Blogging Volumes

Alright, it’s actually just our algorithm. But stick with us. This will be a trip. Clickbait is something our platform specialises in, so we’re sorry, but we couldn’t help ourselves. We don’t really have a space programme.  Keep reading though, because we’ve got something even better . Firstly, let me explain our business model. At Facebook, these days, we view ourselves less as a social media company and more of a mining company. And here, we mine the most valuable, sustainable resource on the planet: consumer data. ‘Consumer data’ is any information we collect about the people who use our services. It includes (but is certainly not limited to) their date of birth, relationship status, everything they view on-site and how long they view it for, their entire history of private messages, their private spoken conversations, the majority of their browser history even when they’re not on Facebook, all of their photos, videos… You get the picture. Gold, oil and diamonds have got nothing...

In cribbage, a ‘nineteen hand’ is an impossible hand. It’s also, commonly, the term for a hand that makes zero points. Now, I’ve never played cribbage, but I feel like turning nineteen in 2020 is life’s equivalent of an impossibly unlucky ‘nineteen hand’. Sure, there have always been bad times to turn nineteen. In Vietnam, for one, the average age of the combat soldier was (n-n-n-n-)nineteen, as Paul Hardcastle has told us. And obviously, as a young person, I’m much less likely to be seriously affected by the coronavirus than someone aged nine ty (although, if I do get a bad case of covid, medical research suggests I’ll be feeling the effects of it for the rest of my life). But I’ve been thinking about the number nineteen nonetheless, prompted by the cosmic coincidence of ‘Covid- 19 ’ spreading worldwide in the year of my nineteenth birthday, and it’s led me in many directions. Firstly, it’s led me backwards; nineteen years ago, two planes crashed into the world trade center, and set...

And it’s off! It’s propelled by the sparkly stuff, The new pictures of people all processed above And then fed to this neuron; his job is to rush Down the river that’s cold, filled with ionic slush; Then his neurotransmitter converts him to clouds Made of chemical signals that swarm like a shroud Up towards the next neuron. The enzymes attack, But enough of the message survives past the gap To be able to change to electric again. His mood’s positive now as he starts to ascend Up one dendritic tendril, he moves with the group Now, combining their efforts to swim through the soup Of the neuron’s cell body. Collectively they Are formidably forceful, they barely delay So the axon is passed through at terminal speed, Our original signal’s last terminal deed Was to merge with the surging electrical mob. He is no longer He; He is They; They’re a blob. They’re expanding beyond all their previous shapes, Down the downtrodden lanes of the brain they escape, And they’re flexing their power to zip...

The greatest martial artist acknowledges his fear, his anger, his pain. He acknowledges his weaknesses, he acknowledges his tendencies. The greatest martial artist uses his knowledge of these things to attack his opponent. But he does not attack with flailing emotion, with structureless, animal, primal rage. His anger is directed, like flaming gas through an engine, to exactly where it needs to be. His is a poet’s rage: functional, efficient, and contained. There are no fixed rules in the ring. Every fight can surprise you, and you will be forced to adapt accordingly. Wrestling with your opponent you will realise they are a more complex beast than you could ever have anticipated before you challenged them. But still, the greatest martial artist practises menial and repetitive drills, hoping to subject his base, instinctive, creative impulses to drilled-in restraint. He feigns the motion of a thousand moves, despite the knowledge that such perfect movements alone will never wi...

SONNET-19 When I consider how my lockdown's spent, Attached to a device, devouring time, While others ration minutes, breaths, and I'm Consuming content just to keep content; While patient-focussed carers still are sent Without protection to the new frontlines, Like miners drilling in untested mines, And undergo this trial without complaint; I understand I’m squandering my days. ‘And yet,’ they say, ‘Consider this disease That lunges between lungs at growing rate; As long as you’re a citizen who stays At home not spreading it, you’re key’: It seems They also serve who only stand and wait.

This Blog was written by the Metaphorical Concept of Light, On the 21st of May 2020 War was declared in January this year, when a small cluster of radical virus cells in the extremist group ‘coronavirus’ decided to assassinate a 61-year-old man in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Following the murder, they enjoyed widespread media coverage, and were able to rapidly recruit new members, bolstering their efforts to become an international threat. In their homeland of China, they continued to wage war on civilians, even as the government deployed troops with spray guns and inhalation armour (or, ‘Masks’) to combat them. Despite dismissive responses from countries like the United States and Britain, who were slow to react in the early stages of the war, believing this group to be no more worrying than the terrorist cells already active within their own countries (i.e. the radical Influenza), the group took over large portions of Europe.  At long last, Britain acknowledged its need...