Analogue “imperfection” is trending just as AI makes polish effortless, but much of what’s called handmade is digitally faked; ink drawings become jpgs, letterpress “bite” and film grain shift from tolerated flaws to proof-of-realness. Elizabeth Goodspeed at Its Nice That:
Historically, printers worked hard to avoid deep impressions. In fact, it was considered a sign of poor craft for the letterforms to be deeply embossed. Only now do we exaggerate the bite of metal type into paper as a way to prove that something was really letterpress rather than a digital facsimile. What used to be tolerated as limitation has been rebranded as virtue.
Om Malik coins his own definition of “neo-noir” to explain why he’s binge-re-reading ’70s–’00s crime fiction like Lawrence Sanders and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán without it feeling like nostalgia:
There is no moral high ground in these books. There are just people trying to do their jobs, solve their problems, and get through the day with some dignity intact. That’s not nihilism; that’s realism. It’s more comforting than the moral certainty of classic noir because it matches how the world actually works. Neo-noir says the systems are compromised, justice is partial at best, and we’re all implicated. And somehow, within that framework, people still try to do the right thing when they can.
This piece follows how one obscure Donkey Kong soundtrack upload accidentally became a global sanctuary, and what it reveals about memory, algorithms, and our need to feel less alone online. Bijan Stephen:
For seemingly no reason at all, thousands of people were telling stories about themselves, unguarded even against the background toxicity of internet comment sections. Many of them used the word “checkpoint.” In video games, a checkpoint is a safe space: a place to save your game, where the danger can’t reach you. It’s a place to breathe, in other words. A relief; a respite.
Robin Sloan’s “Flood fill vs. the magic circle” explores how AI’s flood of “symbols in, symbols out” automation collides with the stubborn mess of the physical world:
One implication of a flood-filled internet is that it will soon be crowded with relentless automatic adversaries. Therefore, I think it’s going to make sense to keep more systems and devices offline. I believe a thick and sultry airgap has always been a good idea; it might soon become a necessity.
Finally, a nice quote from I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett:
“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”
Leave a comment