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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| Notice how almost everything sucks now? With the exception of here, of course. Itâs not your job to fix the internet  On The Vergecast: Cory Doctorow explains how the internet got enshittified, and what weâre supposed to do about it. Don't tell me that "what we're supposed to do about it" is "go outside." And the next person who tells me to touch grass is going to get a mouthful of it. The concept of enshittification, as coined by the author and activist Cory Doctorow, just feels right. Whether youâre searching on Google, shopping on Amazon, or scrolling on Facebook, large platforms often feel like theyâre not trying to bring us value so much as extract every bit of value they can out of us. Well, yeah. That was the inevitable result when the internet stopped being about hobbyists and started being about trying to make a fortune. It wasnât always like this, was it? No, it wasn't. The frog in a pot thing comes to mind. You know, how you put a frog in a pot and set it to boil, and they don't notice the incremental heat changes until it's too late and you end up with cuisses de grenouille? Except that doesn't really happen. The frog will notice and jump out if it can. Humans? Not so much. On this episode of The Vergecast, Doctorow has an answer: no, it wasnât always like this, and yes, we can get it back. I don't believe the latter. Doctorowâs new book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, is filled with explanations about how large, successful, once user-focused products go wrong, and the ways in which regulators and competitors can make things better again. Irony. See, one of the biggest problems is people trying to make money, and this... this is an ad. Doctorowâs work focuses largely on bigger-picture regulatory issues and technical changes, and his book largely advocates for changes at those levels. Thereâs no rousing speech in Enshittification about how users need to demand better, embrace friction, shop local, or get off Zuckerbergâs platforms. Good. I mean, we should do all those things (I haven't touched anything Meta in years), but it's like the environment: it's less about us peons than it is about the overlords. But heâs also quick to say that the way things are is not your fault. And fixing it is not your problem. (Unless you have the power to change bad laws â then itâs very much your fault and your problem.) The laws are always written in favor of the corporations. Always. At least in the US. The good internet is still out there, he says, and we have to go get it back. Well, Wikipedia is pretty close. So, apparently there's a link somewhere on the siteto the actual interview. I didn't bother to check because I don't do podcasts. Which reminds me: Doctorow isn't the only one who can make up words. I can, too. The word for the day, then, is: anachronym. An anachronym, per my definition, is a word for the way we used to do things, that no longer applies to current technology. For example, "footage" in reference to video is an anachronym, because most video is no longer measured in feet of film shot. For that matter, "filming" is an anachronym. Another would be "dial" meaning phoning someone. Well, another anachronym now is "podcast." You see any new iPods for sale? No? Then "podcast" is an anachronym. |
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