christian communism where we are all caretakers of God’s creation (which belongs to Him, rather than to humanity or any portion thereof), and instead justify the creation of an elaborate system of private property as the sovereign value above all else

Benjamin
Have you ever felt that the Work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction is picked up by various NFT and AI shills more due to its title, rather than its content? Have you ever felt that the main point – that the promise of a return to that genuine aura which mechanical reproduction necessarily strips from most modern objects is primarily used as a sideshow by fascism to promote its anti-human values – is sidestepped in favor of a watered down reading that objects in themselves used to be better? Have no fear! Our extended AI version contains no less than fifteen illustrative examples of the main point, such that even the thickest of heads can comprehend it fully and without impediment

Geertz
Those descriptions of cock fights were not thicc enough. Our AI fixed that

A twitter memorial playlist

Context

Braids – Glass deers
Mum – Kostrzyn
The infernal noise brigade – Nagarawallah
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Dead Metheny (live)
Sigur Ros – Ba ba ti ki di do

Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Shohmyoh (Akira OST)
Florence + the machine – Drumming song
65daysofstatic – Retreat! Retreat!
Explosions in the sky – The sky above, the field below
Röyksopp – Eple

Massive Attack – Unfinished sympathy
Ed Harrison – Scrap I/O
Wintermut3 – RA, god of the sun (mix 6)
Pink Floyd – Sorrow
Dead Can Dance – De profundis (out of the depths of sorrow)

M83 – Echoes of mine
Heroes orchestra – Lava theme
Jesu – Sun day
Gregor Samsa – 27:36
The album leaf – Eastern glow

Pet shop boys – Suburbia (Pandemonium edit)
Juno reactor – Navras
Ed Harrison – Versalife
Genesis – The dividing line
Daughter – Human

The naked and famous – Grow old
Manchester orchestra – La di da
Lunz – Lunz
Björk – It’s oh so quiet
Piotr Musial – Brave new world (Frostpunk OST)

Funkadelic – Maggot brain
Meat Loaf – Wasted youth
kent – Vi kan väl vänta tills imorgon
The avalanches – Frontier psychiatrist
Spice girls – Spice up your life

Tokyo police club – Your English is good
Faunts – M4 part 1
Faunts – M4 part 2
Håkan Hellström – Förhoppningar och regnbågar
Passion pit – The reeling

Regina Spektor – Us
Front 242 – Headhunter
KLF – Last train to trancentral
Underworld – Pizza for eggs
Enya – Pax deorum

Carl Orff – In taberna
M83 – Let men burn stars
World’s end girlfriend – River was filled with stories
Oh No! Yoko – 90s kids (Teen Daze remix)
Te’ – 美しき旋律も、音を語る言を持たずしては心にも『留』めがたし。

Parades – Hunters
Parades – Past lives
Maybeshewill – Sing the word hope in four-part harmony
CAKE – Comfort eagle
Muse – Map of the problematique

The six parts seven – Confusing possibilities
Bo Kaspers orkester – Vi kommer aldrig att dö
Death cab for cutie – The new year
Bark psychosis – The black meat
The Antlers – Wake

Thee silver mountain reveries – More action! Less tears!
Gastr del Sol – Blues subtitled no sense of wonder
Dorena – Dagsländan
Telefon Tel Aviv – What it was will never again
Lowercase noises – A rare social gathering / On the porch

Deep space network – Doors of perception
Haujobb – Solid state logic
Welle: Erdball – Nintendo schock
Wolfsheim – Wundervoll
Tyrone Brunson – The Smurf

Aphrodite’s child – All the seats were occupied
Ratatat – Bare feast
Apoptygma berserk – Paranoia
Squarepusher – Port Rhombus
Squarepusher – Every day I love

Abraham Burton Eric McPherson Quartet – Nebulai
Eric Prydz – Pjanoo
The Streets – Weak become heroes
The Evpatoria report – Dipole experiment
Focus – Anonymous two

Jeff Wayne – The eve of war
Faithless – Salva mea
Trevor Morris – Eluvian battle suite (Dragon Age: Inquisition OST)
Maserati – No more sages
If these trees could talk – They speak with knives

Pink Floyd – One of these days
Florence+ the machine – Shake it out
Dana Falconberry – Crooked river
Inon Zur – Imagine utopia / Humanity’s hope / Science & secrecy (Fallout 4 OST)
10cc – Feel the benefit

kent – Mannen i den vita hatten (16 år senare)
Alas Parson’s project – Turn of a friendly card
Supertramp – Fool’s overture
Genesis – Supper’s ready
The naked and famous – Small reunion

