Monday Links from the Bench vol. CCLIII

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Monday Links from the Bench vol. CCLIII

Current status: in mourning for the old-school hardware shop across the road, which appears to have closed for good

To Siri, With Love: How One Boy With Autism Became BFF With Apple’s Siri - "Gus had never noticed Siri before, but when he discovered there was someone who would not just find information on his various obsessions (trains, planes, buses, escalators and, of course, anything related to weather) but actually semi-discuss these subjects tirelessly, he was hooked. And I was grateful… It’s not that Gus doesn’t understand Siri’s not human. He does — intellectually. But like many autistic people I know, Gus feels that inanimate objects, while maybe not possessing souls, are worthy of our consideration.” Judith Newman on the bond her 13-year-old son has formed with Siri, the “intelligent assistant” on the iPhone. (N.B. I don’t often link to the NYTimes these days because of their weird ten-strikes-and-you’re-locked-out paywall, but I made an exception for this piece.)
This Man Uses Twitter To Augment His Damaged Memory - Continuing in the vein of technology helping people in unexpected ways: ”Thomas Dixon has no idea what he did yesterday. Sitting across from me at an outdoor cafe, he tries to jog his memory by doing what a lot of us do habitually: checking his iPhone… But unlike you or I, Dixon isn't exercising a compulsive, unnecessary habit. Without his phone, he literally wouldn't be able to remember what he did yesterday. Twitter is his memory.”
No Imperfection in the Budded Mountain: Allen Ginsberg and the writing of Wales Visitation - Andy Roberts on the Beat poet’s trip (literal and psychedelic) to Wales in 1967: ”As Ginsberg dreams the world alive, the symmetry of flowers suggests to him mudras, the bleatings of new born lamb sounds recall mantras. He wandered the hillside, Maschler following and snapping Ginsberg in a variety of poses; pensively surveying the valley, lying on the wet grass examining an incised stone, kneeling and gazing into the camera’s eye. Aware, thinking, sentient. High.”
The Ladybird Book of the Recession, The Ladybird Book of the Recession - Part Two, The Ladybird Book of the Recession - Part Three - In the spirit of The Ladybird Book of the Policeman (which appeared in ML XIV, at a link now dead), bookseller Steerforth adapts images from old Ladybird books to a more contemporary perspective:

At this local factory, a man called Robert has been told that he is going to lose his job as a sales manager… Robert and his family live in a nice new housing estate, but it is a long way from the centre of town. They will now have to catch a bus to go the shops. The buses are expensive and some of the passengers smell.
Booksthatmakeyoudumb - Virgil Griffith with an interesting take on social data analysis: download “Favourite book” lists from Facebook for individual US colleges, and correlate them with the average academic scores of that college: ”Presto! We have a correlation between books and dumbitude (smartitude too)!” Also: Musicthatmakesyoudumb
18 Celebrities Respond To A 2004 Letter Asking What Their Favourite Muppet Is - Phil Lucas: ”In 2004 I wrote to 49 world leaders, businessmen, celebrities, politicians, and sports stars, and asked them who their favourite Muppet was. Some of them responded.”
Halloween derived from ancient Celtic cross-quarter day - HT to Alias for this article explaining how Hallowe’en fits in with the Earth’s orbit around the sun. As usual, it’s slightly out of kilter because of that whole Julian calendar business: ”The October 31 date for Halloween has been fixed by tradition. The true cross-quarter day falls on November 7, representing a discrepancy of about one week.”
The Marijuana Retirement: How My Parents Became Late-Life Pot Moguls - "At some point in the middle of my 70-year-old mom's bong rip, as the distinctive schalp schlap schlap sound echoed in the kitchen, it dawned on me that my family life had recently taken a strange turn. Through a haze of pungent smoke I saw not just the woman who raised me, but a late-life social pioneer… Today, Mom and Dad are on the West Coast, living at the edge of the law, and bringing home huge wads of cash growing extremely high-grade weed in their backyard.”
Ten years of living with HIV - Ian Mansfield has appeared here before with articles about such things as forgotten Tube tunnels under the Thames and Victorian railway stations that never were, but last week he published a much more personal post on his Ian Visits blog: ”A decade ago I nearly died. Rushed to hospital seriously ill, and given just a 1-in-3 chance of surviving to the following week. I had HIV, and it nearly killed me.”
When Sainsbury's was out on its own - Creative Review looks at Sainsbury’s in-house packaging designs of the 1960s - 70s. I remember this corn flakes packet: