@zeruch@mastodon.social
@zeruch@mastodon.social avatar

zeruch

@zeruch@mastodon.social

Silicon Valley native, tech, artist, wonk, raconteur. I'll veer from topic to topic, and change stylistically on a whim. Curious about stuff and things.

UCD alum (PoliSci/IR & Tech Policy). Strong interests in the arts, actual political science, cliodynamics, systems theory, and seeking a bit of adventure at even the smallest scale.

I own more albums than you have had changes of underpants since birth.

josepharruda.com

For art commissions and/or licensing, joseph.arruda@gmail.com

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

clive, to random
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Fantastic -- if super-distressing -- article by Gisele Navarro about the horrible state of product reviews online

The tl;dr is that Google seems to overweight reviews from longstanding big journalism brands ...

... but many of those brands, like Popular Science, were long ago bought up by private equity or conglomerates, then hollowed out ...

... so they now produce crappy articles that are probably lying about their "test labs" to please Google

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

Read it! So good

zeruch,
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@clive that's been pretty obvious for a while. It takes a fair amount of scrutiny to figure out which reviews are utile and which ones equine dung.

Google is really setting itself up for disruption, but I don't know if it will be a single vendor or just a disintegration into smaller enclaves in typical SV de/consolidating cyclical fashion.

rysiek, to bluesky
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Old blogpost bamp:

is cosplaying decentralization
https://rys.io/en/167.html

> BlueSky’s decentralization is a similar kind as with cryptocurrencies: sure, you can run your own node, but that does not give you basically any meaningful agency in the system.

> “Neutrality” and “speech” and “voice” and “protection from bans” is mentioned right there, front and center, in BlueSky’s overview and FAQ. At the same time moderation and anti-harassment features are, at best, an afterthought.

zeruch,
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@rysiek "'Id go further and say that the idea of a single policy that could be implemented in a clear, discrete, consistent way across hundreds of millions of people using a given social network is preposterous."

I don't entirely agree in the sense that just like real life we can generally globally agree that rape and murder are bad, but yes, your point otherwise stands well.

A key Fedi advantage is granularity of experience anyway.

/1

zeruch, to random
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A clear indicator of just how far the US circus has fallen is evidenced right here; when Bill Kristol is saying this out loud, you know even traditional conservatives are terrified of madness and late stage as a combination.

zeruch,
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@Uair his father was an actual public intellectual (whether one agrees with his positions, that's one thing, but at least with him was a passable attempt at rigor), but Bill always struck me as a ball-less, snivelling opportunist, riding on his surname and little else. But apparently in a Trumpian ideosphere, even he has found limits.

zeruch, to random
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"“In other words, while justices are jetting all over the world on fancy private family vacations paid for by -wing or collecting hefty cash gifts from those billionaires for their personal museums and family members private school tuition payments, the says the real problem in our legal system is that too many victims of corporate wrongdoing are fighting access to the courts in the first place,”"

Sounds about right.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4205325-raskin-calls-out-gop-for-ignoring-supreme-court-sugar-daddies/

zeruch, to random
@zeruch@mastodon.social avatar

: "I'm Catholic in my complications and Buddhist in my aspirations." - Boy George

zeruch, to random
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is a better Morrisey, both personally and professionally, than actual : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ0rEnp8kmw

zeruch, to SteelyDan
@zeruch@mastodon.social avatar

"This is a 90s live gig with (Living Colour, Zig Zag Trio), (#P-Funk, Santana, ), and JP Bourelly (, Cassandra Wilson) and is an hour of both accessible and experimental jams of original material, as well as some very eccentric covers of The Meters‘ “Cissy Strut” and Sonny Sharrock’s “Dick Dogs”.

