When I set out to write *Devil in the Stack* my aim was to understand the tech defined by code. I thus think AGI soon is unlikely but degradation of life inevitable w/o action. AI "godfather" Hinton might be right here. Capitalism can adapt but needs a will to do it. Brian Eno said same last week.

Why the life of writers is getting fraught: fake book recommends (below) are one thing. My publishers trying to use AI to proofread my book *Devil in the Stack* is another. Irony given the book involves me learning to code to investigate the impacts of code/algos on the world! Looking good so far!

Seen in Manhattan last night. Now they've got their own museum, d'you think they might leave us alone?

Happy Earth Day, friends. Our homeworld, seen by the crew of Apollo 8 in 1968.

Reposting this at a UK/Europe-friendly time :-)

Third clip from Big Ears '25, maybe my favorite from dozens of brilliant shows: Portishead singer Beth Gibbons in solo mode. Her Lives Outgrown album was stunning to hear, but for the encore she caused mayhem by treating us to one from the old band...

This'll be quite something if it turns out to be true, courtesy Cory Doctorow. A reminder why we need to be cautious about letting tech firms access our stuff, even when it seems to our immediate advantage - that's the model: give us something, take more. pluralistic.net/2025/04/15/m...

2nd Big Ears clip. Musicians love the festival cos they set up lots of unlikely collaborations. Here Sun Ra's Arkestra + Yo La Tengo. And yes, that's Marshall Allen at the front (age 101), who was a Buffalo Soldier in WWII, stayed in Paris to study sax & joined the Arkestra in '58. Some kinda life!

Finally gathered vid snippets from the Big Ears Fest in Knoxville, always my fave four days of the year. Will post over coming days. This the simply staggering Anohnie & the Johnsons: *It Must Change* from wonderful recent album My Back Was a Bridge...what a voice huh? Great London-based band.

Just finished the simply staggering Netflix (I know!) series *Adolescence*. Never mind the timely subject matter of the incel "manosphere" seeping into schools, the technical and creative audacity of its execution is mindblowing. Already having an impact too. SO well done everyone involved.

Report from the ever-essential Popular Information on insider winners and general public losers from the $Trump memecoin. Insider grafter methods almost identical to those used in the dotcom boom and crash (as sleuthed and exposed in my book Totally Wired.) Do we ever learn? (answer: no)

Any student of British history knows there's a name for what a Musk administration super pac is doing in offering voters $100 to sign a petition against one candidate in a Wisconsin election. It's called "pork barrel politics." Outlawed in the mid-19th century over there...but ok here in the US?

NYT Daily podcast on evidence that covid lockdown policies did more harm than good. I thought of the UK's evacuation of kids from London in WWII, which were later found to have caused such psych damage that losing some to bombs would have been better. Don't forget both from the best intentions tho.

Weirdly, I seldom read music books. Here are 2 I loved tho: James Wilson's brilliantly-written mystery The Pieces, about the hunt for a vanished 60s folk singer; and Hugh Hodges' superfun The Fascist Groove Thing, a history of the Thatcher years told through the music she inspired - brilliant idea!

Things to find joy in pt2: the fabulous Slavic Soul Party at this year's Golden Festival of Balkan Music in Queens, one of the most remarkable fests I've ever been to. David Byrne in the background (goes every year it seems.) Here's why:

Things to find joy in, pt1: stayed an extra night in Nashville after appearing at the Southern Festival of Books, for bluegrass at the Station Inn. It was open night, bring your own instruments, and just impossibly fun and brilliant.

I fear there is deep truth here.