Unlocked doors
Manuel Moreale: Dealgorithmed
Dear reader,
The first Moomins book is an unusual children’s story.
Where most kids’ books start with the hero leaving the peaceful home in search of adventure and adolescence, The Great Flood begins with the little Moomins’ family on a journey to find a home—and their dad, who had left them with some tiny, strange creatures. The book was published in 1945, when many families around the world were searching for a home and missing family members.
My mom told me that the author, Tove Jansson, had a remote cabin in the Stockholm archipelago. She would stay there most of the summer, and before she left for the winter, she would fill the place with food, firewood, and other necessities, and leave the door unlocked in case a stranded traveler needed shelter.
It’s worth remembering in the Great Internet Migration away from the gigantic social platforms. In our search for a peaceful home, we might consider something other than building private fortresses to hide in.
With care,
Kristoffer
⋆˚☆˖°⋆｡° ✮˖ ࣪ ⊹⋆.˚
Manuel Moreale: Dealgorithmed
Manuel Moreale is a reasonably competent Italian developer in his mid-30s.
What is Dealgorithmed?
Dealgorithmed is my most recent newsletter, focused on the web as a place where people still get to create, share, express, and just be themselves in ways that are not shaped by social media. It comes out twice a month, on the 1st and 15th. My hope for the newsletter is to recapture some of the fun of the old web and also help people reconnect with parts of the net that are currently forgotten.
Why did you start it?
Mostly frustration and anger. I was fed up with all the people who are constantly repeating that the internet is dead and are linking to the dead internet theory. I know for a fact the internet is far from dead.
I see so much negativity and wasted potential in the way we use the web, while I know it could be a much better place for everyone. It’s easy to feel all doom-and-gloom, but part of me has to stay hopeful, which is why I keep coming up with projects to help people connect with each other in the digital space. I wanted to help people rediscover how lively, weird, and quirky this digital space still is.
How is this shown in the newsletter?
When I started the newsletter, I didn’t have a clear idea in mind of what I wanted it to be (and I still don’t). I just knew I needed to do something. I also didn’t want to impose a right structure from the get-go.
The Mystery Links at the bottom, for example, that’s an idea I had while I was typing the content of the first edition, on January 1st. I’m a fan of random explorations (in the digital and in the real world), and I thought clicking on a random link is a nice way to get a bit of that old “web surfing” feel back.
I’m still debating whether I want a proper online archive for this, because part of me likes the ephemeral nature of newsletters, but I also want people to be able to follow via RSS. So that’s something I need to take care of.
Subscribe to Dealgorithmed. Also make sure to check Manuel’s lovely People and Blogs project.
°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡
Field notes
1.
Shelf Life: The Truth Lasts. A hopeful hot take: good products are the ones that last. I’d love for this to be the end of enshittification.
2.
Serif Populism. 7000-word design critique slash meme review by Silvio Lorusso.
3.
Hold the Internet in your hands. An interview with me about the Internet Phone Book. I promise to start talking about Issue Two soon...
4.
Call for Participation. Needlebound (Due, Feb 15), File (Due, Feb 19), IndieCon Travel Grant (Due, Feb 28), re•mediate (Due, N/A), NMWP Annual Unconference (Due, Feb 28), Artlab (Due, Mar 9), Solar Futures (Due, Mar 15), Cursor Mag (Due, Mar 15), Permeable Barrier (Due, Mar 22), and Antifreeze (Due, N/A).
5.
Poetic Web Calendar. Literary Manuals Coding Workshop (Feb 15, London), Teaching Creative Technology (Feb 17, NYC), WordHack (Feb 19, NYC), Cybernetics Library (Feb 21, NYC), Internet Infrastructure Walking Tour (Mar 8, London), The Web You Want (Apr 17, Amsterdam), Open Hardware Summit (May 23-24, Berlin), Parameter (May 29-30, Ljubljana), and INC Exit Fest (June 24-26, Amsterdam).
₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ ₊˚⊹♡
Wayside flowers
(•˕ •マ.ᐟ
Readers’ Corner
Inprogress.works is lovely – thanks for sharing it. Also: i love any site that has a solid-colour square as a favicon. it’s just plain nice.
— Cory
wow progress works is super cool!
also, cute intro 🍊
— Elliott
Hi Kristoffer, this is Day Lane, archivist of the Hydrant Directory, etc. I wanted to let you know about a call for submission for a new archival project that I think your audience would appreciate.
The Antifreeze Archive (antifreeze.gallery/) is a project to try to archive all the pieces of paper that are produced by communities in response to federal occupation of American cities. Things like: flyers, posters, Know-Your-Rights cards, ice hotline cards, etc. We’re asking people in American cities to mail in submissions to be preserved for future generations. All the information about contributing to the archive is on the website, antifreeze.gallery/contribute/
— Day
