Basement Archaeology

Review: 2025

hmvh — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 22:59:40 +0000

If 2024 was a blurry smudge, then 2025 was a stubborn stain that just wouldn't go away. The shitshow began punctually after New Year's Eve when I noticed some cunt had ripped off my car's Mercedes emblem. No, this obviously dare not compare to the untold damage caused by the California wildfires that started on the 1st of January and were exacerbated by drought conditions, mismanagement, and budget cuts -- but hey, it's a symbolic start! Continue reading →

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A few thoughts on AI (and a bit of history)

hmvh — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:14:28 +0000

While benign and belligerent robots and machines have existed since the dawn of science fiction, it was about ten years ago that I had some sort of epiphany and gradually began saving and/or bookmarking various online articles about artificial intelligence following recent worrisome developments in that field: chatbots were showing signs of coherent speech, Boston Dynamics’ robots had started doing backflips and parkour -- but it was demonstrations of autonomous weapons systems that I took particular issue with. I wanted to keep the articles as "evidence" and "for future reference" -- such as for essays like this one, and to backtrack how we got to where we are now. Continue reading →

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The branches that bore no fruit

hmvh — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 22:57:16 +0000

Like presumably many people, I have amassed a trove of bookmarks, downloaded data, and documents on numerous subjects of interest across the various devices I use to be processed “for later reading”. Continue reading →

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Modern Movie Consumption 2

hmvh — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 19:37:06 +0000

When I first started writing this essay it was intended as a personal dig into the home entertainment industry that, through technological progress, rendered my humble DVD collection worthless and made consumers either re-purchase or abandon their home movie collection. As it turns out, that’s not quite the case. Consumers are overwhelmed with options. It’s not a battle between streaming vs. physical. We’ve almost reached a point where it’s possible to casually view a movie via streaming services, pay for it on video-on-demand, borrow it from a library, hunt down copies on physical media (new or used), and, for die hard fans and collectors, pre-order and invest in elaborate box set or steelbook editions by boutique labels. Everyone’s catered for. Continue reading →

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The smudge that was 2024

hmvh — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 20:41:51 +0000

2024 is over, and that’s a good thing. It was not a good year. 2024 was, for all intents and purposes, a long blurry smudge of monotony mired in many minor personal disasters and distractions. Playing about with AI-tools and participating in numerous webinars on the topic ate into so much of my time that most projects I had planned for the year remain handwritten bullet points on a piece of paper. I also had a serious flu that may or may not have been covid, a broken tooth, a parking ticket, a speeding ticket, and a nasty case of lumbago. These are white people’s problems that don’t normally happen to me. Continue reading →

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20 years of Discogs

hmvh — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 21:59:35 +0000

I've been a member of discogs.com for two decades. Today, Discogs sees mention in publications like Forbes, the Financial Times, the Guardian or the New York Times -- although mostly in connection with its marketplace and the items that sell for ludicrous amounts -- but not necessarily always in a good light. A higher profile comes at the cost of attracting scammers, spammers, fraudsters and hackers who have taken to targeting the site for their own malicious needs. Complaints from buyers about not receiving the exact version or in the advertised condition as well as fee hikes due to post-pandemic inflation now make the biggest waves. Continue reading →

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On death, disruption and discs

hmvh — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 21:59:33 +0000

Every startup's moonshot dream is to be the one that disrupts the status quo. The latest disruption snuck in via Netflix and my wife. This got me thinking about my own movie collection and general viewing habits again. Continue reading →

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Hail to the kings of movie soundtracks

hmvh — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 22:55:06 +0000

Last Saturday I closed a loop that had started 40 years ago: I watched the movie Footloose. Some of you may remember that the movie as well its soundtrack were huge hits in 1984; the catchy title song, in particular, was all over the radio and TV. It was almost as big as previous year's Flashdance. Kenny may have been dubbed the "King of Movie Soundtracks" in the eighties but it was ultimately Giorgio Moroder and Harold Faltermeyer who were pulling the strings. Continue reading →

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