Sean Cranbury

My AI Origin Story: Part One - The PET A gnome illusionist made of ASCII is cooler than you think

The Commodore PET — Its technology is so advance; its concept, so remarkable; its ease of operation, so utterly simple, and its cost so incredibly low, that over-night it has given rise to a brand new era — The Age of the Personal Computer.

Performative Reading: Let's Do This I need to know what books are going around, it's important

I know that you know that Ocean Vuong has a new book out.

I've seen your #bookstagram feed.

And I know that you just took a pristine copy of the Outline Trilogy to the beach.

Hope that it's full of sand now.

being an indie bookseller in the helltimes has felt both very stable and very stabilizing, and part of me wishes everyone could be on my side of the counter for a little while, because I think it would help some of you be a little less cynical and doomy right now. so here is my VERY anecdotal data:

Ordered today!

anybody else feeling like we're living through the prequel to Ozymandias right now?

#2000s #kylieminogue @Louiss.buzz.off TikTok video by Linda Buzz Official

New novel idea

The State of Personal Online Security and Confidentiality | SXSW LIVE YouTube video by SXSW

If you need a dose of hope, listen to Signal’s @meredithmeredith.bsky.social who speaks with such clarity about safety, with passion about privacy, and with great candour about the world / web we want

Page excerpt of Mark Carney’s book, Values. These are the questions that this book seeks to explore. It will examine how our society came to embody Wilde's aphorism - knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing. How by elevating belief in the market to an inviolable truth we moved from a market economy to a market society. And how we can turn this around. In many respects, this book is a belated response to a question posed a few summers ago when a range of policymakers, business people, academics, labour leaders and charity workers gathered at the Vatican to discuss the future of the market system. Pope Francis surprised us by joining the lunch and sharing a parable. He observed that: Our meal will be accompanied by wine. Now, wine is many things. It has a bouquet, colour and richness of taste that all complement the food. It has alcohol that can enliven the mind. Wine enriches all our senses. At the end of our feast, we will have grappa. Grappa is one thing: alcohol. Grappa is wine distilled. He continued: Humanity is many things - passionate, curious, rational, altruistic, creative, self-interested.

Excerpt, continued: But the market is one thing: self-interested. The market is humanity distilled. And then he challenged us: Your job is to turn the grappa back into wine, to turn the market back into humanity. This isn't theology. This is reality. This is the truth. This book draws on my experience in the private sector and public policy to examine the relationship between value and values. How they shape each other, and how, by doing so, they can determine our livelihoods, identities and possibilities. And how, once we recognise these dynamics, we can turn grappa back into wine. The book is divided into three parts. Part I examines various concepts of value and their roots in political philosophy and, more recently and narrowly, in economic theory and financial practice. It uses a series of valuation paradoxes from art to the environment to illustrate the potential disconnects between valuations in markets and the values of society. Values and value are related but distinct. In the most general terms, values represent the principles or standards of behaviour; they are judgements of what is important in life. Examples include integrity,

A second excerpt from Values by Mark Carney: Chapter 6 shows that our deepest challenges are rooted in the narrowing of our values to market fundamentalism, and it explains how this is contributing to the growing exclusivity of capitalism and the rise of populism. In particular, it argues that, just as all ideologies are prone to extremes, capitalism loses its sense of moderation when the belief in the power of the market enters the realm of faith. In the decades prior to the financial crisis, such radicalism came to dominate economic ideas and became a pattern of social behaviour. In short, we have moved from a market economy to a market society, and this is now undermining our basic social contract of relative equality of outcomes, equality of opportunity and fairness across generations. Part II explores the three most significant crises of the twenty-first century - of credit, Covid and climate.

So I’m getting started reading Values by Mark Carney and I want to share some shots of how this book starts because it makes me blink in surprise.

If you haven’t read it, I think you might want to, because this is what Canada’s new prime minister was thinking about five years ago.

I’ll screencap and back channel

Over on the T he's getting absolutely scorched by MILO of all people.

So yeah things are going as well as can be expected.

less than five hundred years ago even the most powerful monarch was at the mercy of childhood disease and weather. now we can do literal concrete things about both and are in fact actively choosing to die of childhood disease and weather

Love this game, too.

Jon really wants you to know that he's always been super-into liberal values.

The stain spreads across all fabrics

One of the truly legend shows I’ve ever seen was an all day banger at the CNE - Blues Traveler, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Neil Young and Booker T and the MGs (!!!). Stunner! PJ joined for a few tunes during the encore.

Canada’s brunch industry recoils at the thought.

Online game of ‘I’m less colonized than you’ between friends enters eighth year A game of 'I'm less colonized than you' between two friends from different First Nations communities has entered its eighth year. The game involves each player finding ways to prove how decolonized they are—and perhaps most

The game involves each player finding ways to prove how decolonized they are—and perhaps most importantly, how colonized their opponent is—and then announcing it on social media so as many people as possible can read it.

happy birthday, rob

Excellent suggestion! I do have that on wax but hadn’t remembered. Will update.

The bunny likes the sound of soft flutes and piano and it got me thinking about what records I have that feature the flute. Sadly the bunny is not really into Eric Dolphy or Jethro Tull.

Cue’d up and vinyl on order. Thank you!

Yeah I saw the Plastic Fang tour. Definitely post peak JSBx but they still smoked.

Nice! Last I saw them was at Richard’s.

How was it? Did they do Brenda?!

The Sacrificial Code (2025 edition), by KALI MALONE 9 track album

Just came here to say that they're re-releasing The Sacrificial Code and there's a new recording, too.

Sacrificial Code III was recorded on the St Petris organ tuned in meantone temperament at Malmö Konstmuseum, March 2023.

cc: @raoulfernandes.bsky.social

Felt Rorschach lens switching in and out all the time reading this, blink and it feels like reading something from a lost world, blink again and it's the same old story as it ever was

lareviewofbooks.org/article/sell...

Great songwriter. Both records are classic.

YouTube video by Tropical Contact High Girls - Die

Great band!

This song is pure homage to Black Mountain and that’s fine.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=R9mh...

I'm glad that America is doing real classic end of empire stuff. A king who is visibly losing his mind declaring a war based on a dream he had. Greedy courtiers feuding over access to the treasury. Some looks are timeless.