65daysofstatic – No station
Mike Oldfield – The sailor’s hornpipe

A list of 26 genders

AAAB: assigned aardvark at birth. Shine on you crazy diamond
ABAB: assigned blunderbuss at birth. Fond of Vengaboys
ACAB: truer words were never spoken
ADAB: assigned database at birth. Nervous when moving house
AEAB: assigned _ebook at birth. It will remember your every word
AFAB: assigned feline at birth. Could transition to other genders at any point
AGAB: assigned glitter at birth. Likely to work in opsec
AHAB: talk not to me of blasphemy, man; squeeze, squeeze!
AIAB: assigned interstellar space station at birth. Not sure how that happened
AJAB: grants immunity to diseases. Should be taken regularly
AKAB: assembled keyboard at birth. Fond of pushing your buttons
ALAB: a good boye of indeterminate gender
AMAB: queen of air and darkness. Always be polite, but don’t make deals with the Fae
ANAB: assigned neko at birth. Not to be confused with AFAB, who also gets a neko at birth
AOAB: assigned onomatopoeia at birth. Just what it sounds like
APAB: assigned prosopopoeia at birth. Always beside themselves
AQAB: assigned Quintilian at birth. Our educational system is weird sometimes
ARAB: assigned renderer at birth. Can switch between 2D, 3D and 4D at will
ASAB: assigned signature move at birth. Will be revealed to them on their 18th birthday
ATAB: rarely seen in the singular
AUAB: assigned ult at birth. Will be revealed to them on their 18th birthday
AVAB: assigned vim at birth. Never quits
AWAB: assigned worker’s rights at birth. Willing to share
AXAB: assigned xylophone at birth. It’s one of the most important words in existence
AYAB: assigned yonder at birth. Always looking out over the horizon
AZAB: assigned zebra at birth. Questions the wisdom of assigning these things at birth

The energy brought to the interview

I

And I’ve been a fool and I’ve been blind
I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way
I’m always dragging that horse around All of his questions, such a mournful sound
Tonight I’m gonna bury that horse in the ground

II

Like Prometheus we are bound
Chained to this rock of a brave new world
Our godforsaken lot
And I feel that’s all we’ve ever needed to know
‘Til worlds end and the seas run cold

III

But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.

IV

Receive thy new possessor–one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

V

Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat —
And there isn’t any use for you to doubt it:
For he will do
As he do do
And there’s no doing anything about it!

VI

The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t. Not without your help. But you’re not helping.

VII

Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad and play’d
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me: the king’s son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring,–then like reeds, not hair,–
Was the first man that leap’d; cried, ‘Hell is empty
And all the devils are here.’

IX

Abraham falls victim to the following illusion: he cannot stand the uniformity of this world. Now the world is known, however, to be uncommonly various, which can be verified at any time by taking a handful of world and looking at it closely. Thus this complaint at the uniformity of the world is really a complaint at not having been mixed profoundly enough with the diversity of the world.

X

The standstill does not last forever. However, it does not cease of its own accord; the right man is needed to end it. This is the difference between a state of peace and a state of stagnation. Continuous effort is necessary to maintain peace: left to itself it would change into stagnation and disintegration. The time of disintegration, however, does not change back automatically to a condition of peace and prosperity; effort must be put forth in order to end it. This shows the creative attitude that man must take if the world is to be put in order.

XI

There is coffee in that nebula

Ten culinary innovations brought home from the exotic lands of America

Sandwich
Ah yes, the humble sandwich, consisting of a slice of bread adorned with any of a wide range of toppings. Whenever you need a quick bite, a sandwich is quite the thing

Submarine
A submarine, or a sub, is a piece of bread featuring any of a wide range of toppings and/or fillings, depending on how the bread is cut, and how well it holds up architecturally during its gumptious consumption

Hoagie
The hoagie, sometimes alternately spelled hoagy, is a piece of bread featuring any of a wide range of toppings. A bitter rival of both the sandwich and the sub, it nevertheless makes for a tasty eat

Grinder
The gentle grinder is a piece of bread featuring any of a wide range of fillings. What separates this gentle beast from its colder cousins is that the filling tends to be of the hot variety. Do not be intimidated by the heat, however; a grind is always a net positive

