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kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Kevin Driscoll 📳੯‧̀͡⬮
@kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
1.1K followers 13 following 230 posts
Learning about moral economies, researching media histories, imagining post-platform futures. Also, helping with moderation on aoir.social and professoring in Media […]

🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://aoir.social/@kdriscoll, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
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kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
"The intelligence of organisms, graphed as the intersection of their calculating speed versus capacity of information"

🐝📡🐘🖥️🏛️🐀

📄 from Phil McNally & Sohail Inayatullah, "THE RIGHTS OF ROBOTS", *The Whole Earth Review* (July,1988), pg 59

#robotics #ai #evolution #data #history
A chart showing clip art images plotted against two axes. The y-axis is labeled "bits per second." The x-axis is labeled "capacity." Near the top-right, we see a sperm whale, elephant, and human being. Near the origin, we see a pocket calculator. Far up the y-axis is a microwave antenna. Far along the x-axis is the Library of Congress. A caption reads: "The intelligence of organisms, graphed as the intersection of their calculating speed versus capacity of information"
November 17, 2025 at 8:46 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
SYSADMIN'S BLUES
Parody of "Smuggler's Blues" by Glenn Frey
By Delchi (October, 2004)

http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/glenn.txt

#bbs #hacker #culture #sysadmin #it #filk #humor
SYSADMIN'S BLUES Parody of "Smuggler's Blues" by Glenn Frey By Delchi (October, 2004) There's trouble on the net tonight, I can feel it in my bones. I had a premonition, That I should not go home. I knew the box was patched and the IDS set to kill Some user clicked on something, And the data began to spill. So baby, here's your pager, With your sniffer log in hand. Here's a little caffiene, Do it just the way we planned. keep it up for twenty hours And I'll pay you twenty grand. I'm sorry it went down like this, Someone had to lose, It's the nature of the business, It's the sysadmin's blues. (click through for the other 2 verses!)
November 17, 2025 at 5:09 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Our Beach by J. A. Brown

> Dark and cold salt-breeze
> Sandy-star infinity
> The eyes my mind sees...

A poem written in pencil in the inside of the UVA Library's copy of Harold G. Henderson's 1958 collection "An Introduction to Haiku" 🥹
The inside of a book, with a poem written in pencil and an ink stamp for the University of Virginia Library
November 14, 2025 at 8:12 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
"ONE of the unpleasant discoveries many consumers make after buying a personal computer is that a good printer, required for hard copy, can cost almost as much as the computer itself.
"Why, I have often asked myself, doesn't someone turn out a printer- typewriter […]

[Original post on aoir.social]
Illustration of a cute little PC with a keyboard bridging it to a cute little printer. There are googly eyes on the PC display looking down at the keyboard as it scoots over to the printer.
November 11, 2025 at 6:47 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Never noticed the little bottles of Tabasco in the prison mess hall with Charlie Chaplin and his cellmate. Distracted by the cocaine in the salt shakers, I guess! ("Modern Times", 1936)
Still from Modern Times showing the Tramp and his cellmate in the prison mess hall. A bottle of Tabasco sauce is highlighted in the foreground.
September 11, 2025 at 2:18 AM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Ugh just remembered the Nokia Asha series-- cheap, colorful, and useful. My last phone before giving up Series 40 for Android was the Asha 302 but I loved the chonky ones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Asha_platform
Marketing photo of the Nokia Asha 503. The photo shows 6 handsets in bright primary colors.
September 10, 2025 at 8:55 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
💾 WORD 🧠 PERFECT 🖨️
"A word processor should be an extension of your mind"
(ad from PC World, July 1983)
Full page, full color ad for Word Perfect by Satellite Software International (SSI). The tagline reads: "A word processor should be an extension of your mind." An intensely scifi airbrushed illustration depicts a translucent human head with bright lights on the forehead. Lightning leads from the forehead down to a computer terminal and into a very long, unbroken trail of printer paper, unspooling toward the viewer.
September 9, 2025 at 2:18 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
🔥💾🔨 BANGING OUT THAT CODE 🧑‍🚒💪💦

Clipped from an ad for The Software Toolworks in Silicon Gulch Gazette (1981) https://bitsavers.org/pdf/computerFaire/SiliconGulchGazette/25a_07-01.pdf
Pen and ink drawing of a bearded blacksmith standing in front of an anvil with his arms crossed. In one hand, a mallet. In the other, a pair of tongs holding a floppy disk.
August 27, 2025 at 4:19 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
> "I'm an old ham radio operator," he says, "I do believe that the airwaves and communication belong to the people and should be kept as free as possible."

