In my ongoing quest to make stuff, I’ve signed up for the local library (to get access to the makerspaces). Along with the impressively well stocked maker-space, the library also has a side benefit I didn’t see. It turns out the City of Melbourne library system pays for Kanopy. I had never heard of it, but there was posters advertising a series on the Viking age, so I signed up for it. Turns out Kanopy is made by Overdrive, the same people behind Libby (The ebook lending app a lot of libraries provide).
I’ve been quite enjoying the stuff that‘s available on the service. Lately I’ve been watching a HBO series, Tokyo Vice, on it. It’s inspired by Jake Adelstein’s memoir of the same name, recounting his time as a journalist in Tokyo. As the name suggests, he spends most of his time investigating/tangling with the yakuza. Highly recommended for the story, but also because they filmed it on location in Tokyo, and it shows. The city becomes a character in the story in a way I doubt they’d manage to achieve had the producers simply shot just the establishing shots in Tokyo (as is common for cost reasons).

Speaking of videos, Terry Godier published another video essay weeks ago that I’ve only just gotten around to watching - A room you cannot see. It’s just as good as his written essays. This one examines his experiences with subscription music, and how we’ve traded ownership of the actual thing for access to the thing. Ownership lead to connection - you had to research your music purchases, and that meant connecting with others who had similar tastes. Having the entirety of the world’s music at your finger tips is amazing, but it does remove the need for that connection. It’s a call to re-examine the bargain that we’ve struck with the mega-corporations that control the gates for these services. The internet itself is neutral, but the bargains we’re striking for the services that run over it are not.

On a more technical note, mechanical pencil is the digital equivalent those cut-away/blueprint books that DK publishes (used to publish?). I remember reading one that dissected medieval castles in my youth. Mechanical pencil scratches the same itch - take a look inside the mechanisms of a mechanical pencil, or a Zippo lighter.

Story inspiration of the week

This week‘s story inspiration is a object that makes a great Macguffin for the hero to seek: worry stones. They’re the original fidget spinners, popular since time immemorial - a small stone smoothed by a river or the ocean that you can turn in your hand, or rub your thumb over. TV Tropes has a great list on how you could deploy this Macguffin.
I’m quite taken with the idea of the stone being extremely old, magic (wizard’s fidget spinner/spare power bank?), and broken in two parts. The protagonist has to unite the two pieces to save the village/the world/his cat from being plundered by an invading army/destroyed by a demon/eaten by a gru.

I’m glad you’re here,
Justin

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0