BLT
The noble BLT is a piece of bread featuring the three ingredients after which it named: bacon, lettuce and tomato. A common practice – some say prank – is to substitute either of these time-honored ingredients with something else starting with the same letter

Hero
Legend has it that there once was a sandwich that was so large that, to quote,  “you had to be a hero to eat it”. The name stuck. Ever since, a heroic aura has accompanied particularly large sandwiches, subs, hoagies, grinders and, indeed, even unmodified BLTs

Sloppy joe
A sloppy joe consists of two slices of bread, separated by an undifferentiated mass of ground beef, seasoned according to local customs and tastes. The name can be traced back to a chef named Joe, who according to postmodern urban lore liked ‘em sloppy

Philly cheesesteak
A cheesesteak (also known as a Philadelphia cheesesteak, Philly cheesesteak, cheesesteak sandwich, cheese steak, or steak and cheese) is a sandwich made from thinly sliced pieces of beefsteak and melted cheese in a long hoagie roll

Melt
A melt sandwich, or simply a melt, is an open or closed sandwich featuring any of a wide variety of toppings and/or fillings. What makes a melt a melt is the signature ingredient of melted cheese, which the Americans discovered goes with anything and everything

Hot dog
A hot dog is a sandwich

That time I started a true crime podcast

Episode 1

Me, introducing a true crime podcast: he has done it before, more times than you can count, a crime so blatant and callous that it boggles the mind. yet, he still walks among us as a free man, unbothered & unpunished for his vile deeds. I am of course talking about the Jaywalker
Cohost, interjecting: uhm, jaywalking isn’t actually illegal, you’re just supposed to not do it by virtue of it being a really bad idea because of the danger to life & limb
Me, crisis managing: I can sense the premise for this episode falling apart as we speak

Me, introducing episode 2 which is now episode 1: the law is clear, and has been for thousands of years. Yet, he persists, and is preparing to break it again even now. this week, he will not rest on sabbath day
Cohost, sighing: also not illegal
Me: there is a trend emerging here

Me, introducing episode 3 which is now episode 1: contracts are-
Cohost, clearly in psychic pain: the fact that minors legally cannot enter into contracts, and thus are not allowed to buy things in stores, is an edge case and does not count as a crime
Me: how did you know

Me, introducing episode 4 which is now episode 1: as organizations grow bigger and more complex, power & influence tends to gather in small groups of people, regardless of how democratic the organization is initially
Cohost: the iron law of oligarchy is not a real law
Me: gosh darnit

Me, introducing episode 5 which is now episode 1: it is a demographic oddity that population density in countries trends towards one really big city, a few medium sized ones, and lots of smaller settlements
Cohost: power law distributions are a math thing
Me: could’ve fooled me

Me, introducing episode 6 which is now episode 1: Vriska did no-
Cohost: Vriska is a fictional character, and as such is not bound by laws other than grammatical. Only physical & legal persons are so bound, and thus able to commit crimes
Me: that’s what I was going to say

Me, introducing episode 7 which is now episode 1: in this episode
Cohost: if this is about the dril tweet about facing god and walking backwards into hell, then I swear to
Me: hello and welcome to episode 8, which is now episode 1
Cohost: buddy,
Me: …yeah, you got me

Me, introducing episode 9 which is now episode 1: as we all know, the vaccines gave us 5G superpowers, which allows us to download podcast episodes on the fly, and lift spoons through magnetism
Cohost: where is this going
Me: it’s a crime we didn’t get them sooner
Cohost: true

Me, introducing episode 10 which is now episode 1: they live in a legal gray zone, in the juridical inbetween, in the unclaimed no man’s land where the law has yet to make itself known
Cohost: that’s not what ‘paralegal’ means
Me: this kills my puns about parallel parking semis

An artful dodger

Art is a step forward, an ambition. It looks at what humanity as a whole – not just individual pockets of it, or even specific individuals, but all of it – can do, and seeks to find out if this really is all there is to it. is the present the limit case of human capability, or can it be pushed further, through intuition, invention or iteration? Are we to settle for what happens to exist – a contingent category if there ever was one – or can we, humanity, move things forward? Art is an endeavor that requires craftmanship, but which can not be reduced to it. There is always a step of transgression, transcendence, transubstantiation. In order to do art, you have to look at a map that says “you are here”, and respond with a forceful “fuck that, let’s get a move on”

