Nick Seaver

@nickseaver

anthropology, algorithms, attention | he/him | The conversation is characterized by Nick's use of language, but the content of the discussion remains unknown.

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Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 2d

grocery store price label for “HAIDILAO BBQ SEASONING CUM”

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 2d

☺️

You Got Tickets To sunn O)))) (18+)

Mon, Oct 12, 7:00 PM
sunn O)))) (18+)

Paradise Rock Club presented by Citizens, Boston, Massachusetts

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 5d

anyway, I'm on the record defending (some) "bad" metaphors already: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi... What we should care about, I think, is not whether metaphors are *right* but to look at what they *do*, and we can't know what language does without reference to its varying contexts of use.

Natural’s Not in It
Natural metaphors remain ubiquitous in computing discourse, and they
are an especially common object of critique for critical scholars of big
data. Data is oft en described as a force of nature or as a natural resource
(Puschmann and Burgess 2014). It arrives in a fl ood or a tsunami; it is as
valuable as gold or oil (Lupton 2013; Seaver 2015; Watson 2015; Social Me-
dia Collective 2017). Like the gardeners, farmers, and park rangers I’ve
already described, these metaphors seem to carry the work of data collec-
tion and analysis out of the offi ce and into the outdoors.
Among critics of big data, the dominant concern about such “natu-
ral world” metaphors is the apparent absence of people: no one lives in
the cloud (Hwang and Levy 2015). Th e internet researchers Cornelius

which are not merely universal, human experiences of embodiment but
are tied to specifi c spatial archetypes, ranging from the national park to
the garden to the frontier. Th ese are ideologically loaded and symboli-
cally dense cultural resources, which provide intuitions about the nature
of space. As people working in music recommendation try to make sense
of the purpose, substance, and ethical status of their work— to dwell
in the abstract spaces of machine learning— they oft en rely on pastoral
meta phors to do it.
Th ese metaphors are “pastoral” in two senses. First, they represent the
music space as a kind of bucolic landscape, a “green world” of organic
growth and nonhuman agency, a resource to be carefully managed. Sec-
ond, they fi gure the people who work on this space as caretakers, both
for the land and for the people who might want to traverse it. Metaphors
like these are commonly critiqued for being naturalizing— mystifying the
material realities of computation and data collection. Here, I pursue a
diff erent line of interpretation: How does this sylvan language help the
makers of music recommendation think about their work?
Pastoral metaphors provide a resource for workers to think about their
moral responsibilities, the extent of their control, and the objectivity of
their data. And although these metaphors may appear straightforwardly
naturalizing, mystifying the social organization of algorithmic systems, I
want to argue that they illuminate the experience of work within algorith-
mic systems today: the people who make music recommendation do not
make it as they please but encounter the objects of their labor as lively,
resistant materials that they do not absolutely control.
Th e Garden in the Machine

Spatial understandings of data travel through technical infrastructures
and everyday conversation; they are at once a form of metaphorical ex-
pression and a concrete computational practice. In other words, “space”
here is both a formalism— a restricted, technical concept that facili-
tates precision through abstraction— and what the anthropologist Stefan
Helm reich (2016, 468) calls an informalism— a less disciplined metaphor
that travels alongside formal techniques. In practice, it is oft en hard or
Space Is the Place 119
impossible to separate technical specifi city from its metaphorical accom-
paniment.1 When the makers of music recommendation speak of space,
they speak at once fi guratively and technically.

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 6d

of course we'll have a look... web.archive.org/web/20190411...

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness::
Add “o”, ae, a = j, j+66+66 = “Th”,
Ma-66-66 = “Fe”, “Iron”.
R is 18, N+D, nd-66-66 = “L”
Add 0+66+66 = “Ng”, “Ad7”, ad 2+6, “Ady”.
Therefore;
Margaret = “The Iron Lady garet”.
Ar+66 = Rd.
D is 500, 5, e.
Add 0+66+66 .. = “or”, backwards is Ro, book 45, backwads is 54. 54+66 = “120”, at.
Therefore:
Margaret = “The Iron Lady of Great T”.
T is 20, b+R, “Br”.
Add 0+66+66 .. = “924”, ix, l
Add 0+66+66 .. = “mt”, book 40, 20+20, “TT”, 40 is 1 AD, “an”
Add 0+66+66 .... = “of”
Therefore:
Margaret = “The Iron Lady of Great Brittan”

