week 39 / 2024
Arse aching from long hours on international trains, eyes itchy from infantile interior design choices—gor blimey, guv, it's WEEKNOTES. This week, we've only gone and been in bloomin' London, innit?
Latest
computer says yes: an interview with Georgina Voss (part 2)
The second part of an interview with artist, author and educator Georgina Voss, in which we discuss the role of humour and anger in narrating big, difficult things, and the aesthetic challenges of representing an international engineering scandal in words and images.
week 38 / 2024
Head in the clouds and feet on the ground, realising that it's almost time to retire the sandals for another year—hoo, lordy, it's WEEKNOTES. This week, the uncounted is counted once more, and a very big book has a very big opinion of itself.
fairy or walrus? futuring tips from the Tumblrati
This is the hill I will die on today: the kids on Tumblr are currently engaging more seriously with the boundless possibilities of futurity than the Very Serious AI Guys of LinkedIn.
schedule adjustment notice
Hello, worldbuilders!
Just a quick note to let you know: it occurred to me this morning that my spending a bunch of time compiling weeknotes which don't get emailed to you, only to then spend a shorter amount of time two days later writing a short note alerting
week 37 / 2024
Having flashbacks to rhinestone country compressed through the speakers of a first-generation Ford Fiesta—yep, it's WEEKNOTES. This week, many meetings have been had, and we find ourselves agreeing with *gasp* a quantitative analyst!
hot in the city 2nite
Hello worldbuilders! It's 28°C in Malmö this afternoon, and it's reliably been around that temperature in the afternoon for close to a week now.
I quite like hot weather, really, but a lot of other folk are less keen—and I dare say I'
Weeknotes
week 38 / 2026: condensers and collapses
In this instalment: the demise of the deodand; a history of the microphone; and a gloss on civilisational collapse. Plus: the more-than-human in Haraway! The set-pieces in Iain M Banks! And my seeming inability to say no to academic writing opportunities, despite no longer being an academic!
week 37 / 2026: time and motion
In this instalment, we examine the perceived acceleration of time’s passing, tour the tawdry campus of a failed secular techno-guru-cult, and poach processes from a wide range of writers. Plus: Iain Banks, Charlie Stross and the history of space opera!
week 36 / 2026: revise and reassess
In this instalment, three things merit a second look: the impact of three- and two-wheel EVs on oil demand; Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History?”; and—much as it pains me to admit it—Stewart Brand’s “pace layers” model.
week 35 / 2026: scholars and sandpiles
In this instalment, I try to rescue the baby of Kevin Munger’s vision for a more public-facing form of academic scholarship from the bathwater of handwavey “AI” enthusiasm.
week 34 / 2026: boats and boxes
In this instalment: container shipping is starting to hit its logistical limits, at least on the land, even as it enables some seriously dirty business models. Plus: Byung-Chul Han, and E J Swift’s Clarke Award-winning novel When There Are Wolves Again!
week 33 / 2026: out and about
Attention conservation notice: weeknotes are (sort of) on holiday.
week 32 / 2026: nature and culture
In this episode: we wander into the forests of medieval Europe, return with the underlying imagery of Enlightenment and Romanticist thought, and then feel for their bones beneath the skin of the present.
News
schedule adjustment notice
Hello, worldbuilders!
Just a quick note to let you know: it occurred to me this morning that my spending a bunch of time compiling weeknotes which don't get emailed to you, only to then spend a shorter amount of time two days later writing a short note alerting
hot in the city 2nite
Hello worldbuilders! It's 28°C in Malmö this afternoon, and it's reliably been around that temperature in the afternoon for close to a week now.
I quite like hot weather, really, but a lot of other folk are less keen—and I dare say I'
call it in, take it off
Hello, worldbuilders! It's been quiet here this last week, because around this time on the Sunday previous I started thinking "hmm, I don't feel so great", and by the evening I was feeling (as we Brits say) like death warmed over.
Hell knows what
less magic, more traffic
Hello, worldbuilders! It feels a lot like the roundabout just hasn't stopped spinning over the week just gone—and next week it's The Conference, which means the metaphorical carny will be reaching out his hairy hand to give it another good shove... which means there'
pass the vol-au-vents
Hello, worldbuilders! And welcome to those of you who've signed up in the last few days. Glad you could come—take a chair, get yourself a drink. How are things?
We've got no Actual Announcement this week; I would announce again that I've giving
the circus comes to town
Hello, worldbuilders! This is your weekly newsthingy... and we're gonna start with An Actual Announcement.
Talk and workshop: The Conference, Malmö, Mon 26th August 2024
I will be giving a talk entitled Wisdom for worldbuilders: fictions, futures, fandoms on the morning of Mon 26th August.
Said talk is
null but not void
Hello, worldbuilders! What's been happening at Worldbuilding Agency this week?
No essay or interview
Um, yeah—bit of an absence at the middle of the week, wasn't there? Sorry about that.
There's an interview in the pipe, but it's awaiting approval from