An Envelope of Dried Wildflowers

Here is an everlasting bouquet of Swedish wildflowers from me to you.

Oct 18, 2020

The day after Uno was born I received a letter from Søren and a package from Inês. When I read out Søren’s words to Ana we both got teary eyes. And when I opened Inês’ package we were overwhelmed with her thoughtfulness; out from a little brown envelope fell dried wildflowers from her Grandmother’s garden.

I’ve now written this newsletter every week for two years. An accomplishment I am proud of. Thank you for reading along. For allowing me to send my observations to your inbox every Sunday morning. The goal for the next two years is to send everyone reading this newsletter a handpicked bouquet of dried wildflowers with a personal note.

With care,

Kristoffer

VISUALLY PLEASING

A 3D models library of human genitals.

READER INTERVIEW

Ianthe de Boeck is flower binder, distance biker and supporter of a slower economy. She appreciates art, a good dance and talking about life. In her daily work, she helps cultural institutions bridging to the internet.

K: How do you think of time?

Ianthe: My grandmother always said time is not something you have, it’s something you make. As with many things she said, I only got that expression later in life. Time is a construct, a playfield.

I tend to lean towards things that are made in a time-consuming way. Taking an interest in the work, resources and patience it takes to grow and make stuff in a natural way… Instead of making these processes so efficient that we stop making ‘sense’ of time. It’s because we (humankind) can’t sit still in a room that we’re making this world go round too quickly.

K: Who can write the future?

Ianthe: When it comes to who has the most power to write the future, obviously it’s the people behind our national and international governments, technology platforms, services and products we use most…

It’s frustrating with all the knowledge we have as a society, quick wins and short term is top of mind. So shouldn’t we all keep trying to have a say in this? Be the future we want to see. To be part of the future I try to inspire cultural institutions to take a stance in ethical technology.

K: Who would you like to give a gift? And what would it be?

Ianthe: I love to be giving as a lifestyle. Today I gave a book from my shelf and a pot of homemade prune jam to a friend who lost her mother, because that’s just plain bitter. Another friend of mine is in quarantine, so I passed by with cake. It’s one big excuse to be able to make stuff and be there for one another.

K: What would you love to sell that no one wants to buy?

I decided I don’t ‘love to sell’. The best things in life aren’t for sale.

ROADSIDE FLOWERS

Blue or purple?

I’m still not entirely sure what it is that Thomas shared with me.

Watch the world wake up and go to sleep.

Send messages using Llama font.

INTERNET STORIES

Using Government IT to Teach and Build Public Infrastructure
All citizens and companies rely on public infrastructure, from the roads we drive to the water we drink. In this post, Bianca Wylie argues we’d also benefit from good public digital infrastructure; public tech that is non-commercial and values more than newness.
Parametric TikTok
Short thought storm on how the TikTok algorithm encourages creators to bombard viral videos with variation, similar to how machine learning works. In comparison, YouTube’s algorithm is much more analytical. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ancient Democracy For An Online World
Instead of asking what the internet does to democracy, this article in Noema reflects on the state of democracy on the internet. From the online groups we participate in to the open-source we use, online we rarely have a say in who has the power.

INTERNETMEZZO

“How we quantitatively value time greatly influences how we qualitatively value time. By replacing post-industrial 'artificial measures' of time with pre-industrial 'natural measures' of time we can each become a time rebel and appreciate / embody the temporality of the long now.” — Ted Hunt

Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly - Observations from the Internet Wilderness.

Last week this newsletter was sent to 679 people. Thirtyone people are crazy enough to chip in every month/year to support me making time to write this newsletter: Nikolaj, Lars, Ditte, Jakob, Antal, Anders, Sascha, Cecilie, Søren, Dries, Tina, Gautier, Sarper, Maarten, Mystery x2, Joshua, Thomas, Mikkel, Aydo, Lukas, Hans, Vibe Johanne, Csongor, Dad, Ida Marie, Yinka, Stine, Troels, William & Angela!

Photograph by Ana Santl.