Today I had an appointment far from home, an unpleasant drive. Happily I found a branch library along the route to browse different offerings than what I'm used to. Nothing beats in-person browsing for discovery. (Online searching & browsing work well when I have a good sense of what I'm looking for.) Came home with 3 poetry books and a CD. Yay!
Omg a friend just complained that Instagram is so bad for photos and I went all hard sell on Vernissage and Pixelfed. I hope that they join one.
I have weird trivia about President Obama: he's a fan of The Talking Moose.
I loved #TalkingMoose 🫎 in college in 1990. It was on a friend's roommate's computer. The friend & I programmed the Moose to say all kinds of whack & the guy whose computer it was hated it! Roommates sharing Macs was a thing back then.
In the 2010s feeling nostalgia I searched for Moose artifacts. There aren't enough. I found a Talking Moose Twitter account with Obama as the only mutual.
I like lawyers... stir fried.
It must be late in my time zone & I must be feeling woozy because I'm about to ask for a free laptop! Lol.
A while back someone offered laptops for the needy. Even though my MacBook is ancient & I'm perpetually scared it's going to quit on me with no backup plan — I've had scary moments — I didn't ask. I figured that I have one, bad as it is.
Here's my case (& I expect nothing to come of it): I want to try Linux. US border crossing is in my future & a clean start laptop would feel safer.
Feeling a certain kinda way about those who left various bad places and now post to their Substacks and Bluesky accounts
Cmon people
All you did was add an unnecessary layer until your next principled move
6/6 our current situation unbearable is profit. Restaurants that are barely making ends meet have to contract with multiple entities to have their own simple website, so obviously they're leaving it to Facebook or google or doordash. It may sound like I'm doing away with web design jobs but I'm not. Just like my world will have private restaurants in addition to free nourishment for all. My dream society improves options & provides basic minimum standards for all.
Will I put this in a story? 😝
5/6 corporations are lax on security, privacy, & spam prevention because they profit from it. Their business model is built on disrespecting privacy. I will challenge my (made up) world to do better by making it a top government priority. After all information & communication are essential.
That finally brings me to my imagined alternatives for restaurant websites! Everyone who wants one can have the simplest of websites for free. They enter basic info in a form & the site is made. What makes
4/ Postal agencies would be expanded to provide all manner of essential communications, including some tier that's free of charge, in web, email, phone, & some physical delivery — though this would be minimized for conservation. No more legal notices being required on paper in the mail because there will be secure official email. The publicly provided communications would enforce spam prohibitions as the highest priority with strict penalties. Security isn't foolproof but we all know corporate
3/ In my alternate world I would not nationalize and do away with capitalist enterprises but I would establish community-governed, fair alternatives for many services. All citizens are entitled to secure communication; it's necessary for government communications, finance, and voting. When I envision governments getting into business what I see is competent employees treated well programming basic secure FOSS alternatives to commercial networks. Web & email identities would be available for all.
2/ I do dream of world building down to minutiae. Because those things are what build a world. For example, it's such a shame that much of our web & email are unusable. Since I'm creating another world I could go back & fix it—but I'll start with how things are. There are ample justifications for breaking up the predatory big tech companies. In so doing a fewer frills alternative could be built. Again I remind readers that I'm making up another world so no need to criticize the unlikelihood!
Listening to https://party.radiofreefedi.net/
Yayyy! Thank you @radiofreefedi
Writing ramble (first post public, follow ups quiet):
My post about wanting restaurants to have websites with menus [https://mastodon.art/@RMiddleton/114688285464490695] is probably my most popular toot. It opens discussion as to why things are as they are and it's an opportunity for my imagination to run wild.
My long term fiction project grew out of my desire to imagine better ways of doing things. I don't know if I would actually world build such minutiae as restaurant websites but...
1/
Latest post to Insta. There's a whole story that happened right before I wrote this one (that I'm too tired to share) but this is my view. I realize many artists and authors who manage to make it in the current system will likely disagree with me. Since I had the option to share with music (and that makes the words stay on screen longer on that obnoxious platform) I chose Karen Carpenter singing, "We've only just begun to live." Culture is deadened by copyright.
6/6 I say that the distinction above between art & design is not a moral value judgment EXCEPT insofar as art requires passionate defending. With gatekeeping defining who lives and dies, artists are pressured to design their work to please the powerful. We attempt to retain as much art as possible within the design, but the tension is there.
Art requires passionate defenders.
Because the intrinsic value of all human existence STILL requires passionate defenders.
5/ intelligent those beings could produce art if they wanted.
My understanding of 'art' is informed by contrast with 'design'. Design is anything created to serve a purpose. There can be some overlap between design & art (or artsy design maybe) but categorically they are different. Art serves no other purpose than expression. Art is play. Art is self motivated.
Art is for art's sake. Everything else is design.
This distinction is not a moral value judgment.
4/ I do this. If I do ever write a book it won't suffer from lack of length but rather ability to retain a reader's attention! All of the above is what I think of by the term gatekeeping. Onto my definition of art, that at this point applies only to me because with the limited exceptions of this tag & the fediverse I am not in a community.
Art is expression. I normally say "human expression." AI art is not art because AI is not AI. If humans ever create beings that exist independently & are
3/ IRL communities are more difficult because of bodily existence. Migration is costly & regulated. Bodies are mortal. Impatient regulators choose to manage communities via bodily harm & death.
It may seem that none of the above applies to a question about art, but human livelihood is determined by gatekeeping. I believe every intense debate is existential at root. (I do try to keep this in mind when considering my political opponents whose concerns are offensive & ridiculous to me.) Sigh.
2/ are like minded (because that's the most pleasant) gatekeeping occurs among a group with a common standard. Joining the fediverse is a healthy example. I have no personal relationship with anyone on my server. It's open to all. I read the terms, I agree to the standards, I request an account, I join, I behave accordingly, my server severs association with those who violate our standards. It's as fair as possible, with room for feedback & freedom to migrate at any time.
#ScribesAndMakers People here are open minded, don't want to gatekeep, but where do you draw the line? Aside from AI, which most agree on, what does not count as art?
Excuse the pedantic response I'm making this a thought exercise.
Gatekeeping is control over others, that I believe futile & dehumanizing; while defining limits for myself is healthy growth. Natural tension arises when the self is extended, me into we. If I have barriers defined for myself & choose to associate with those who 1/
First time watching Muppets Most Wanted. Except for my extreme hatred of Ricky Gervais I think it's good.