To return to your original question, “do computer games have to be fun”, I say, it misses the point. The question is not even wrong. You are thinking too small. We can do better than that. Let’s get a move on

A brand new daylight saving’s horoscope

Aries

They said you’d lose an hour, but they never said which. So they took one that seemed unimportant. A Wednesday afternoon in middle school, geography class. You were taught about the importance of rivers and how you can predict where towns are simply by following their bends and curves. You used that knowledge to great effect in your storytelling efforts. Then they took that hour from you

Taurus

You know how you sometimes sit down and outwardly don’t seem to do very much, but inwardly your mind is a vat of liquid metal in a mental furnace of emotional processing, and while you don’t remember what you thought during that time, the fact that you actually did think it lets you approach the world in a calmer, more mature way? Yeah, you got another one of those hours

Gemini

In the olden times, episodes of TV shows were exactly 43 minutes, so as to make room for commercials. Together, they would make up an hour of actual televised time. in these new times, episodes can be any length they want. This episode is one hour and five minutes

Cancer

Cats will gravitate towards you. But only for this one hour. Be sure to appreciate the gesture while it lasts

Leo

Popular belief is that time flies when you are having fun, and that it slows down to an unending crawl when you are bored. This belief is true, but not necessarily justified. All this saving of daylight this way and that causes ripples all along the time-space continuum. Be wary of blissful moments that seem to last forever; you might get stuck like that

Virgo

The clock will finally be correct once more, after having been one hour off for oh so long

Libra

Only you can save the space-time continuum. Synchronize your watches

Scorpio

There are places in this world that are heavy with the passage of time, as if history itself weighs down on them and demands tribute. As they do right now. That extra hour, cough it up

Sagittarius

It is amazing what things are committed to memory and which things are not. You can remember the phone number of a friend from 30 years ago – there were phones back then – but the entirety of last week is but a mere outline, whose transpiring you have to take on absolute faith. This has nothing to do with daylight saving’s, but you won’t remember that

Capricorn

You asked if we are there yet. Yes. Yes we are

Aquarius

If you think about it, life is all a matter of timer management. Every nibble of food you eat starts a timer until you starve, every bit of water you sip, every breath you take, – they all reset the timer. If any of them run out at any point, it’s game over, no insert coin for extra credits. Which is to say, when in doubt, feed your friends

Pisces

A common trope in science fiction is that there are an infinite number of worlds, one for each possible branching path. If you had turned right, that’s one world; if left, another. For each and every path not taken, a world. What they do not tell you is that daylight saving’s was instituted in order to avoid falling into hell world; the hour is nudged to and fro in such a way that the worst possible outcomes are deftly avoided, without overtly telling anyone that’s the point of it. What we are saving is metaphorical, rather than literal, daylight

Address to the first empath international

My fellow empaths,

[Editor’s note: no further words were spoken, and the lecturer simply stood very intently for a while after uttering these words, but the general consensus seems to be that some sort of message was conveyed through an undefined means of intuition, vibes and echolocation]

An intermediary horoscope

Aries

Cats gravitate towards you

Taurus

There will be a preponderance of spiders. You are advised to as much as possible move around them, and to avoid their central hub for the time being if it happened to spawn near your residence

Gemini

This is not a place of honor. Unless you are a bear. The bears have made it their home. They are very proud of it. Steer clear

Cancer

Get on the train. This offer will only be valid once. This is not a drill

Leo

For about five hours, the world will operate according to Shadowrun rules. If you happen to become an elf during this time, know that it is only temporary, and that you therefore should explore every avenue before they evaporate

Virgo

No gods, no master, only genders

Libra

Allow the birds to take you where you need to go. They do not know where it is, but will take you there. Go. Go now

Scorpio

You will host a party. It will be a mild party. Like Prophet of the Mormon Church mild. To your utter surprise, it will not be completely awful

Sagittarius

The snakes have abandoned you. Based on your decisions up to this point, you should either enjoy the reprieve or slither really really fast

Capricorn

You asked if we are there yet. Yes. Yes we are

Aquarius

At journey’s end you shall not be as you are nor may you turn back the way you have come. The times ahead of you will be filled with hardship and many times you will believe yourself far less significant than you truly are. In the days to come, you may stand at a critical juncture between Rythar and Mythar and if that comes to pass you should know this: A time comes for all things to die

Pisces

No one actually said you can’t become a catgirl, you know. It is an option that is available in the game of life. They just hide it behind other, less interesting prospects