Words of the Day 2026-05-13

On this day (1949): First British-produced jet bomber, the Canberra, makes its first test flight. The Canberra’s B-52-like longevity:

Slop, from my OED app: “noun 1 (slops) waste water from a kitchen, bathroom, or chamber pot that has to be emptied by hand: sink slops. ▪ semi-liquid kitchen refuse, often used as animal food: she emptied some slops for the chickens. ▪ unappetizing semi-liquid food…. The first of the current senses ( ‘unappetizing food’) dating from the mid 17th century.” Yes, that seems on point. From Etymology.com, even earlier: “c. 1400, ‘mudhole, puddle,’ probably from Old English -sloppe ‘dung’ (in plant name cusloppe, literally ‘cow dung’), related to slyppe ‘slime’ (from PIE root *sleubh- “to slide, slip”).

“The Slop Cycle—How Every Media Revolution Breeds Rubbish and Art” [Scientific American]. “Spam, fluff, clickbait, churnalism, kitsch—slop: These are all ways to describe mass-produced, low-quality content. The latter term is reserved for the newest variety, which comes from artificial intelligence. Though references to AI slop date back at least to 2022, a poet and technologist who writes under the name ‘deepfates’ popularized it two years later as ‘the term for unwanted AI generated content’ in a post on X. Shortly afterward, developer Simon Willison shared the concept in a blog post [hat tip, blogosphere; see below]: ‘Not all AI-generated content is slop,’ he wrote.” Yes, it is. More: “But if it’s mindlessly generated [emitted] and thrust upon someone who didn’t ask for it, slop is the perfect term.’ Today slop’s pejorative bite is increasingly aimed at all things AI, treating it as an undeniable cultural pollutant. And most of it is—but by indiscriminately dismissing all of it, we risk missing out on the minority of creations that are keepers.” This is, actually, fair enough. (Every medium when introduced is immediately used to produce pr0n. And so it is with AI slop). More: “In the early 1700s, a growing reading public and coffeehouse networks created steady demand for text, giving rise to Grub Street—the slop generator of its time. The name belonged to a London area with printing shops, booksellers and cheap lodgings where impoverished writers churned out pamphlets, satires, political tracts, sensational stories and hack journalism—whatever sold. Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary made ‘grubstreet’ a synonym for ‘mean production.’ Elites stirred up a now familiar moral panic about commerce corrupting letters and mocked Grub Street even as its writers built the first modern freelance economy and mass-print culture. Johnson himself made his early living in the Grub Street milieu, and other luminaries, such as Daniel Defoe, Eliza Haywood and Jonathan Swift, all wrote for the burgeoning market.” • Except…Johnson, Defoe, Haywood, and Swift were all human. The relations they entered into — even the commercial ones — were human-to-human. I think it’s a conceptual mistake — or even a misdirection — to focus on the excretion product rather than the labor that created the product.

“How ‘slop’ became the defining word of 2025” [Fast Company]. “Mere days into 2025, AI slop—the variety of click-harvesting, sensationalized, brain-melting content that’s likely taken over your Facebook feed [what Facebook feed]—was already raising alarms. In the wake of the fires that devastated the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of L.A. this January, AI clips of heartwarming rescues began circulating to capitalize on the tragedy. In March, a study from Cornell University revealed that an influx of AI slop was slowly beginning to suffocate the web. Since then, the problem has only escalated. We’ve seen a concerning wave of fake Holocaust AI content; AI slop used in political messaging by former New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo and President Trump himself; and AI-generated tributes to conservative pundit Charlie Kirk in the wake of his assassination. AI slop has thoroughly weasled its way into the marketing and advertising spheres, so much so that companies like Pinterest have had to roll out new filters to allow users to dial back the AI content. Everywhere you look, it’s slop all the way down.” • I hope I haven’t been taken in by any of it….