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 6d

oh hello

1 Simpson’s additional arguments include: (1) because Feuerstein did not suffer any damages as a result of Simpson’s letter to Mr. Golden, which was the basis of his original complaint, Feuerstein cannot meet the $75,000 damages threshold requirement for diversity jurisdiction; (2) an essential party, the true publisher and owner of the allegedly defamatory websites, was never joined, in violation of Fed. R. Civ. P. 19; and (3) Feuerstein’s statements during depositions, in which he called Simpson a “hallucinating lunatic,” “bizarre,” “sociopathic,” and “schizophrenic,” and his references to Simpson’s “long relationship to the Extraterrestrial Community,” biased the jury against him.
2 These websites included http://alanrfeuersteinsucks.com, http://corporatedishonesty.com, http://stevenkerschner.net,

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 6d

looking up a guy who ran a word processing company and wrote a thing about killing the "social office" that got cited in Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital, and, well, this is an exciting obit detail

Last but not least, George spent years working for God uncovering hidden meanings in words of the English language. The language that he uncovered, “ET Corn Gods Language,” was based on logic and mathematics. George was contacted and told that he had been chosen to break the code and teach the world the hidden language.

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 10d

found the best odyssey adaptation

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 14d

"What the hell is going on?
It's like a monster convention here!

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 16d

a wooden Fiji frame with a bit of newspaper inside: “Trump at the White House on Sept. 26 after the House launched an impeachment inquiry
PHOTOGRAPH BY GABRIELLA DEMOZUK”

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 17d

cleaning up my zotero and finding some choice forgotten materials

Citation Key tsing2010
Item Type Journal Article
Title Alien vs. Predator
Author Tsing, Anna

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 20d

Title card: NEON DADDY
EVANGELION
EPISODE:26
史上最高のパパ

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 23d

a book with part of the cover obscured that appears to be titled “Butt of the South”

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 23d

Harmless to Man

NO QUALITY THERE IS NO TOMORROW

NO QUALITY THERE IS NO TOMORROW

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· 28d

the smurfs

Worldwide, there are about 55 translations of the word Schtroumpf, including[9]

Arabic:السنافر (Sanafir)
Asturian: Los Estrunfinos
Basque: Pottokiak
Bengali: স্মার্ফ Smārpha
Catalan: Els Barrufets
Croatian: Štrumpfovi
Czech: Šmoulové
Danish: Smølferne
Dutch: De Smurfen
Estonian: Smurfid
Finnish: Smurffit (earlier translations: Muffet, Strumffit)
German: Die Schlümpfe
Greek: Στρουμφάκια (Stroumfákia)
Hebrew: דרדסים (Dardasim)
Hungarian: Hupikék törpikék
Icelandic: Strumparnir
Indonesian: Smurf
Italian: Puffi
Japanese: スマーフ (Sumāfu)
Lithuanian: Smurfai
Norwegian: Smurfene
Polish: Smerfy
Portuguese: Os Estrumpfes
Brazilian Portuguese: Os Smurfs
Romanian: Ștrumfii
Russian: Смурфики (Smurfiki)
Slovak: Šmolkovia
Slovene: Smrkci
Spanish: Los Pitufos
Swedish: Smurferna
Turkish: Şirinler

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 11

please think about what explanation means

Kids Can’t Stop Watching ‘Moana.’ There’s a Scientific Explanation.

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 11

cool

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 9

The psychological situation the compulsive programmer
finds himself in while so engaged is strongly determined by two apparently opposing facts: first, he knows that he can make the computer do anything he wants it to do; and second, the computer constantly displays undeniable evidence of his failures to him. It reproaches him. There is no escaping this bind. The engineer can resign himself to the truth that there are some things he doesn't know. But the programmer moves in a world entirely of his own making. The computer challenges his power, not his knowledge.

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 9

I feel like people are not familiar with the office worker drawings in Zuboff’s IN THE AGE OF THE SMART MACHINE, showing what their jobs were like before and after computerization.

Two stick figures, before and after. Before is smiling. After is pulling out her hair and looks frazzled.

"There's a lot of tension now, and that makes people get mean. We had more control before and less confusion. You could get things done. Every once and a while my head starts to throb. I can't take it."

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 9

someone must have written it already, right?

16 It is not hard to draw a line from the kind of pathological computer user Weizenbaum (1976, 118) called the "compulsive programmer" to the present-day enthusiasm of an LLM-enabled "vibecoder" who instructs his Al agents relentlessly, but "cannot set before himself a clearly defined long-term goal and a plan for achieving it, for he has only technique, not knowledge."