> Strassner considers sysops to be experimenters involved "pure research — because we have no set goals." […]

[Original post on aoir.social]
July 14, 2025 at 6:58 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Google Translate is trying to tell me something
#ai
Strange output from Google Translate: > I'll be there > "The only thing I'm afraid of is that I'm not a doctor." I'm not a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor I'll be right with you. I'll be right with you, but I'll be right with you. I'll be right with you, and I'll be right with you. I'll be back in a few days. I'll be back in a few days. I'll be back in a few days. I'll be back in a few days. I'm not talking about a silly idea, I'm not talking about a silly idea, I'm talking about a silly idea. I'm talking about a silly idea. > 10 minutes later, the doctor told me that he had to be patient and that he was not going to let me go. I'll be there soon. I'll be there soon, but I'll be there soon, and I'll be there soon, and I'll be there soon."
July 14, 2025 at 3:20 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Reading 90s nightlife reports from the Boston Phoenix archives. On the closing of The Napoleon Club in 1998: "first opened as a Prohibition-era speakeasy in 1929. From 1952 on, it operated as a gay bar..."
https://bostonphoenix.com/archive/1in10/98/07/CLUBLAND.html
"For those of you who never had the pleasure, you missed out on one of the most amazing nocturnal experiences our little town had to offer. My favorite memory is from a night a couple of years ago. It was fairly early, before the evening crowd had arrived, and without any prompting, a fairly plain-looking guy in an Anderson Little suit moved from the bar and parked himself at the piano. Placing his drink atop a coaster, he launched into the most spirited rendition of "Oklahoma" that I have ever heard. I fully expected Shirley Jones to come around the corner in full costume to complete the scene. I imagined that he had just spent the whole day working downtown at a bank he managed, singing the song over and over to himself, and when that last teller cashed out, he beelined to Nappy's to get it out of his system. And in true Napoleon's tradition, the few patrons in the room either moved to join him around the piano or just smiled to themselves and sang along from their places at the bar. Thank you, Napoleon's, for 60 years of entertainment."
July 12, 2025 at 1:02 AM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Illustration from the Télématique column in *Science et vie micro *(June, 1984). Note the cover story: "*Le été informatique*"!! 🏖️💻😎💾

🔗 https://archive.org/details/science-et-vie-micro-007/page/148/mode/2up
Pen and ink drawing bounded by a square box. On the left side, a humanoid face appears to be made of bits of metal with a fierce eyeshadow, On the right, a nose and lips in profile appear to whisper into the cyborg's ear. A blue wire comes out of the neck of the figure on the left in a playful curlicue.
June 20, 2025 at 12:55 AM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Illustration from the first issue of the Journal of Sport History (1974). My hunch is that the drawing was done by the Art Editor, T. Cook.

The player isn't named but the collar, belt, and shoes match the original uniform of the Boston Red Stockings. And doesn't […]

