Halfman-Newsletter.059-2025Sep
Sorry, it’s here again. Really, terribly sorry.
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September
As opposed to the literary onslaught that was the summer wrap up, which you might remember for having to take a day off of work to truly imbibe, and then another day off to recover, this month I wrote basically only a Top10 for September.
Things I’ve been thinking about that have also been keeping you up at night that you can look forward to me writing about:
- How do people sleep in cliff side tents (AKA portaledges)?
- Why are areas around train stations always more dodgy?
Flash Kit Community wished me a happy birthday before my wife did. It’s that forum for a long dead tech I signed up for decades ago when the Internet was ruled by animated vector intros. One year I tried to delete my account but couldn’t and then the next year realised I’ve been getting these emails for over a decade and this is about the only continuity I have in my life. That same birthday I woke up from I swear was dreams with Gorilla Biscuits playing in them. I believe this to be a very positive omen.
It’s begun. We’ve had barely enough time to fold up the shorts and regret the passing of another summer without having done half of what we hoped to, when the Zamboni rears its merciless head on the ice and the hockey season begins. Then I remember that axiom of the ages:
If you’re wondering why you can’t quite get into youth hockey, it’s because you’re not drinking enough beer.
Canadians, I Salute Thee
Speaking of Canada (and this is what hockey is known as in Czechia apparently), if you were wondering about maple syrup production and US-Canadian relations, look no further than this podcast. It’s true, there is an OPEC-like cartel, Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec (Quebec Maple Syrup Producers), setting global prices of the brown gold. As a proud Ohioan though, this always rubbed me the wrong way given my home state’s ranking eighth in US maple syrup production. Given the role of pancakes in civil society though, I think what we really need in these troubled times is more maple syrup and sometimes we just need to roll with it.
Despite these cross-border conflagrations, Canadians remain awesome. Case in point…
True story: My wife was at a cafe here in Ljubljana and there was an older couple with a dog. She made some comment about oh what a nice dog as one does and sure enough, the couple happened to be Canadian, and in appreciation of her appreciation, and I swear on the first four Black Sabbath albums this happened, they handed her a small glass bottle of Canadian maple syrup.
Preach
Why does our culture cling to the idea that if you haven’t made it by thirty, you won’t? Part of it is economic: industries want to exploit youthful energy at low wages. Part of it is romantic: the myth of the prodigy is more cinematic than the tale of the slow grinder. But part of it may also be anxiety about mortality. To celebrate the late bloomer is to admit that our lives can change radically past middle age, which is destabilizing. If anything can happen at forty-seven, then perhaps we cannot measure ourselves against arbitrary deadlines.
Please, Make Sense of My Notes
“Your boy Euripides was talking all sorts of shit”
I swear this was written in the middle of the day and nowhere near a beer. I checked the time stamp even.
Birders
LISTERS: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching is the best thing you will have watched in a long time. Notice it’s not in the Top 10, because it’s above number one. It is beyond time and space that way. Two guys spend a year following obsessive and ultra-competitive birdwatchers and in the process themselves become the observed. It’s as hilarious as it is just damn interesting to see a life and obsession so thoroughly explored.
Sure, you get a taste of it in The Wallcreeper, an excellent read by a Frantzen disciple and protege Nell Zink, but not as much as if you see how utterly stoked people can get over seeing birds.
A number of years ago, I had the pleasure of having designed the website of the Slovenian Bird Watching And Studying Association DOPPS. In return they took my coworkers and I on a birding trip. It was amazing. Sitting in the woods for ages, desperately still like schoolchildren, then driving for to all corners and then veering off the side of the road and giddily running into the wood whilst being shushed and letting us know just how rare of an opportunity we were about to have. I think of that day often, not just because of the yearning to cast off this cloak of cynicism that bedraggles me wherever I go, and just enjoy birds and nature which is all around us, but also out of a skewed sense of jealousy to be able to lose yourself in lists and something so innocent. I’ve considered trying to bird myself and then realised I have the attention span of one.
Why Seagulls Love Parking Lots
Growing up on the mean streets of suburban Cleveland, every day of your life you would pass strip mall parking lots filled with seagulls. Despite being miles away from the nearest body of water Lake Erie which as you know forms the maritime border with Ontario, Canada, there they stood shitting everywhere and not a sea to be seen.
Sure, nobody likes gulls, and despite often being called “trash birds,” seagulls are not there to dumpster dive like the crust punks they are. It’s just that parking lots are chock full of fallen crumbs and scraps from Quiznos or wherever. So don’t believe the bullshit about clear lines of sight to look out for predators, because at least when I was a kid, the only predators were people like that fucked up kid Billy three streets over who fed gulls Robotussin to watch them explode.