“Snopestionary: AI slop, explained” [Snopes]. “Slop is the evolution of spam, in a way. It’s low-quality content that’s easy to create thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) tools. It can overwhelm social media feeds, leaving users unsure of what’s real and what’s not.” Here follow a boatload of links giving examples of slop. Importantly: “AI slop isn’t designed for humans, according to an article from 404 Media. Instead, it called AI slop’s underlying strategy a ‘brute force attack,’ the simplest of hacking strategies that involves just trying every possible combination one at a time until something gives. What a brute force attack lacks in efficiency, it makes up for in efficacy. Slop games the system by flooding algorithms with AI-generated content until something goes viral.” And: “According to a separate 404 Media article, the payments generally aren’t substantial, ‘hundreds of dollars’ at most. However, that money can go a lot further in countries like India, Vietnam or the Philippines. Claims that Snopes has fact-checked and found to have originated as AI slop often have a tie to such countries — AI slop ‘news stories’ often link to websites based in Vietnam, for instance.” • So, arbitrage by the periphery against the imperial core. “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions content!”

“New York Times Issues Stern Warning to Its Freelance Writers About AI Use” [Futurism]. “After a string of AI controversies, The New York Times emailed a ‘periodic reminder’ to freelancers on Tuesday reminding them of the paper’s AI policy. ‘To be clear on AI: All writing and visuals that freelancers submit to The Times must be the product of human creativity and craft, and all submissions must consist solely of their original reporting, writing and other work,’ reads the email, reviewed by Futurism. ‘Freelance contributors must not submit any material for publication that contains content generated, modified or enhanced by [generative AI] tools, or that has been input into these tools.’” And: “[W]hile [some] controversies indeed stemmed from the work of freelancers, the institution found itself in hot water yet again last week, when a substantial correction revealed that an article bylined by the NYT’s Canada Bureau chief contained an AI-fabricated quote weeks after publication.” • Yes, the Times prefers that its access journalism remain artisanal.

Dad Joke of the Day: If USA was so great… … why did we invent USB?

Parametricism, Dezeen: “A 21st-century architectural style and theoretical movement closely associated with advances in digital design tools. [It] is a style of architecture that results from using paramateric design tools to create a building. The word parametric refers to parameters, which are used to define rules for digitally design tools….When being developed, these forms are parametrically variable and mutually coordinated, meaning every element belongs to an elastic, integrated whole in which changing one parameter reshapes the others accordingly.” • Hence the curvilinearity (see below).

“Parametricism as Style – Parametricist Manifesto” [Patrik Schumacher (2008)]. “The key issues that avant-garde architecture and urbanism should be addressing can be summarized in the slogan: organising and articulating the increased complexity of post-fordist society.” I suppose post-[F]ordist means neoliberal? Global? Financialized? More: “The task is to develop an architectural and urban repertoire that is geared up to create complex, polycentric urban and architectural fields which are densely layered and continuously differentiated…. The ambition is to move from single system differentiation – e.g. a swarm of façade components – to the scripted association of multiple subsystems – envelope, structure, internal subdivision, navigation void. The differentiation in any one systems is correlated with differentions in the other systems.” Much like the handles of a Bezier curve in Illustrator, changing one parameter can change any or all of the other parameters. Hence, I would argue, the tendency of this style of architecture to revert to a blob, rather like our political economy. More: “Parametricism implies that all elements of the design become parametrically variable and mutually adaptive. Its most conspicuous outward characteristic is a complex and dynamic curvilinearity accentuated by a swarm-like proliferation of continuously differentiated components. Beyond such obvious surface features one can identify a series of new concepts and methods that are so different from the repertoire of both traditional and modern architecture that one is justified in speaking of the emergence of a new paradigm within architecture.” • An example of “complex and dynamic curvilinearity”:

Whoops, sorry. Wrong image. I meant this one:

The great thing about this building is that if you had a really big helicopter, you could pick it up from [checks notes] Baku, Azerbaijan and dump in Dubai, and you wouldn’t need to change a thing.