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 9

I desperately need some real historian of technology to write about the history of dictaphones and what the vibecoders are doing with steno mics

Dictaphone ad from 1960

This is an idea harness
The function of the Dictaphone TIME-MASTER® is to put ideas to work as fast as possible... to cut the time lag between idea and action. It does this with superb efficiency because of the exclusive, red Dictabelt* record.
Unlike invisible recording media on which you see nothing. Dictabelts record risibly. You can sce your place easily, play back in seconds. Recording is permanent, too. You can't erase accidentally and lose valuable dictation. And every word is unmistakably clear.
Dictabelts cost only four cents each so they're never re-used. You have a fresh, clean surface every time you dictate. You can file a Dictabelt casily, or throw it away if you wish. How can you afford to use anything else?
Controls are under your thumb. Just press a button and think out loud. Other buttons on the microphone control play-back, corrections and letter length. The Dictaphone TIME-MASTER is the easiest dictating machine to use. It never dis-tracts. You concentrate on what you say.
Most automatic. dictating machine. .. simplifies office communications... helps you get more work done in less time ... frees your secretary for other chores while you dictate. To find out how efficient a TIME-MASTER is, phone your nearest Dictaphone oflice for a demonstration.

a young man at a laptop speaking into a mouth-covering stenography microphone

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 8

I wanted to learn what attention was, so I emailed a psychologist.

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 7

whew

(d) Collaborative filtering. A black and white line drawing shows a man sitting at a desk with his hands behind his head, looking relaxed. A second person stands in front of the desk, holding a stack of papers and offering them to the man.

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 7

reminds me of this guy from the collaborative filtering literature

A black and white line drawing shows a man sitting at a desk, looking overwhelmed with his arms raised as a massive pile of papers falls from a chute above labeled "Lots of Info Company." Below the image, the text reads: (a) Electronic mail overload

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 7

the binder company is going hard

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 7

I will make you master of your mind's infinite ramifications!

Make your Mind a File -not a Pile THE average person's mind resembles a scrap-pile more than anything-heaped high with a vast miscellany of unrelated, unclassified, unindexed facts. Το summon on the instant from this disordered pile a needed name, date, fact or circumstance is as uncertain a process as seeking in abig library for an unindexed book. A world of information in the storehouse of your mind is as valueless as undiscovered gold-if this accumulated wealth of thought is not systematically on tap.

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 7

the ads are so good (anticipating the note-taker bros and making me think of @shannonmattern.bsky.social)

The Desk With Brains. This is the first—and only—thoroughly practical sectional desk. We originated—and have developed—this idea. An illustration of a wooden desk with drawers on both sides is centered between the text.

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 7

more or less

A black and white line drawing depicting a group of workers loading a truck outside a building. The text below the image reads: LET • NO • ACT • BE • DONE • AT • HAPHAZ-ARD, • NOR • OTHERWISE • THAN • ACCORD-ING • TO • THE • FINISHED • RULES • THAT GOVERN • ITS • KIND —MARCUS AURELIUS

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 7

A vintage black-and-white illustration of two men in suits sitting at a desk, reviewing a document together. An old-fashioned telephone sits on the desk to the right. Below the illustration, the text reads: SYSTEM: THE MAGAZINE OF BUSINESS.

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 7

computer, enhance

A close-up, top-down view of an IBM 2741 Communications Terminal keyboard. The beige machine features a ruler-like scale along the top edge. The keyboard has dark grey keys with white lettering, including standard QWERTY characters and a variety of mathematical and Greek symbols above the letters and numbers.

A close-up of a black keyboard key with the text ATTN printed in white

Nick Seaver@nickseaver· Jul 5

cleaning up my zotero ocr situation and learned that the text layers in some of my PDFs were caesar-ciphered at some point? the magic of ASCII-Unicode conversions

$A screenshot showing four zotero highlights. The first item is titled "Page 2" and contains the text: FRPSDUHFDVDO V\VWHPVLQFOXGLQJ RZQ :LWKRXW WDWWVKLWRX... The second item is titled "Page 2" and contains the text: -XVWZKHUWKHUHLV QR FXOWXUDUHUODSWKH HIIRUWWR... The third item is titled "Page 2" and contains the text: V\QRQ\PLWLV\UHFRJQLVHGQG FRQILUPHG7KH VWUDWHJ\ RIWKLVSDSHULV WR... The fourth item is titled "Page 3" and contains the text: 6DPHQHVVRI PHQLQLJVWUDFHG YHUEDOKELWVZKLFK DUH...$