I’m Christian Payne. In this weekly dispatch I attempt to explore the relations between things and make sense of where we might be going. Thanks for being here.
#TheAction
Dog walking, cooking, podcasts and thought experiments have filled most of my week.
England’s promise of something summery came and went. But I‘m not fussed. At least we’ve had interesting skies and the greens keep getting greener.
The death of Michael Mosley has occupied my mind on and off. Mostly due to that strange sense of knowing somebody through their work.
While missing, he was still on the radio and popping up in my podcast feed. New words and thoughts from somebody already gone. He will remain very much alive in his work, helping others to delay their end for as long as is possibly.
Consciously or unconsciously, we're all motivated by death. But there's no escaping it. It comes for us all, regardless of how hard we've lived or how much we've achieved. Death remains the final arbiter of our mortal lives.
So let’s have fun. While we can.
Make friends, build communities, inspire movements. Create art, teach, give. If you’re lucky, some might find immortality in stories told, ideas shared, in echoes and legacy.
#ThePictures
Pierluigi Ortolano purchased 141 rolls of used undeveloped film. The date on it was 1969 and he developed everything over 2 years. 4000 negatives telling the story of Dutch life in the 1960s. The photographer was anonymous but Pierluigi finally found the photographer and his family in Holland.
The late, great Michael Mosley takes the truth drug thiopental.
I watched Civil War at the weekend.
A road movie on a mission that makes little sense, and a war movie which was more show than tell.
It needed a point of view.
There were a few moments, shots, things hinted at, that really pulled me in. But the only thing I connected with was the photographers struggle for 'the shot'. Even though I had no idea where and if those shots would end up being seen. 3/5
#TheWords
I’m reading more and more content that has me raising an eyebrow. I’m wondering how much of what i’m reading is human authored and how much is auto-generated. Check this from The Atlantic. If you struggle to read the article use https://12ft.io to remove the javascript.
The best books on the end of the world.
The elusive three paragraph essay.
#TheSound
A map of forest sounds from around the world.
An old documentary on the BBC World Service.
The things I shared for AudioMo this week:
Day 08 - Wing Music. How strange that the sound of a bird would create the image of a flying bird in the spectrogram.
Day 09 RovyVon A5 EDC Flashlight Review. A review of a torch.
Day 10 Mastodon Explained (Sort of...) for the benefit of @AntShort
Day 11 Testing a mobile workflow VRP7 into the Mona App and Mastodon.
Day 12 What Language is this? I’ll drop the answer down below.
Day 13 Uchujin Makes Films A chat with my friend Adrian Story after his recent assignment.
Day 14 An invitation to the 18th #1984symposium You coming? June the 25th. 11am onwards The Church of All Saints in Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, OX14 4AE
#TheConsumed
When visiting somewhere I can’t confidently read the menu, i’ll ask the server for the dish the restaurant is famous for. This has made for some interesting one-off eating experiences. Liver Dumpling Soup was one such meal. I wasn’t repulsed by it. It’s just that there is so much good food in Austria there’s no need to eat something twice.
Passion fruit. It’s a weird little thing.
There are 500 species of them in the world and I found this common one buried in the fruit bowl looking a little worse for wear. Or at least I think it was. We rarely have them, so I can't be sure what a fresh one looks like.
I do know them to be antioxidant-rich as well as rich in vitamin c and polyphenols. So I scooped out the sweet crunchy goo straight onto my breakfast as a bonus ingredient.
I’ve since found out that the good stuff in passion fruit helps to neutralise free radicals, while having anti-inflammatory, anti-anxiety, and perhaps even anti-cancer properties.
These Cream Collons are not packed with good stuff. They were tastier than they sound though. Thanks to Adrian for bringing them back from Japan.
#TheThings
Whilst at EMF Camp my daughter made a magic wand using a shave horse.
I was quite taken as to how quickly she mastered this mediaeval woodworking vice and started looking at how I might make my own.
I found some plans online and then priced up the wood. Not as cheap as I expected. Looking for scrap wood on eBay, I saw a small shave horse for sale about 40 mins away. It was collection only, which I think put many people off. As a result I was able to snipe it for a bargain. I’m due to pick it up tomorrow.
All I need now is a draw knife and time to play.
#TheThanks
Thank you to all the paying subscribers that support my time here and keep this dispatch free for everyone. Please consider upgrading to become a paid supporter. Either way… Thank you for reading, sharing and liking.
#TheWeb
Musk’s machines get remote Amazonian tribes on the internet and all is not well.
Have you added yourself to the Documentally community map? Jeff Bundy, Are you around in October. I plan to be in your neck of the woods.
Russia has clamped down on drone flying. For obvious reasons.
Framadate is an alternative to Doodle. Just used it and it seems easy enough.
Some of my other places include Letterboxd, Discogs, Flickr, Strava, my audio RSS feed, LinkedIn, YouTube, Mastodon, a ham radio newsletter or search ‘Documentally’ on Wire, Birdsite, Bluesky or Daft Social.
Forgotten Sudan
Some real world examples of how Gen-AI is being used in science and industry.
Last link is a doozy. 52 interesting things.
#TheEnd
Thanks for reading. Have a great week. Learn from your mistakes and keep working on that lasting positive impact. ;-)
“We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.” ~ Charles Spencer Chaplin
Transcend.
See you out there.
Over…
Michael Mosley will be missed a great deal by us Lewis folk. We’ve books of his on our shelves and they are frequently referenced. His podcast is very much alive and well in my players queue. A tragedy indeed. Thinking of his family right now
Christian, Just LOVE the "documentally ON AIR". Does it light up Red by any chance? Loving these weekend reads!