“The Place of Parametricism” [The Thinking Architect]. “Parametric design relies heavily on the wow factor of its futuristic looking forms, but as a result has forgone the inherent need to produce a building that responds to its site context…. [P]arametricism is already mainstream and not the cutting edge advancement in present day architecture that Schumacher would like to believe. It has become in practice a copy-paste, siteless, soulless, corporate architecture that is churned out at breakneck speed to be planted in the same way in any location around the world… [Parametricist maven] Zaha Hadid’s Wanjing SOHO project, in Beijing… is one of several projects built by the billion-dollar real estate development group, SOHO China. The result of the partnership has been fruitful for both parties. The team has designed and constructed bulbous buildings on a massive scale in China for several years now. The glaring unfortunate result of this business relationship is SOHO Galaxy. Completed and opened in 2012, the building today sits empty, expensive, unattractive and culturally irrelevant, save for its futuristic shapes that are seen in other projects in mainstream Chinese architecture. The building was designed with an open plan in mind as an invitation to the public to enter within to use the space for leisure, walking, dancing and general social interaction. It is unfortunate that Hadid, who has designed projects in China for years, overlooked the social interactions of Chinese people. Architect and critic Michał Jurgielewicz wrote on Galaxy SOHO saying, ‘Chinese people are habituated to spend most of their leisure time outside.’” • I can’t say that all the Google reviews of Galaxy SOHO were like this one:

Some of the reviews were obviously planted cheerleading. Others noted the quality of the architecture, i.e. good for selfies. Still others noted the prevalence of offices and beauty salons, i.e. low rent. Parametricism, in other words, created a ginormous dead mall.

“Parametricism is the architecture ‘of neoliberalism itself’ ” [Owen Hopkins, Dezeen]. “[I]n retrospect, parametricism appears as the architecture of those pre-crash boom years – indeed, of neoliberalism itself. This at least was the thesis put forward by Douglas Spencer in his 2016 book The Architecture of Neoliberalism, in which he argued that parametricism wasn’t just remote from the labour conditions required to create it, but actively served to widen the gap. To take an example, the flowing forms of ZHA’s 2012 London Aquatics Centre were enabled by a massive, almost unbelievable amount of steel that was hidden behind smooth white panels so as to make it appear effortless… By now, Schumacher was not just promoting parametricism but a radical libertarian political agenda. In this guise he soon became the bête noire of architecture’s left-leaning opinion formers, a position only hardened by his involvement in the creation of Liberland – a bizarre libertarian micro-nation in the Balkans that would become a citadel of parametricist architectural and urban design.” • The Prime Minister of Liberland is crypto squillionaire Justin Sun.

Fortune: “Revenge is a form of nostalgia.”

Blog, Brittanica: “[O]nline journal where an individual, group, or corporation [sigh] presents a record of activities, thoughts, or beliefs. Some blogs operate mainly as news filters, collecting various online sources and adding short comments and Internet links. Other blogs concentrate on presenting original material. In addition, many blogs provide a forum to allow visitors to leave comments and interact with the publisher. ‘To blog’ is the act of composing material for a blog. Materials are largely written, but pictures, audio, and videos are important elements of many blogs. The ‘blogosphere’ is the online universe of blogs.”

“The Death Star Administration” [Paul Krugman]. “[T]oday is Star Wars Day — May the fourth be with you.” • I may have my issues with Krugman on politics, but the man who wrote “The Night They Reread Minsky” (an allusive double flip) is a great, great blogger.