[Original post on aoir.social]
Pen and ink illustration of a baseball player posing with their bat. The letters "BOSTON" appear across the front of the jersey. Studio photography of baseball player Harry Schafer, posing with a baseball bat. The letters "BOSTON" appear on the front of his jersey.
June 17, 2025 at 4:20 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
R. Crumb, "Education", The Whole Earth Review, January, 1985, pp 15.
A pen and ink illustration of 16 different people sitting in front of rows of computer terminals with headphones on by R. Crumb, "Education", The Whole Earth Review, January, 1985, pp 15.
June 17, 2025 at 1:45 AM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
The first #meshtastic meme dropped this week
Screenshot of a meshtastic message reading: "Hello from AA flight 793 PHL to STL"
April 24, 2025 at 12:24 AM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
tfw you find your own book for sale at the public library fundraiser! #charlottesville
Three rows of secondhand books lined up on a table with their spines visible. "The Modem World" is visible in the first row.
April 13, 2025 at 3:55 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Funnnn. Kiddo and I made our first #meshtastic contact. Seems like a great new on-ramp to ham radio 📻 ⚡ 📻
#amateurradio
Screenshot of the meshtastic android app showing two people chatting
February 26, 2025 at 3:47 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Meshing around with #meshtastic. Haven't seen a ton of activity in Charlottesville yet but I suspect the radio groundhogs will emerge in springtime 📻 🕸️ // 👀 @loriemerson
February 14, 2025 at 4:16 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
@DrFerrous "Sure, I'm available to jump on zoom..."
A still from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure showing Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in a phone booth wearing dark shades
January 10, 2025 at 5:40 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Trying to imagine what it was like being a senior in high school in 2020. Your school closes for "2 weeks" and just...never reopens! No graduation, no prom, no senior skip day, no rites, no rituals. It's mind-bending.

And these kids in Brampton ON end up […]

[Original post on aoir.social]
JOHN's MUSIC BLOG: "When I first came across your stuff years ago, you were pushing this sort of Canadian, suburban freakout energy that was really exciting to me. At what point did you start calling your crew off OFFLEASH?" DOFLAME: "We got a two week break in 2020 and they let us go for COVID and then we just ended up never going back to school. That was my senior year. I had all this time that I should have been in school. I had this idea for so long, I wanted to have everybody involved, no matter what it is—I'm in so many pockets of friend groups. People are skateboarding, people are writing graffiti, people are making music. Anything similar I'd seen was super dope. This is really important for not only showing your stuff, but when kids see it, for them to be like, Yeah, let's do this. That kind of thing. This is cooler than like just fucking off or whatever."
December 16, 2024 at 3:29 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
Great paper demonstrating that, yes, social scientists backed away from Twitter in late 2022.

Dig in for the thoughtful discussion about why this matters and what it means for scholarly communication in the future.

📄 Bisbee, James, and Kevin Munger. “The […]

[Original post on aoir.social]
Screenshot from the full text of the paper. "An obvious question is: “Who cares?” We contend that those who value Twitter specifically and public-facing academic research more generally should care about these results. Although the net effect of Twitter on political and intellectual life will continue to be debated, as summarized previously, there are many parties that will be affected by the decline of academic Twitter." "Those who believe that Twitter generated fruitful discussion about working papers should care about the evidence presented in this article. Those who became aware of junior scholars’ research that they otherwise would not have should care, as should those who were introduced to academics from underrepresented backgrounds in the academy. Furthermore, the nonacademics who were introduced to and followed the scholars in our dataset also should care, as well as anyone who values the principle of independent research reaching a wider, nonacademic audience."
October 27, 2024 at 12:02 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
In memory of the late DJ Randall, someone uploaded a staggering collection of mixes, radio shows, and live sets to google drive. Currently zoning his set from DREAMSCAPE, New Years Eve, 1994 ⏩⏩⏩

🔊 Found some notes about this party and it's surreal flyer art […]

[Original post on aoir.social]
Surreal rave flyer turned into packaging for a collection of CDs documenting the music at DREAMSCAPE 15 v 16, New Years 1994-1995.
October 7, 2024 at 7:58 PM
kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy
📆 This Friday at 12 PM, Julien Mailland will be giving a talk on the "**Legal Origins of Modern Videogame Homebrewing**" in 142 Wilson Hall at the University of Virginia.

📚 The talk is based on Julien's new book:
***THE GAME THAT NEVER ENDS: ***
***HOW […]

[Original post on aoir.social]
Flyer for an event at the University of Virginia. On September 27 at 12 PM, Julien Mailland will be giving a talk titled "Legal Origins of Modern Videogame Homebrewing" in 142 Wilson Hall.
September 23, 2024 at 6:05 PM