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Morning listenings, on the way to the office:

The developers wanted to tear down nearly all of the old mill buildings and replace them with more retail. Townsend would end up spending the next two years fighting alongside other residents to save the mill district, but unfortunately, the building was replaced by a parking lot for a supermarket. Townsend and the other artists saw it as another sign over excess new development in Providence, but they weren’t done with the developers  (or with the mall). They decided the best way to understand what they were up against was to live in the mall for one week without leaving.

Heard this story on that podcast before, ages ago, but somehow this idea of a secret appartment hidden inside the guts of a shopping mall doesn't cease to amaze, same as the general idea of looking for unused accidential space in this kind of semi-public buildings. There's a lot of interesting aspects to this one for sure.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/621-secret-mall-apartment/ 

Listened to this while cycling to the office:

And so we change this together. The issue is will and the issue is resources. The issue is not ideas right. We're not waiting for one genius to figure it out. We're waiting for a clear map and some space to examine it together and share insights and then figure out how to push forward to a world where it's you know, thousands of interesting projects that are all thinking together about creating much better tech and reshaping the industry and its incentives in order to nurture that.

Meredith Whittaker of Signal talking to Tech Stuff and it's been an inspiring listen, even though gloomy at times. Learnt quite some new things here, and still think she's got a lot things right in what she does.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-techstuff-26941194/episode/the-story-ask-lots-of-questions-264421545/ 

Halfway through this, on the train that morning: Paris Marx and tante discussing open source, past and present, the wordpress mess, open-source AI, Richard M. Stallman and a few related aspects. As it says on the tin:

I think we have actually reached the limitations of what the Open Source term and concept can do for us and I am not sure it’s enough for the future. Because software projects for the commons and a sort of social good need to face the fact that they are political and therefore need to include actual political representation of all stakeholders as well as democratic and transparent modes of decision making (at least when reaching a certain traction/user base).

Worth checking out for sure, as always.

via https://tante.cc/2024/11/08/podcast-the-corruption-of-open-source-tech-wont-save-us/ .

Morning audio, longform edition:

In February, everyone who went to a concert in the old medieval town of Halberstadt, Germany, showed up 23 years late. This is also concert from which everyone walks out early. The performance is of a piece called ORGAN2/ASLSP. ASLSP stands for “as slow as possible,” which is how the composer meant for it to be played, and this particular day would involve a chord change. The last time ORGAN2/ASLSP had a chord change was in 2022, and this new chord will play until the next change, in August, 2026. There is a change the year after that, and the following year, and so on, until the year 2640. The full performance is meant to last 639 years.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/as-slow-as-possible/ 

Have to admit I've just briefly been to Halberstadt ages ago and quite before that project started. Yet, I've always had a thing for experimental music and drone stuff, and this seems to be as droney as it might get. And all along with the sounds, it brings up some quite interesting considerations regarding melodies and chords and the sounds in between and duration and time itself. (Even though I was a bit stunned the concept of a pipe organ apparently needs a deeper explanation.)