Weekend Things, W15–17
John Clarke, alcohol prohibition, artificial intelligence and cunts
I didn’t write any Things last weekend — instead of reading the internet in recent weeks, I’ve spent eleven thousand hours playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Turns out that it’s much more enjoyable than thinking about the latest horrors from Trumplandia, or what’s happening in the French election, or whether Peter Dutton is going to become Prime Minister. Ugh.
Though per capita income is less than $600 a year, many if not most men used to routinely spend much of their money on alcohol, further impoverishing their families.
In Bihar State in India, women are policing the state’s recently-introduced alcohol ban, and reformed drinkers are joining them in pursuing vigilante justice against those who brew moonshine in defiance of the law.
Several years ago, I worked on a website for John Clarke (a collab between Inventive Labs and Something Splendid, with help from John’s excellent son-in-law Stew), and spent a few enjoyable hours in his company figuring out the details. He was, as everybody has said through a thousand anecdotes in the last couple of weeks, a warm, hilarious, generous man who contributed enormously to Australian culture, and was clearly also a wonderful father, husband and grandfather — I have been absolutely aching for his lovely family these last couple of weeks, as well as feeling bereft that he’s not here to give us his take on the new citizenship test, or Mike Pence’s visit, or the 457 visa, or whatever else might come up. Just the worst thing.
I mean seriously, it’s hard to believe that this is not a John Clarke contrivance.
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Here is a cool list of women in design from all over the world. You should a) invite them to speak at your conferences and events and b) submit missing names to the Google Doc.
I am excited to visit these Reykjavik bakeries that David Lebovitz has so kindly listed and lovingly described. (What else should I do in Reykjavik?)
Good effort, Australia. Nobody liked the Reef anyway. Maybe we should hand over some public money so that Carmichael can properly put an end to the whole thing.
Old news now, but something I want to be reminded of again one day: in a press conference a couple of weeks back, the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said “You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons” (he also, almost amusingly, referred to concentration camps as “Holocaust centers”). I have no idea if this was pandering to white supremacists— it wouldn’t surprise me — or if Sean Spicer really just is appallingly ignorant and inattentive, but either way, I’m finding it hard to get my brain around.
People often ask me if I watch and enjoy Silicon Valley, but I don’t and cannot, because Real Life is just like that, but so much more entertaining. Take, for example, Juicero.
While they are at some level modeled after how real neurons work, I don’t think that in the long run AI systems will resemble real brains at all, any more than commercial airplanes flap their wings.
Liza Daly is a friend and former colleague with an A+ brain. This layperson’s guide to AI / machine learning / neural networks is a great place to start if you want to know more about these transformational technologies (which you should, because they’re probably going to change your life). She’s included a bunch of further reading for the curious, too.
Let’s turn to the etymology first. Cunt is old. It’s so old that its exact origins are lost in the folds of time and etymologists continue to debate where in the cunt cunt comes from.
A History of Cunt (via Lili Wilkinson) is a ripping read, and also helpful if you need to undergo desensitisation to this excellent, useful word.