Leisure as Resistance
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I’ve been aware of competitive sauna for a while now. Take this as you will, it’s fine. But I’ve been there. I’ve sat there naked as the day I was born surrounded by Austrian pensioners equally naked and sagging in ways I didn’t realise were possible for our species and endured the trials of the aufguss meister. But competitive massage is taking things to a level, sure a next level, but a level nonetheless I’m not sure I can fully appreciate the absurdity of.
Read It Never
There are times when something I write down, lets say phrases such as “The notion of “societal ADHD” give me pause and make me consider. These are times when an idea is so well summarised by four words that I actually for a minute feel stupid for not coming up with it, because of course when you read a turn of phrase so good you just stop right there in the middle of reading and just have to record it. That is because you likely have the aforementioned disorder like the rest of us. And that is the point with Pocket and all these apps where you tuck away parts of the Internet to read for a day that will never come.
But wait Jim, you wrote about Pocket being shut down way back in March, well before these 3 Quarks clever clogs didn’t you? I did and that made that stupid minute a little shorter thank you very much.
Drinking Regulation as Challenge
If there is one thing I enjoy as much or possibly more than fun facts, it’s knowing super random people. One is a large carnivore biologist from Norway who happened to live on an island that endlessly fascinated me, which just so happens to have a pretty good hardcore band named after it. I’m talking about Svalbard of course. Sure enough because it’s in the arctic and besides having not much to do besides avoiding polar bears, working in a mine and enduring half a year of darkness, alcohol is a big deal and way too attractive as a hobby. So there are alcohol ration cards.
Bear in mind this card is to be punched. It has boxes to be filled. It is in fact challenging you, the drinker, to get to the end whether you like it or not.
It reminds me of one halcyon summer ages past in the wilds of exurban Northeast Ohio and festival of native Ohio wines. It’s a thing. So sure enough you used to be able to go there, slap your 20 on the entry desk and drink enough thimble shots of overly sweet, local wine to put you in another dimension. Someone caught wind that unlimited alcohol was in some sort of violation of state law so instituted, similar to Svalbard, a punch card. Nobody probably notified the state though that there was something like 64 squares to be punched.
History Corner
Arabic was [also] inscribed on bronze weights, and it has long been clear that the Norse adopted the standard system of measurement used in the Caliphate. Archaeologists also find locally made weights in Scandinavia that have been given attempts at inscriptions that are just squiggly lines, clearly because ‘everyone knew’ that this is what proper weights should look like.
Geography vs Accessibility
If you’re going to have a micronation like Arbezie, I would implore you to think about your official accessibility policy as apparently the coat of arms is the wrong colour because someone was colour blind.
Here is more proof of why the internet still can be amazing, which is this 3d recreation of their flag waving.
Design Corner
It’s back with another instalment of Designer Corner, which you might have framed and put on your wall last month because Russell Davies is rad, but this month I present to you another design hit I love and you will too.
Usman Haque’s Haunt is one of the reasons I think I did a masters, despite it happening whilst I was already doing said masters. Anyhow, it’s perfect as a project, as a comment, as an exploration, except for the obvious missing ingredient which is it not being done around Halloween.
Using humidity, temperatures and electromagnetic and sonic frequencies that parapsychologists have associated with haunted spaces, this project aims at building an environment that feels “haunted” - a non-visual architecture.
That’s right, it was that dastardly astute, approachable and just fucking cool. It’s one of those projects that when you explain it to someone who doesn’t have way too much education they would also say it’s just fucking cool.
Tech Debt
Remember when you just sort of remembered things? Remember when, if you have essentially no memory of things money or value related like me, you might have just written something down? Remember when there was an app for that? Well the gravy train left the station ages ago but someone decided that an app needed to exist for remembering who you lent things to. If you ask me, and you didn’t don’t worry I know, there should be some sort of ISO standard where if your app can essentially be replaced by a spreadsheet, or even a post-it note, then it’s consumed in flames and you have to do the dishes for a month.
Then there is Danger Testing who are basically what the RCA part of my brain says I should be doing which is taking all that art school vigour and “questioning” and then just making generally useless apps as commentary. Which actually sounds pretty damn cool.
If I could invent a software as art genre, it would be “stonerware” and on my first compilation I would put out entitled “Beyond the Riddle of Beltharum” and would feature a cover replete with lens flare, dragons and planets. Well anyhow, Flower Computer Co.’s Yuma, an app where you chat with “everyday objects, flora, fauna, and more,” would be on that.
Physical computing and physical interactions were supposed to be thing and then out of nowhere Microsoft killed Kinect, but today we have this arpeggiator which has zero profit potential, works in a browser with your webcam and will entertain you for about 50 glorious seconds.
Way back in ’95 someone way smarter than me at MIT was making a plea for Calm Technology and with all the time in the world we never sorted it.
Ends
That’s it. I tried. So should you.
- Jim
