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[ai] An ex-Intel CEO’s mission to build a Christian AI: ‘hasten the coming of Christ’s return’ … ‘Leah Brooks said. Gloo also says it does not “prohibit in any way” Muslim organizations from using its technology. “We’re not trying to take a theological position: we’re building a technology platform, and then giving enough customization capability that the Lutherans can be good with it, the Episcopalians can be good with it, the Catholics can be good [with it], the Assemblies of God can be good with it,” Gelsinger told the Guardian. “We’re trying to say, ‘Hey, there’s a broad tent here of faith and flourishing,’ but also we’re trying to satisfy many organizations that do not take a denominational perspective, [such as] Alcoholics Anonymous.” Gelsinger wants faith to suffuse AI’

[crazy-walls] Narrative String Theory … A huge collection of crazy walls from various TV, movies and comics. [via Phil]

[doom] A satellite runs Doom from orbit, using Ubuntu on Arm … Doom runs in Spaaaace! ‘The relevance to an Ubuntu event was that OPS-SAT ran Ubuntu on its dual-core ARM9 chip – specifically, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. It’s not practical or safe to run do-release-upgrade on something that’s not on the same planet, so “Bionic Beaver” it had to be. Plus, because this was an unmanned satellite which he described as being “about the size of a carry-on bag”, there was nobody there to look at it, and so the bird had no display. You can’t see the game running. That was no problem, as Waage had already worked on Headless Doom.’

[comics] The Common Man Is Coming into His Own … A look at how Jack Kirby’s Jewish identity was reflected in The Thing. ‘In important ways, though, Kirby’s work was intensely personal. “I told in every story what was really inside my gut,” he said in a 1990 interview. If his Jewish identity is reflected at all in his published work, it’s coded, inscribed as a subtext to be deciphered later. “My generation lied to survive,” Kirby told a group of fans in a 1972 conversationwhen he was explaining why he changed his name from Jacob Kurtzberg.’

[comics] Seymour talks about Alan Moore … A tribute from By Rich Koslowski.

[words] The strange and hilarious history of the word “OK” … ‘Journalist Charles Gordon Greene was responsible for the first confirmed use of the word OK in the March 23, 1839 issue of the Boston Morning Post.It was found in a humorous article about their rival paper, the Providence Journal.There are a few theories about the origins of OK, and some of them make perfect sense…’

[movies] For Over 40 Years, I've Wanted to Play That Cool-Looking 'Killer Shark' Arcade Game Briefly Seen in 'Jaws' … A look back at an early 70s arcade game. ‘This little sequence is a clever addition to Jaws. It not only reflects the movie’s theme and shows that Spielberg unsurprisingly had his finger on the pulse of the pop-culture that younger people were into at that time, but it also offers a fun foreshadowing of the film’s climax, when Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), who walks past this guy playing the game as he’s focused on beach protection, finds himself facing down an actual killer shark with an actual rifle, firing away as it closes in and trying to blow it up — except if he loses, he can’t just drop in another coin and try again. It seems like Killer Shark would have been something tailor-made to appear in Jaws, but it was actually released by Sega in 1972…’

[net] My first months in cyberspace … Phil Gyford describes his first experiences of the Internet in 1995. ‘It’s hard to convey how difficult it was to set things up. So new and alien to me. When reading computer magazines I’d always skipped articles about networking and while the computers at university had been connected together, that was only for the purposes of printing, scanning and transferring files. First there was the issue of getting online at all. The Internet Starter Kit spent 59 pages explaining how to set up MacTCP, and PPP or SLIP, two different methods of connecting to the internet, the differences of which happily escape me now.’

[moore] Alan Moore Slow Clap Gif … Alan really gives his all for this slow clap.

[life] Open Source Anxiety Toolkit … A free website that provides a toolkit of simple exercises and techniques to help manage anxiety and seek calm.

[zx] I am still the greatest computer of all time, insists ZX Spectrum 48k … ‘“Look, I loaded Manic Miner from a cassette tape in under five minutes,” boasted the tiny rubber-keyed legend, flickering proudly in forty shades of grey. “Can your so-called ‘gaming PC’ give you that kind of anticipation? That raw, edge-of-your-seat thrill as you pray the tape doesn’t error out at 99%?”’

[history] "Good-bye and see you next war." …

[ai] ChatGPT Is Blowing Up Marriages as It Goads Spouses Into Divorce … ‘Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist known as a “Godfather of AI” — a technology that likely wouldn’t exist in its current form without his contributions — recently conceded that his girlfriend had broken up with him using ChatGPT. “She got ChatGPT to tell me what a rat I was… she got the chatbot to explain how awful my behavior was and gave it to me,” Hinton told The Financial Times. “I didn’t think I had been a rat, so it didn’t make me feel too bad.”’

