notes.husk.org/likes images.

new-aesthetic:

“In 2016 the cognitive overhead of not simply understanding what an object does but what an object might do, particularly when it is connected to the internet is overwhelming, on good days. On bad days it can feel like a betrayal. By way of example let’s just pick a few recent headlines from the news:

• The Nest thermostat and its failed software update over the holidays that left a number of people without heating, in the middle of winter. Bugs happen and even hardware fails. I once spent nine hours without power in minus 30 degree weather when a single transformer in Northern Quebec exploded one night and plunged three quarters of the province in to darkness. What I find striking about the way people talk about the Nest incident is that they are starting to question what the point is, what the benefits are, of making something as simple and useful as a thermostat smarter.
  
• Meanwhile, the head of the intelligence services in the United States has said in no uncertain terms that they will use the internet of things as a platform for spying on people. Everything you here in this room are working on will be repurposed, wholesale, as surveillance pipes.
  
• Finally, and I apologize in advance if this is a trigger word for some people in the room, there is Volkwagen’s so-called “defeat device” software that is deliberately programmed to lie about a car’s fuel emmissions. If the other examples are the domain of nerds and people wearing tin-foil hats then the VW fiasco is the place where everyone else is looking at the evidence and starting to ask just what the fuck is going on? It is difficult not to see the defeat device as a slap in the face to the entire notion of a social contract.”
  

— The Pendulum of Bespokiness - Aaronland