Notices by Bruce Sterling @bruces (bruces@mastodon.social)

*Quake LLM in a browser, because you have to run Quake on everything just as a matter of hacker courtesy

https://copilot.microsoft.com/wham

Once annexed by Canada, the slightly-distressed 50 states will be combined into one large province, to be re-named “South Manitoba”. Plans will then commence to distribute Maple Leaf flags and Swiss Chalet restaurants from the 49th parallel all the way down to the region formerly known as Texas.

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2025/04/canada-waiting-for-us-economy-to-implode-enough-to-make-america-11th-province/

Chinese robot spy dog. Alert the head of *NSA Cybersecurity, never mind Laura Loomer fired him

https://cyberinsider.com/remote-access-backdoor-discovered-in-chinese-robot-dog-unitree-go1/

*Refugees in a camp struggling to mass-charge their cellphones, ten years ago #objettrouvee #AiWeiwei #SeattleArtMuseum

*How come everybody doesn't nickname their domestic wifi as "Surveillance Van"

*It's been rather rare to read these articles about "my medium is dying" as opposed to new-media boosting, but the trade-wars might push that bigly

https://medium.com/macoclock/why-my-ipad-no-longer-fits-into-my-life-in-2025-c5ff98b4289e

*Sir Walter Scott had a brother-in-law on assignment in Madras

*That was 210 years ago, this is now

"Near the foot of one skeleton, the archaeologists also discovered shoe nails that came from distinctive Roman military shoes called caligae" #massgrave #soldiery

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/world/europe/roman-empire-grave-vienna.html

*Things seem rather disturbed right now, so at Share Festival in Turin we'd like to see some art from 25 years in the future, please #TomorrowNow #CallForArtists

https://bruces.medium.com/share-festival-2025-call-for-artists-bd0abba0dd23

Memeification

*I haven't seen this "artificial coral" scheme mentioned in many decades, but it seems to be back again

https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2025/03/new-carbon-negative-material-could-make-concrete-and-cement-more-sustainable/?ref=fixthenews.com

*I get that an LLM sounds more human than a human, but how much MORE like a human can an LLM get

*Not a Strong-AI superhuman, but some kinda Universal Everywoman, like everybody's Grandma

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.23674

*It's been a big week for peculiar knitting. #physics #softrobotics #assemblage #programming

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2416536122

*The new Atari slogan is "futuristic since forever" even though the people involved are completely different

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari

*Hmm, the French-owned "Atari" revival company is releasing new Atari cartridge games. #deadmedia #rerelease

https://atari.com/collections/physical-cartridges

*The simplest scams are the best ones

*Clean the microplastic slop (temporarily) out of your bloodstream, if you've got a dozen spare grand and faith in the guys you are paying

https://www.wired.com/story/this-startup-promises-to-clean-your-blood-of-microplastics-clarify-clinics/

*Well, uh, that was fun

https://sfiscience.medium.com/our-age-of-complex-steampunk-5ba005cb1a95

*Looking good!

https://flic.kr/p/2qV9Mr8

*Dead-media sweater knitting. Should be upgraded, why not knit an extinct Incan quipu into there

https://digitalpreservation-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/knitting-through-digital-decay-a-collection-of-digital-preservation-jumpers-no-one-asked-for-but-478c48009521