I just launched my Axis-Praxis tool, for playing with #variablefonts in the browser :) Video intro vimeo.com/189350146 x.com/axis_praxis/status/792…

1/n A physical book is a real object, anchored. If you read a particular edition, you remember not only the contents but the object itself: its cover, typography, smell, even where a passage sat on the page. Books organize themselves in memory by place --the ancient method of loci. Digital text does not exist.

The greatest harbinger of end times is not plague or war, but the sudden enormous proliferation of Xerox-quality POD editions (unmarked! no warning!) from houses like Penguin.

Christopher Nolan asked the Oracle of Delphi, "Will audiences love my adaptation of the Odyssey?" And the Pythia replied, "They will discuss it non-stop for months before it even premieres." And away he went, glad in this heart, poor fool.

It was an honour to have a 1D map from my collection feature in an @underware talk last year at @ATypI Copenhagen. The video of the talk has just been published. youtube.com/watch?v=5jaYrjHk…

Destroying the @InternetArchive's @WayBackMachine would be the equivalent of the burning of the Library of Alexandria - one of the worst losses of knowledge in history. Media giants are now threatening to do this. We can't let this happen. Pass it on.

清明上河图 (Along the River During the Qingming Festival, 12th century), the painted scroll sometimes called China’s Mona Lisa, has been brought to life digitally before, but AI is taking it to another level 👏

Why not use the giant screen to scroll along the entire Tapestry from left to right?

‘The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it.’ Tom Stoppard 1937 - 2025

Galileo explaining the cosmos to the muses. The frontispiece from the first edition of his collected works, printed in Bologna 1655-6.

Every guys dream.

According to the @TheGreatB00ks Ascend hosts, Plato wrote plays in the vein of Sophocles and Euripides but burned them all on meeting Socrates

“In England, at all events, every man who wishes to stand well with the world will accent his Greek properly. Concerning that man who misplaces them, damaging inferences will certainly be drawn, and in most instances with justice.” —-H.W. Chandler, 1862

Therapy was invented and perfected by an Athenian named Antiphon in the 5th century BC, but he decided it was cringe.

The American mind cannot comprehend driving 24 hours and still being in Le Mans

i dont get why people say C is so fast. when i use ffmpeg to convert a video from 4k to 1080p it takes minutes, but when i click the button on youtube, javascript converts it in less than a second?

During my PhD, my advisor told me to not use the library’s computer to find the book I wanted, because the act of browsing row after row in the stacks to find it was how original connections were made.

*Slavoj Zizek sniffs loudly touching his nose* Ah yes yes the corporate pastoral. This is a perfect ideological object. You see, you see here Sam, he pretends to give us a modest, one could say intimate conversation between two friends. No. This is a mythopoetic act of ideological laundering. *Sniff* This is not, you see, this is not a product announcement. No. Sam is giving us a myth, you see. *Sniff* This film, if one can call such a thing a film, is a strategic myth making artefact to construct an origin story. This is a biopic about themselves played by themselves, you see. Masturbation. *Sniff* The hubris is astounding. *Sniff* This opens, what do we see, what do we see first? *Sniff* We see the power shot, the money shot yes? Looking up from the ground up into the towering city. We are small. Silicon Valley is big. Money you see, technology, forbidden sex, and so on. San Francisco to be precise. Yes? *Sniff* Then what? Soft lighting, yes, soft focus, flowers in the city and so on. Two friends. No. *Sniff* These are not two friends. These are the ideologues of techno capital, you see. *Sniff*. The priests preparing you for the sacrament of their new device. *Sniff* They smile, you see, "We know we are building godlike machines, but we are such nice people!" *Sniff* Yes very good Sam. And thank you. They shake our hands and smile, while the machine, you see, the machine takes our jobs and our soul, or what have you. *Sniff* Yes? But the cafe, what a nice cafe I must say. The cafe invites us in. Not just two friends together, you see. We are, as the viewer, we are also their third friend. *Sniff* Perhaps lover, or some such. We will see how the night goes, you know? *Sniff* But Sam, yes, he does not care about money. Power? No. *Sniff* This boy king, the caring sovereign, he worries about us. The little people you see. *Sniff* The master holds the weight, the original sin, so we may enjoy without guilt. *Sniff* Sam is our Jesus, so we can ask the computer our little questions and not worry. Not to worry about the labor, or the exploitation, or the environmental costs and so on. *Sniff* So you see, this is, you see this is to build a moral legitimacy around leadership figures at at a time when, you know *Sniff* AI is taking our jobs, and "How will I feed my family" and "Oh no we are all going to die" and so on. *Sniff* Notice. Notice they do not talk about technology you see. Values. *Sniff* This is the hand of ideology that distracts you while the other, the other hand you see, it takes from you. But thank you for the coffee Jony, and yes the iPhone. *Sniff* Jony is the great thinker Yes? And Jony gives us emotional connection, yes? And the family man stands hand in hand with Sam, as deliberate contrast to the tech overlord he pretends not to be, you see. *Sniff* The European family man with the children and, you know, the forbidden sexual desires of San Francisco and what have you. *Sniff* We have our origin story, the myth you see, chance encounters in the cafe. *Sniff* "It is funny running into you here Jony!" Yes it must be nice what are the odds of such an encounter. *Sniff* And what? Personal anecdotes they give us, yes, some shared vision to reinforce authenticity in a film which, let us be honest for a moment, this could very well be in the post credits scene of a marvel movie or, you know *Sniff* some such profane act of capitalist entertainment, a mickey mouse adventure or what have you. *Sniff* And for what? For what is all of this labor and AI and devices and so on *Sniff* So we can find ourselves in a moment, lost, "Oh no" we say, "Oh no I wonder. I have a question to which there is no answer, I cannot think for myself?" *Sniff* No. Let us go to the phone yet again. We must ask the device. But no. You see. *Sniff* My phone is in my pocket. We need a new device you see. Yes? *Sniff* A device which, a device which always listens, you see. *Sniff* An all knowing god who can answer my questions, and tell me what to think, and what should I say, *Sniff* what should I do, and I am afraid and oh no who am I and I am sad and who should I fuck and so on. Yes? *Sniff* So you see *Sniff* This film is not a documentary yes? *Sniff* What we see here is christ carrying the cross alone through the streets. *Sniff* But not a cross you see. Jony. Jony gives us the iPhone and Sam puts AI inside the device. *Sniff* And now? Now we don't need to think *Sniff* We can just have the AI and the AI, you see, *Sniff* It's wonderful.

This letter, in today’s Times, stopped me in my tracks. The assisted dying Bill will affect all of society, in ways that have barely been considered.

Could we get versions of books with notes of multiple important thinkers printed as an overlay? You can read the original work and see it through the eyes of others. Imagine Plato’s Republic with printed in handwritten notes by Nietzsche, Popper, Heidegger (in different colors maybe). Could either be their notes in the original book they possessed or inferred things they would say given their own work.

On modern librarianship 🧵