“Blogging and the Niche Question” [The New Leaf]. “There is a distinction between being a person with interests and a person defined by interests. The latter affliction – collecting interests as if they were Pokemon cards and displaying them in a proverbial binder – is common among those on social media and dating sites or preparing college applications. …[I]t would be more interesting to read a blog post about coffee written by someone who has a passion for and knowledge about coffee and wants to share that interest with readers than someone who wants to be known as the ‘coffee guy’ because he or she likes coffee. The true blogger is not the amalgamation of interests, but a human being with sincere and authentic thoughts about his or her interests, grounded in some sort of relevant experience. The true blogger should be true to him or herself. Being interested in what one is writing should show in the final product. Forcing oneself into a niche or paradigm for some external reason will lead to ‘your dislike for the process’ showing in the final product.” • The key to success is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made. No but seriously folks, what really interests me about this post is the sheer number of current links to blogs, and bloggers blogging about blogging (for my takes on launching this blog, see here, here, and here). Underneath the froth and slop of social media, the blogosphere still flows along. (Search, whether Google or, better, Kagi, also shows plenty of recent hits).

“Blogging and writing style” [“Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science”]. “Also, blogging. Writing a blog is like writing a book: you can aim directly for your audience (first that’s you; after that it’s everyone else who will read it). In contrast, if you write for a newspaper or a magazine or a scientific journal, you’re writing for the editor. I hate writing for the editor. Editors can be great, but it’s such an indirect process. I remember back when I was writing for the Monkey Cage, the political science blog, and it got absorbed by the Washington Post. Which was great–we reached a broader audience–but then we had an editor, who was a nice person but kept telling me that my posts were too bloggy. Which they were–I’m sure the editor was correctly judging what would work for a Washington Post product–but I absolutely hated not being able to write directly. The prospect of more readers wasn’t worth the unpleasantness of having to write in a style that wasn’t mine, and the degradation of the quality of the writing and of the ideas being expressed under such a style.” • The Monkey Cage was absorbed by WaPo in 2013. Long before the Age of Bezos.

“7 Reasons You Badly Need a Blogging Schedule” [Travel Writing 2.0]. See sidebar at right. “Many of the root causes of low output could be solved by just sticking to a schedule though” [pause to wipe my bleeding forehead]. More: “Amazing things happen when you push content out the door like it’s a habit. This doesn’t mean some superhuman schedule of posting every day or even three times a week. That’s tough to do sustainably over a long period.” As opposed to daily for [counts on fingers] twenty-three years (with, granted a 10-month period of silence as this blog gestated). More: “But if you’re not consistently putting up one post a week, or two a month at a bare minimum if you’re part-time, it’s probably going to take you five years to get any real traction. If you commit to a blogging schedule and meet your own deadlines instead, you’ll probably have consistent success. If you just put up a post when you feel like it, then you’re going to have a hard time making the kind of solid income the bloggers do who are far more productive.” • Of course, the blog schedule is the big gear that drives all the other small gears in my life’s orrerry (sleeping, waking, coffee, dinner, blood pressure measurement). The big gear stops only at Golden Hour, when I go out to photograph, which makes the sun the biggest gear of all, fitting, I suppose.

“How the Influencer Economy Ruined Childhood’ [The American Conservative]. “[Author Fortesa Latifi], herself a mother, traces the history of blogging and vlogging about family life from text to image to video. At each step, the financial incentives grew, and so did the invasiveness. ‘The amount of money in the mom influencer and family vlogging world is almost unbelievable,’ Latifi writes. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, it’s more than that. According to Goldman Sachs research, the creator economy is expected to reach $500 trillion by 2027, and the highest echelons of mom influencers and family vloggers make hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year.’ That money—much of which goes to Big Tech companies’ bottom lines—is life-changing for families, but it also turns them into ‘something more resembling a business arrangement,’ in Latifi’s words.” • I have no children, so I guess I missed out on the big bucks!

NOTE Patient readers, as you can see I’m making some changes to the editorial design, here. Hence the extracts/quotes are, perhaps, too long (as I tend to try to capture the whole argument, rather than suggest it by curating the salient point, the bright shiny object. “I didn’t have time to write a short post, so I wrote a long one.”