morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
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notebook/daybook
Afropresentism and Kinternet:
“Afropresentism says, I am here bearing witness, yes, and it aches. And yes, I am grieving. And most importantly, yes, I celebrate still being alive enough to feel all of that. I see that you are also grieving and I see that you are alive too… Yes, I celebrate the rage I know I’m not alone in. Yes, I see the everyday barrage— the advertisements and the architectures that have grown so elaborate, so unrelenting in their reminders of our compromise. And, yes everything I bear witness to that wounds me and wounds you I will meet with my own technology of refusal.”
Building from this philosophy and from the dialogue with Mutemi, Githere made the case for the kinternet–a conceptual model for a network that weaves together myth and ancestors; theory and practice. Sketched out by hand and distributed on paper to everyone in the audience, the kinternet is a technology of repair, rooted in grief, rage, slowing down, and connecting with one another in the present.
Genevieve Stebbins’ Delsarte System of Dramatic Expression (1886).
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
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Songs prep the brains of finches yet to hatch for a hot world
Exposure to parents’ “heat calls” makes finch young more resilient to heat after hatching
Ganzeer’s CAIRO DIARIES.
MIXAM: This seems to be a print on demand service for zines that lets you sell individual copies through their website rather than having to order a bunch and sell them yourself.
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
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Sea levels are just the start of how climate change will upend the ocean. Rising temperatures are also threatening a critical artery that runs through the ocean known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. This current, in short, sends warm water northwards and dumps colder water southwards in a giant loop, massively influencing the world’s weather systems along the way.
If temperatures keep soaring, scientists fear that AMOC could collapse — and with it, climate patterns across the globe. Temperatures in Europe would plunge without the injection of warm water it brings. Rainfall in the tropics would be disrupted. And sea levels on the US east coast would rise.
To save AMOC from demise, two researchers have proposed a daring Hail Mary: building a giant dam across the Bering Strait, the channel that separates Alaska from Siberia, to stop the proverbial bleeding. As outrageous as it sounds, the megaproject could in theory stabilize the ocean current, according to the findings of a new study they published in the journal Science Advances.
20th Century Studios has released the first trailer for Whalefall, the adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ novel coming to theaters in October.
The film — which stars Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, John Ortiz and more — is described as The Martian meets 127 Hours, centering on a scuba diver in search of his deceased father’s remains. The diver gets swallowed by an 80-foot, 60-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.
https://deadline.com/2026/06/whalefall-trailer-austin-abrams-josh-brolin-daniel-kraus-1236950810
wtf
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
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The complex puzzle known as little red dots has become more complete since their initial discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022. Now a particular little red dot’s spectrum is helping connect many of the pieces.
A team of astronomers led by Vasily Kokorev at the University of Texas at Austin identified the lucky dot in question: GLIMPSE-17775. By carefully analyzing the dot’s spectrum captured by Webb—the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot—the research team has identified multiple lines of evidence, all of which support the interpretation that GLIMPSE-17775 is a supermassive black hole enveloped in a dense cocoon of partially ionized gas, a model referred to as the BH* (black hole star) scenario.
Among his many mythopoeic pronouncements, the great Sun Ra maintained that he was making music for the future. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, and more than 30 years after he left the planet for the last time, his music is gaining more recognition than ever before. A recent slew of reissues, new compilations and previously unheard live recordings continues unabated. His Arkestra – under the direction of long-time member, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen since 1995 – continues to delight audiences worldwide. Just last year saw the release of two new feature-length documentaries about him. The Magic City examined his early life in Birmingham, Alabama; and the more comprehensive Sun Ra: Do The Impossible did the festival circuit before being shown on the PBS TV network this February as part of its American Masters series of artist biographies – bringing Ra’s improbable story to its widest audience yet.
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
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Dennis Lehtohen’s villages of Greenland.
From April 2025:
American tech entrepreneurs have opened up talks with officials about placing research-oriented freedom cities on the island of Greenland, according to a report in Reuters.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1506076990687-0’); });Last week, news website Reuters reported that at least three anonymized sources had claimed investors in America’s tech industry have been eyeing the island, owned by Denmark, as a site for new cities.
According to the reports, the communities would be freedom cities, established with minimal regulations to promote business.
Reuters reported that the “discussions are in early stages” but suggested that the plans are being “taken seriously” by the prospective US ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery.
“The vision for Greenland, one of the people said, could include a hub for artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, space launches, micro nuclear reactors and high-speed rail,” reported Reuters.
February 2-8, 2025: 2 °C warming locked in, Greenland melt worsens, geoengineering hopes, Indian coal rates, wet bulb heat thresholds, global debt hits $323T, heavy metal pollution in China, UK Food Security report, 1M American kids with Long COVID, Swedish mass shooting, Philippines death threats against president, USAID closure, thousands killed in eastern DRC, hypernormalization…
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
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One of the most interesting parts of the tetrad is the quadrant regarding obsolescence because this is where you can find luxury as well. An easy example of this is how books are now obsolete as popular entertainment which makes them into valid luxury items for Miu Miu’s book club. The other most delicious part of of the tetrad (in our opinion) is the quandrant describing what the media object reverses into when pushed to its limit – which is also the trickiest part.
Here is an excellent tetrad from our workshop participant Paris Parker-Loan.
An Egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros ‘wakeful’) is a concept in Western esotericism of a non-physical entity or thoughtform that arises from the collective thoughts and emotions of a distinct group of individuals.
See also:
- The Tetrad Of The Compass: Obsolesces Stars
- https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/p/waiting-land?utm_source=orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=waiting-to-land
Taryn Riley, “Brood,” mixed media on paper, 14 x 11 inches.
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
Comments closedNew research conducted on a NASA-discovered bacterium shows the microbe is capable of entering an extreme dormant state, essentially “playing dead” to survive in some of the cleanest environments on Earth.
The finding could potentially reshape how scientists think about microbial survival on spacecraft and the challenges of preventing contamination during missions to space. Preventing contamination matters because it helps keep space missions safe, while ensuring that any signs of life spotted elsewhere in the solar system can be trusted.
“It shows that some microbes can enter ultra-low metabolic states that let them survive extremely austere environments, including clean rooms that naturally select for the hardiest organisms,” said Nils Averesch, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the University of Florida’s Department of Microbiology and Cell Science and a member of the Astraeus Space Institute. “The fact that this bacterium can intentionally suspend its metabolism makes survival on spacecraft surfaces or during deep-space cruise more plausible than previously assumed.”
“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you’re dead.” — Tom Stoppard.
A spectre is haunting the best contemporary literary writing, the spectre of necromodernism…
Writing à propos of Louis Armand’s recent opus magnum, A Tomb in H-Section (2025), critic Ramiro Sanchiz called it “a necromodernist tour de force which animates every remain of (un)dead XXth century literature,” thus invoking the spectre of necromodernism, a modernism long-buried but still somehow living on, its undead corpse back again for yet another zombie standoff.
Necromodernism!
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
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OpenAI is seemingly allowing the company behind a teddy bear that engaged in wildly inappropriate conversations to use its AI models again.
In response to researchers at a safety group finding that the toymaker’s AI-powered teddy bear “Kumma” gave dangerous responses for children, OpenAI said in mid-November it had suspended FoloToy’s access to its large language models. The teddy bear was running the ChatGPT maker’s older GPT-4o as its default option when it gave some of its most egregious replies, which included in-depth explanations of sexual fetishes.
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/
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