[comics] After 36 Years, DC Comics To Publish Rick Veitch's Final Swamp Thing … ‘At the DC/Vertigo panel at New York Comic Con, DC confirmed the publication of a story that we have been waiting on for almost thirty-six years. The conclusion of Rick Veitch’s run on Swamp Thing from 1989. With the four final, unpublished issues… unpublished until 2026, that is. And credited to Rick Veitch, the late Michael Zulli, Vince Locke, Tom Mandrake and Trish Mulvihill.’

[comics] Area Man Has Far Greater Knowledge Of Marvel Universe Than Own Family Tree … ‘Sundling reportedly reread several issues of Moon Knight recently and found himself enjoying the subplot of the hero’s romantic involvement with Tigra, it is believed he did not realize his cousin was dating anyone until he received an invitation to the wedding. “I guess Andy had been engaged for a while,” Sundling said of his cousin Tom, whom he has met on 26 separate occasions and once spent two weeks with at summer camp but routinely confuses with other relatives.’

[batteries] X-ray scans reveal the hidden risks of cheap batteries… Think once. Thing twice. Think don’t buy cheap batteries. ‘Lumafield scanned 1,054 batteries – around 100 from each brand – and found 33 of them had a serious manufacturing defect known as negative anode overhang. The defect “significantly increases the risk of internal short-circuiting and battery fires” and can reduce the overall life of the battery,” according to Lumafield. All 33 of the batteries with the defects came from the 424 sold by low-cost brands or brands selling counterfeits.’

[london] The Rainham volcano: a waste dump is constantly on fire in east London. Why will no one stop it? … The appalling history of an ilegal waste dump and the toxic underground fires that resulted. ‘At the beginning of 2012, after complaints from Rainham residents, the Environment Agency commissioned an engineering company to assess Arnolds Field for contamination. The company dug 35 pits, each about 4 metres deep. They found landfill waste – including mattresses and pieces of furniture – at each one. They didn’t find any hazardous waste, but there were elevated levels of lead and benzo(a)pyrene, a potent chemical that causes cancer, in the soil – a sign that something toxic might have been buried elsewhere on site. (McClenaghan, the local fire department commander, believes that in some places the waste reaches 12 metres – about four storeys – below the ground, well out of reach of the 2012 survey.) The engineering company noted that the land was so warm that it melted the winter snow.’

[tv] “From Here?” … John Hoare traces a joke’s journey from a James Bond movie through 1970s British TV mainly. ‘The tale surrounding this is well-known by now. Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais did some emergency rewrite work on Never Say Never Again, coming in three weeks after the film had started shooting, and staying with the production for three months. Of course, they nicked the above joke from their own Porridge, and both writers have openly and repeatedly discussed this.’

[gaming] Jordan Mechner’s Favourite Version of Prince Or Persia … The creator of PoP works through a list of the many different ports of his game. ‘Between 1990 and 1993, more computer and console ports of PoP than I can list — Nintendo NES, Game Boy, SEGA Game Gear, Genesis, Master System, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, NEC PC-9801, FM Towns, Sam Coupé — were developed by teams in Japan, Europe, and elsewhere. Usually, by the time someone handed me a controller to playtest a build, it was too late for my feedback to matter, so I rarely played beyond the first level or two. I don’t remember enough specifics of those versions to compare them; I’ll leave that to players who know them better. There is one unforgettable exception…’

[net] Free Media Heck Yeah … Go download something from the largest collection of free stuff on the Internet.

[covid-19] Insane after coronavirus? … Patricia Lockwood’s demented experience of Covid-19 in March 2020. ‘‘The love of my life is now my enemy,’ I thought to myself, crawling out of the bedroom on hands and knees to take one million mg of Vitamin C, because what the hell else was I supposed to do – apply leeches? What kind of man would fake a cough while his wife was in the next room perishing? Hadn’t he discouraged me from going to the hospital? At the beginning of lockdown, had he not thrown away the empty detergent bottle I set aside for use as an Apocalypse Bidet, telling me I was being a lunatic? Look at him, I thought to myself evilly: fit as a fiddle and playing video games all day – though later, of course, it turned out that he was also delirious and had been playing the same twenty minutes of Skyrim over and over without ever progressing.’

[moore] Alan Moore on the BBC’s Front Row … Discussing Arthur Machen’s fascism, Mervyn Peak, Galton & Simpson, and why Lost Girls is porn not erotica.

