Hello from Amsterdam! It’s been a great week & I’m stoked to be sending this issue on time & packed with rad content. Let’s kick off with some pop culture trivia:
“We’re in the pipe, five by five.” - Collete Hiller’s character, Ferro in James Cameron’s “
Aliens”
The quote meant that everything is going fine and that Ferro was on track to achieve her objective in the expected time frame. In that case, landing a dropship in stormy weather.
Finally, I also learned that though both “in the pipe” and “five by five” were used in the military, the combination of the two was never actual military lingo. “
In the pipe, five by five” was created by “Aliens”’s scriptwriters to create something that sounded authentic; nothing new. of course. In fact, I even came across an article about
how to spot a military imposter.
But
five by five, as it pertains to signal-to-noise ratio, is what intrigued me post. Especially as the term
“signal-to-noise ratio” is a useful metaphor when discussing the pollution of the information ecosystem with misinformation, disinformation, or situations where much of the information available is irrelevant. I’m sure this conjures up various examples of current cultural ailments for anyone reading this. ‘Cutting through the noise’ is something we all try to do, right?
As Gaby Goldberg’s article below conveys:
“In today’s oversaturated world, we need curators to help us separate signal from noise.”
Ultimately, that’s what this newsletter is meant to do! Sent through the pipe & five by five straight to you. ; )
as always, thank you for reading & sharing this newsletter,
Jon
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📶 p.s. the “five bars” displayed on many cell phones correlates to the signal strength rating originating 100 years ago. Pretty cool!
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🙏 Thank you all for the replies & good vibes each week!
📷 Banner image by my colleague Kike at yesterday’s
WS6 BBQ.