Haven’t posted a photo of Lavander for a while (because she doesn’t pose like Wally does, the tart).

Status:

Decided to power-wash the paving outside the back door today using the pacing methodology of do a bit, rest, do a bit more, and so on. I also did most of it sitting down and discovered that when you hold the nozzle directly above the ground like a giant pen it balances on the pressure from the jet, hovering with no need to direct it. This is much easier on the wrist than the standing-up method of waving it around.

So all good for avoiding a CFS crash, except by the end I just had to push it, because I’m a fool who still hasn’t learned the lesson. Feeling a bit pooped now, but fingers crossed I didn’t do any damage.

Reading:

• Into the right-wing dreamworld — I started this thinking “in the future the media analysis of images coming out of the Trump presidency is going to be fascinating” and then I realised I was reading the first draft. Some great thoughts about a visual flood that feels too instinctive to be deliberate but too consistent to be random.
• Two days of Town Square — This is a daft little widget you can insert on your website for visitors to chat. I tried it out here and decided against it for aesthetic and functional reasons but it’s a nice idea.
• Afropresentism and the Kinternet — ‌"a conceptual model for a network that weaves together myth and ancestors; theory and practice."
• UK attorney general tells staff to stop using X amid disinformation concerns — It’s a start.
• We must be alive to the dangers of a UK social media ban – and the way to really help young people — Posting because of the shocking-to-me revelation that “media literacy will join the national curriculum in England in September 2028”. What the fuck? It isn’t already? How are we even functioning as a society??? (That’s a rhetorical question, obvs.)
  • A safe, informed digital nation — The policy paper on gov.uk. I haven’t read it but I’m intrigued to see what’s covered.

Watching:

• Ceiling fans: the simple idea we keep screwing up ‌(1:11:10) — Maybe a bit too much of a deep dive and I zoned out in the last quarter, but the first half was really interesting, including the nugget about fans on the set of the movie Casablanca rotating slowly so they’d be picked up by the camera shutter which then led to sales of fans that rotated ineffectually slowly for aesthetic reasons. I grew up in SE Asia where we had ceiling fans because living-on-the-equator and despite that being 45-52 years ago I still miss them on hot days. Suspect our terraced house ceilings are a little too low though.