the:: Transfer

Projection of Tolerance

There is a particular move that precedes most of the privacy violations I have observed, and it is made before the violation occurs.

The move is this: I wouldn’t mind becomes you shouldn’t mind.

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And How Are We Today?

Roy Porter, writing about the conversational preoccupations of a certain class of English society in the eighteenth century, noted that health was among their primary concerns. The state of one’s body occupied the drawing room with a persistence that suggested, to Porter at least, something worth remarking on.

Nothing has changed. The class has expanded.

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When Language Outgrows the Event

I sent an email. The reply began: Thanks for reaching out.

I had not reached out. I had sent an email. Reaching out describes a physical or emotional gesture—the extension of oneself across a distance that makes the extension notable. It implies effort. It implies that contact was not guaranteed and was therefore meaningful when achieved.

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What a System Is Supposed to Be

A system, in its formal definition, is a set of interacting components that function together as a unified whole to achieve a specific purpose. The definition is straightforward. The components are interdependent—if one part fails, the whole is affected.

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When the Customer Becomes an Interruption

I spend several thousand dollars a year at local independent businesses. Not as a matter of habit or proximity but as a deliberate choice. Small businesses in my neighbourhood are struggling.

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On The Accretion Of Systems

The archive does not begin with the present. It begins with what accumulated before the present existed, layer upon layer of previous arrangements, each one added to address a problem the layer beneath it created or failed to solve, each one carrying forward the assumptions of the layer it was placed on top of.

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