Notices by Lori Emerson (loriemerson@post.lurk.org), page 2

now, as rage slowly overtakes sadness, it's perfectly clear to me that while it barely makes even a snowflake of difference, my job over the next 6 months is to completely transition out of Amazon & Google products/affiliates. if I cld leave Twitter after 13 years of investment, I can do this too. stay tuned, too, for a series of workshops by the @mediaarchaeologylab on how to disinvest from big tech.

echoing some things that @brettbalogh has been posting about, I'm also leaning harder than ever into #othernetworks. that alternative networks and network structures produce different ways of being in the world, with each other, is not a cute idea. it is at the heart of what we need to do next to wrest control away from big tech/billionaires. building yr own mini FM transmitter is also not a cute little time-wasting project. it is fundamental to this work & of taking back a small bit of autonomy over how we learn, relate, communicate w/each other. more on this in the coming years but in the meantime, https://othernetworks.net/2024/08/20/build-your-own-mini-fm-transmitter/

#othernetworks friends and even foes! the @mediaarchaeologylab is hosting another fantastic talk in our barbed wire fence phone installation this Wednesday at 12:30pm MT (on campus CASE W250) by the wonderful @ntnsndr! Prof. Schneider will be giving a talk titled "Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life." If you can’t attend in person, we are also streaming his talk on our Twitch channel – just go to https://www.twitch.tv/mediaarchaeology

the history of using barbed wire to communicate is surprisingly long and almost entirely undocumented, even though barbed wire fence phones in particular were an essential part of early- to mid-twentieth century rural life in many parts of the U.S. and Canada! to that end, I've posted a brief history of barbed wire and barbed wire fence phones on my blog, excerpted from my book _Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook_. enjoy and please share! #othernetworks https://loriemerson.net/2024/08/31/a-brief-history-of-barbed-wire-fence-telephone-networks/

I've only been a U.S. citizen for 6 months and already I'm like "oh gawd please can this be over now please it's all going to end terribly and I don't think I can handle any more slow-mo play-by-play for the next 4 months"

@rose_alibi good thing I also tried to wear a cute outfit today to soften the blow 😅

that moment in class when I try to explain what an ideology is by using capitalism as an example and talking about how it's close to impossible to imagine a world outside of capitalism and the whole room takes in a quick breath and I try to look as harmless as possible

what a day! after sitting on a domain for #othernetworks since about 2017, today @rose_alibi and I are officially launching a (modest...) website to collect all Other Networks related events, workshops, recipes for building your own networks (BYON!), and even an asynchronous book club! we hope you'll join in - more details about the book club to come via @mediaarchaeologylab https://othernetworks.net/

@mediaarchaeologylab @lolcat and here's a pdf I made of a rare book on Minitel! https://loriemerson.net/2016/03/14/minitel-an-other-network/ #othernetworks

the last of today's nerd dump: look at this incredible illustration of the complexity involved in sending photos via cable across the Atlantic in 1926! I believe this is an illustration of the Bartlane Cable Picture Transmission System which translated images into variations of five-hole punches onto Baudot telegraphic tape and then transmitted, reversing the process at the other end using a teletype machine. #othernetworks

@KJ7OMO @mediaarchaeologylab here's what it sounded like when she set it up in DC in 2013 https://vimeo.com/65726807

look at this jaw-dropping thing of beauty installed in the @mediaarchaeologylab right now: Emily Francisco's "Trans-Harmonium," a DIY clock radio synth. if you're in the area, you should really drop by during open house to try it out!

it is wild, and sometimes surprisingly difficult, to make palpable the cyberlibertarianism and techno-utopianism of the 90s for 18-20 year olds. so many times this semester I've felt like I'm telling them bedtime stories about ye olde internet while I watch their enthralled faces...#othernetworks

it's 1894. if you want to let someone know they are annoying because they failed to read your telegram closely enough, send the code "Butment." meaning: "You do not answer my message understandingly. Please read and translate it carefully and then reply." #othernetworks

@fishidwardrobe @ntnsndr it is - it appears in this Cable Code index from 1894 https://archive.org/details/adamscablecodex00cogoog/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater

@fishidwardrobe @ntnsndr yes, true. I was reading your post with my background in avant garde poetry where a made up word is still a word

with the usual relief and happiness to be back working on #othernetworks today, I wrote an entry on Project West Ford which honestly is one of the most bizarre networks I've come across...which is saying a lot. Developed by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory as a strategy to maintain radio comms in the event of a nuclear attack from Russia, Project West Ford was a belt of 480 million copper dipole needles that created an artificial ionosphere around the earth. It lasted between 1963 and 1966 and space debris from the project is probably still orbiting earth...