velcro city tourist board
a blog by Paul Graham Raven
science fiction / social theory / climate futures / infrastructure / utopian narratology / sometimes cats
-
Sinister literature
Book-porn posts: totally acceptable when you paid for ’em yourself. The below represents the results of a spending spree at Verso Books; they were doing a 50%-off-everything sale, and I had a sale of my own to celebrate, so… Lovely; all I need now’s the time to read ’em. Particularly looking forward to Jameson’s Archaeologies
-
Intrusion
Being burgled for the first time is probably a great prompt for developing a hacker-esque mindset. Which isn’t to say i’d recommend it; as of last night, I’ve been burgled four times in my life, and while it’s markedly less horrible a mental experience each time out, it’s still pretty nasty — even when you’re
-
Poppytar noir
So, I sold a story a while ago. Not quite as long ago as I wrote the story in question, mind — that was during the second semester of my Masters, which feels like a lifetime ago. Anyway, the sale went to Ian Whates at NewCon Press. Here’s as much as anyone other than Ian
-
Surveillance and legibility: systems of seeing
“Networks weird people.” Quinn Norton and Ella Saitta explain the yin-yang nature of network effects — and the complicity of hackers and “geek culture” in such — to the Chaos Communications Conference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWg2qEEa9CE This is of considerable interest to me, for two reasons. First of all, because legibility is a big part of what my
-
Positivism will eat itself
They’re mixing the Kool-Aid pretty strong in the Valley these days [via @moonandserpent]: Julien Cuny and Louis-Pierre Pharand, former producers and creative directors at Ubisoft on Assassin’s Creed and FarCry, have formed a new development studio named PIXYUL. Their goal: to map our planet at 1:1 scale using drones, and use the resulting 3D recreation
Who is Paul Graham Raven?
“… who, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with [his] voice, thanks to the god in [him].”