RIP TM Stevens.

https://zeruch.wordpress.com/2024/03/17/sounds-that-have-been-made-ep-107-vernon-reid-t-m-stevens-dennis-chambers-jp-bourelly-live-1995/

zeruch, to drawing
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February 2024. A quick pencil of singer-songwriter (originally of fame, including their big hit "voices carry" about her ex, the founder of industrial band Ministry, Al Jorgenson).

zeruch, to usenet
@zeruch@mastodon.social avatar

", or NetNews, is a text-only social discussions forum, or rather a set of a great many forums, called "newsgroups," carried by multiple servers around the world. Although the original developers closed down their instance in 2010, that was just one server out of hundreds, and many are still running just fine. It never went away – it's still alive, you can get on it for free, and there is a choice of client apps for most OSes to help you navigate."

https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/30/usenet_revival/

zeruch, to longboarding
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A idea I had in storage for quite some time, a deck as a canvas. I have an idea of how to finish it now...

zeruch, to unity
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I am not a game dev, but this is shady AF: "Following the update to its pricing plan that charges developers for each game install, has seemingly silently removed its repository that tracks any terms of service (ToS) changes the company made."

https://www.gamerbraves.com/unity-silently-deletes-github-repo-that-tracks-terms-of-service-changes-and-updated-its-license/

zeruch, to art
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February 2017, "Maddie Healie" from the defunct Sktchyapp.

zeruch, to random
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There are plenty of pop music home covers of tunes on Youtube, but a Lee Sklar lookalike, playing a Steinberger bass with a parrot on his shoulder, napping while the bassist stoically runs through The Police track "Spirits in the Material World" caught my bemusement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlQCzWltPdw

zeruch, to random
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For those that only think of the gothic disco vibes of their commercial peak, here is the complete session recorded by The on 8 August 1978 for the show on BBC Radio 1. It's truly gloom (the classic track "Being Boiled" is a favorite), and yet the initial DNA of the group is there, including one cheeky as hell cover of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling ":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mClMsqfSms

zeruch, to beer
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May 2024. Even when I'm on another leg of , I try to keep a drawing practice going as best as I can. In this case a bit of a session in an absolutely spectacular boutique Hotel I found in San Luis Obispo, called The Granada. I basically broke out a few old sketchbooks and if I couldn't think of anything new to draw I started painting in very skeletal from the semi distant past. by brewery in SLO.

zeruch, to meta
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"...pushed back on the notion that Iron Truth was able to get content taken down outside the platform’s official processes, but declined to comment on ’s underlying claim of a back channel to company employees...The real risk...in the extent to which companies that control the speech of billions around the world are receptive to insiders arbitrarily policing expression."

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/10/israel-disinformation-social-media-iron-truth/

zeruch, to art
@zeruch@mastodon.social avatar

from 2020 "estresse de baixo nível que nunca tem fim" - mixed media (acrylic inks and paint, grog squeezers, gouache) on bristol paper, then digital dis/reassembly.

Available as prints.

zeruch, to 80s
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Well, I had forgotten this happened in the : Medley with , , and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-NgnympxAE

zeruch, to art
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April 2024. Math rock guitarist wunderkind of Covet, drawn in ink.

zeruch, to random
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RIP Keith LeBlanc, one of the greatest drummers , beat mechanics and production gods the world has barely known by name, but absolutely known by sound.

zeruch, to random
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"I admit I had no idea who was when I first heard it. I was 10 or 11, and it played a few times on college radio, which I was only just starting to tune into, but for which so much of the messaging in the music was alien."

This track by was probably the first solo track of his I ever heard, and it still is as listenable as it was in the mid 80s:

https://zeruch.wordpress.com/2024/04/05/sounds-that-have-been-made-ep-112-keith-leblanc-malcolm-x-no-sell-out/

zeruch, to random
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A rare live bootleg of at CBGB's in 1977: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv7GBcrGzew

zeruch, to random
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A love letter to : "They are a poster child for how to become a Kafka-grade punchline of incompetence, venality, and naked mendacity.

In this case I actually took the printer related to this, and dropped it from a decent height into a dumpster. The noise of shattering poor-build quality and poorer CX felt almost post-coital."

https://zeruch.wordpress.com/2024/03/21/a-love-letter-to-hp/

zeruch, to random
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I never get tired of promoting the music of : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9pgYCw2YvU

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