[life] The Best Time-Management Advice Is Depressing But Liberating … Advice from Oliver Burkeman. ‘It’s about acknowledging that we are finite, limited creatures living in a world of constraints and stubborn reality. Once you’re no longer kidding yourself that one day you’re going to become capable of doing everything that’s thrown at you, you get to make better decisions about which things you are going to focus on and which you’re going to neglect.’

[phones] My first year without an iPhone … A practical guide to living without a smartphone. ‘Some of you are absolutists, and that’s not going to work here. We can’t turn back time. You can absolutely live completely and fully without the internet, but you have to really change your life. You can totally live ethically with a smartphone, but you will also face struggles. In my opinion, living ethically in either path requires a lot of self-discipline and intentionality. I work as an editor and marketer of books, and as long as I get my work done, I am not obligated to carry an iPhone for my job. Sure, there are apps like two-factor authentication that we use, and occasionally there’s social media marketing that I can’t do on a desktop, but those are pretty easy to work around, and I’ll explain how.’

[tv] ‘Partridge is more popular than me – that’s a given!’ Steve Coogan on Alan’s glorious return … An interview with Steve Coogan promoting his new Alan Partridge series. ‘[Coogan] tells a story of arriving in his trailer to find a blue, checked Aubin and Wills shirt to wear while playing Partridge – which was identical to the one he was already wearing. “I did take mine off and put the other one on, even though there was no one to witness me. There was a time when I was writing with Armando and Pete when I’d say something as myself, and they’d just write it down as Partridge and it would irritate me. Now the Gibbons do it all the time. As you get older, you realise it’s all gravy.”’

[magazine] Byte – a visual archive … A excellently presented collection of old Byte Magazines.

[war] Demon Core: The Strange Death of Louis Slotin … The story of an early nuclear accident at Los Alamos. ‘The plutonium pit that killed Daghlian and Slotin was originally nicknamed Rufus, but after the accidents it came to be called the demon core. The pits that killed tens of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, meanwhile, got no such pejorative monikers. Such is the difference, perhaps, between intended and unintended harm, between the core carefully assembled for the purpose of mass destruction and the core reserved for the realm of experiment.’

[comics] A List Of How David Banner Got Angry … From the 70s Hulk TV Series. (Repost – originally from 2008)

47. Being stuck in a cab in New York rush hour traffic – “You don’t understand,… I have to be there by 4.00!” – “Hey, mac, it’s rush hour, we ain’t gettin’ there til five, so relax.” – “BUT I HAVE TO BE THERE BY FOUR!!!”

[comics] Leonides and the belt of gold – by Kevin O'Neill … An early, unknown and unpublished Kevin O’Neill comic.

[comics] DC To Actually Publish Rick Veitch’s Final Issues Of Swamp Thing? … OMG. I’ve been waiting 36 years for this! :) ‘[The listing for the final Rick Veitch Swamp Thing collection] claims to include four issues of a comic book that simply does not exist. Swamp Thing/Vertigo Special #1-4. DC has never published such a book. Could… could those four issues be the unpublished and uncompleted Swamp Thing #88-91? If so, will DC Comics publish them outside of the book as well? Will we see Swamp Thing/Vertigo Special #1 from DC Comics in December?’

[moore] Alan Moore's 5 Essential Tips for Screenwriters … ‘Know Your Ending Before You Begin – This is Moore’s most emphatic piece of advice for television writers, especially. “I knew what the last shot in the last episode of the last season was going to be,” he said about an unproduced series he wrote. “In fact, I’d known that since before I’d started the five short films and the feature film that the television series would have been a continuation of. I knew the ending before I started. And I can’t underline how important this is.” Moore warns against the “shapeless narrative drift” that occurs when writers make things up as they go along, calling it “a terrible experience for both the writer and for the viewer.”‘

[herzog] Go watch: Werner Herzog has started an Instagram … ‘I am Werner Herzog. This shall be my Instagram.’

[truecrime] Can You Ethically Enjoy True Crime? … A look at the ethics of True Crime from Lifehacker of all places. ‘People have always loved a compelling mystery. People love reality TV. Modern true crime essentially combines both of these things, using the addictive format of the latter to explore the former; it’s natural to get sucked in. The issue comes when we as an audience forget that something is not simply a story for our entertainment, but actually a chronicle of the worst–or final–day of a real person’s life.’

[email] E-mail Addresses It Would Be Really Annoying to Give Out Over the Phone … An amusing list from McSweeney’s. ‘AAAAAThatsSixAs@yahoo.com’

[tv] The Sopranos / Neon Genesis Evangelion Open Credits Mash Up …

[book] Censoring Imagination: Why Prisons Ban Fantasy and Science Fiction … A look at why prisons in America routinely ban books about magic. ‘Looking through the lists of titles prison authorities have gone to the trouble of prohibiting people from reading you find Invisibility: Mastering the Art of Vanishing and Magic: An Occult Primer in Louisiana, Practical Mental Magic in Connecticut, all intriguingly for “safety and security reasons.” The Clavis or Key to the Magic of Solomon in Arizona, Maskim Hul Babylonian Magick in California. Nearly every state that has a list of banned titles contains books on magic.’

[space] With Space Junk on the Rise, Is a Catastrophic Event Inevitable? … ‘Several pieces of a SpaceX Dragon trunk (the portion of the rocket just below the capsule) had landed on the property and on nearby farms. “The longest piece was probably eight feet long, and it weighed 80 pounds,” says Lawler, who teaches at the University of Regina. “If that hit your house, it would go right through; it wouldn’t even slow down.” Lawler returned to the farm several weeks later, when two SpaceX employees arrived in a small truck to cart away the debris. “They silently picked up the pieces and loaded them into the U-Haul,” she says. For Lawler, the incident drove home the growing problem of space junk—and left her with a sense of dread that’s never quite gone away. “Actually standing next to the pieces and thinking about them falling at terminal velocity [about 165 feet per second]—that is terrifying.”’

[comics] Alan Moore’s Greyshirt “How things work out” with art by Rick Veitch … ‘We’re able to tell, by some quite complicated story gymnastics, quite an interesting little story that is told over nearly sixty years of this building’s life, with characters getting older depending upon which panel and which time period they’re in. There’s something that you couldn’t do in any medium other than comics.’

[words] The Bluesky Dictionary … Can Bluesky use every word in the English language? ‘Words We Haven’t Seen: fonticuli’

[podcasts] Time’s 100 Best Podcasts of All Time … ‘The Drop Out – You’re probably familiar with Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder who lied to doctors, patients, and investors about her nonfunctioning blood-testing startup. But Holmes’ eccentricities—her decision to style herself like Steve Jobs, her insistence that her un-housebroken dog was actually a wolf, her sheer confidence in the face of some of the most powerful investors in the world—deserve a longform investigation. ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis hosted a riveting 2019 audio documentary that includes deposition tapes that had never before been heard publicly and dispatches from Holmes’ eventual trial. Holmes’ story lends itself well to the audio format, in part because the quixotic entrepreneur had a jarringly low voice. And the crazy yarn of Holmes’ rise and fall is so gripping, you cannot help but press play on the next episode even if you already know the major beats of the story.’

[mac] MacPaint Art From The Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today … Great collection of early pixilated Mac art.

[banksy] Banksy’s Endangered Animals … One year on, Diamond Geezer surveys Banksy’s Concrete Jungle Safari. ‘Pelicans (Walthamstow) – I first saw this when it was fresh, two pelicans necking fish from Bonners chippy just north of Walthamstow High Street. It took a while to be shielded by plastic because the family were on their six week summer break when Banksy came and painted it. They’re abroad again at present, returning Thursday 4th September, but the artwork’s still safely in place and possibly the greatest of the bunch. If you come for a gander in the autumn be aware that a small bag of chips now costs £4.20 because art doesn’t come cheap.’

[comics] The most important British character in US comics … John Constantine is 40. ‘What would Delano, the writer most closely associated with Constantine’s rise, think if he met the character? “My relationship with Constantine is one of both love and hate. I’m grateful for the changes to the course of my life our association enabled, but, undeniably, that debt also engenders some resentment,” he admits. “Constantine is a cranky old bastard, and so am I. We’d probably clash. I imagine any meeting would be affectionate, but we’d soon start to irritate one another.”

[disgust] This article will make you want to wash your hands … I came across this long read on disgust and public health and found it fascinating. It was published a few years ago but definitely worth a read. ‘Because of the way meat is produced, the world, McLagan notes, is “awash” with this excellent source of protein and iron, but most of it gets wasted. Some is dumped into rivers and lakes, which causes pollution, increasing the nitrogen in the water. The key to avoiding this pollution – and getting some cheap nutrients into the bargain – would be eliminating our disgust for cooking with blood. McLagan finds pig’s blood a marvellous substitute for eggs, with half the calories. In her Toronto kitchen, she whips fresh blood into a stable pink foam, which she uses for anything from rich brownies to dark brown blood meringues. I tried some of both. They tasted good, with a slight metallic tang. But most western consumers find the very idea of handling blood too horrifying even to contemplate.’

[comics] The (Lost) Frank Miller ‘Elektra’ Screenplay? … A review of an Elektra: Assassin screenplay from the late 1980s written by Frank Miller. ‘Some familiar names from Elektra Assassin that show up here are Presidente Huevos, Ambassador Reich, Perry and Garrett, Beaker, and of course the Kennedy-style politician Ken Wind. Unfortunately, there is no Chastity or Nick Fury. Garret, a comedic foil who makes the comics very entertaining, is written in a very serious and earnest way into the screenplay and his character is much more standard and ‘cookie cutter.’ The main villain is Kirigi, an unstoppable brute and member of the ninja group The Hand whom Elektra faced more than once in Miller and Klaus Janson‘s original Daredevil run…’

[tech] If OpenSSL were a GUI … I spent some time recently struggling with OpenSSL which led to this page. :)

[life] New Evidence Suggests Dinosaurs Would Have Driven Selves To Extinction Through Greed And Complacency Anyway … ‘It appears they were already developing the rudimentary traits for corruption needed to exploit each other. This, combined with a genetic predisposition toward pillaging the earth with no regard for tomorrow, would have derailed the ecosystems that sustained them just as effectively as an extraterrestrial object colliding with the planet and setting in on fire.’

[moore] Alan Moore interviewed on art and magic by Roberto Bartual … ‘All of my magical enterprises, though, since the beginning, have been geared towards public revelation, whether as a published piece, a multi-media performance, a film project or a recorded audio work, which I suppose are all different applications or kinds of magic. These days, however, with diminished mobility and a diminishing tolerance for the role of public figure, I am entirely focussed on writing – the first technology, that makes magic and all other technologies possible. This is not to say that I might not do the occasional tarot reading or offer kabbalistic advice to friends and family, but from my point of view, there is nothing in the conceivable universe that cannot be captured and contained by the couple-of-dozen squiggles in the average alphabet.’

[space] Go look at this stunning photo of Phobos orbiting Mars. It was taken by ESA’s Mars Express in 2010.

[space] Who Has Jurisdiction for Crimes Committed in Space? … ‘The closest thing to space crime that law enforcement has yet encountered may be crimes committed in Antarctica, the frigid and isolated continent that’s unaffiliated with any country but operates under the Antarctic Treaty signed by 54 nations. The agreement declares that the suspect is likely under their home country’s jurisdiction. In some cases, the country owning the research station where the alleged crime took place steps in. In 2018, a Russian researcher at Bellingshausen Station on King George Island went after his victim with a knife in the station’s dining room. He was charged in Russia.’

[space] Apollo 10 spaceflight transcript. ‘Give me a napkin quick. There’s a turd floating through the air.’

Turds In Space

[life] Common Mythconceptions … An infographic from Information is Beautiful showing common misconceptions.

[books] 1980s Computer and coding books from Usborne … A nostalgic collection of coding books for kids freely available from the publisher’s website. ‘Many of today’s tech professionals were inspired by the Usborne computing books they read as children. The books included program listings for such iconic computers as the ZX Spectrum, the BBC Micro and the Commodore 64, and are still used in some computer clubs today.’

[movies] 10 Great Shark Attack Films … Great movie list from the BFI. ‘The Shallows contains its narrative within the restricted space of a rocky outcrop where surfing medical student Nancy (Blake Lively) is stranded just 200 yards from the shore following a shark attack. Jaume Collet-Serra’s film realistically plays out the drama in vivid detail, as Nancy steadily dehydrates, sustains blood wounds and gets ever weaker as the great white increases its attempts to attack her. While the narrative of The Shallows is ostensibly Nancy surviving her ordeal, like Jaws it invests its shark with meaning beyond lethal threat, as it functions as both apex predator and major metaphor for the recent loss of her mother. Just as the shark circles Nancy, so does her grief, patrolling her psychological borders, waiting to consume her.’

[life] The Onion: Study: 97% Of Average American’s Day Spent Retrieving 6-Digit Codes … ‘“Our findings suggest that U.S. residents spend roughly 23 hours each day—or 160 hours every week—attempting to log in to online services, being told they need to check their phone for a six-digit code, and then entering that code into the website or app for verification,” said lead researcher Andrew Singh, adding that many Americans have to skip meals and forgo showering in order to find time to read and transfer over the hundreds of codes needed daily to access their medical records, work emails, and food delivery accounts.’

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