Simon Fredsted

Always test your assumptions. Founder, @webhooksite

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@compliantvc 300k! Is he expecting to retire early?

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@marckohlbrugge @Hetzner_Online Hetzner is the best

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@Madskorsholmdk @xiaxexin

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

AI customer support is a security nightmare

[Low Level @LowLevelTweets]

there’s no way this is real oh my fucking god

tldr: AI support system accepts AI generated video of the users profile picture for email change and password reset. Great work as usual Meta

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@JonasHerby Dejligt med endnu mere "AI-regulering" i Danmark (eller EU) så resten af verden kan løbe i foran imens vi bekymrer os om compliance og bøder.

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@sonderby James Blake - Limit to your love

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

The EU is soon to come

[Leman Walters @LemanWalters]

What a superb ad, wow

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@midwestneil That is hilarious

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@AndrewHart MEC restaurant in Lisbon has a small Apple museum as well. Fun place, good food!

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@levelsio How about the number of pop stars that stayed there (e.g. on tour)? I feel like they certainly wouldn’t bother with any sort of degrowth insanity

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@gpjt @levelsio That’s what VIP mode is for, many hotel ACs has it and you can google how to enable!

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@Statsstyret @politiken Det lyder også ret "småligt" når en islamist nægter at give hånd. Der sker nok heller ikke noget ved det, vel? Jeg tror dog ikke Politiken kunne finde på, at trykke dén karikatur.

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

I’m making a show about buildings.

The concept is simple: do for the man-made world what Planet Earth did for the natural world.

But, when I pitched the idea, the answer was that nobody would watch it.

So I released a pilot episode on YouTube. It’s got 5.4 million views, 379k likes, and 23k comments.

People are interested, and now it’s time to make the full show.

Six episodes, filming in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the USA, and releasing on a streaming service like HBO, Netflix, or Prime.

Why does this show matter?

First: we’re surrounded by buildings all the time. Look around yourself, right now… what do you see? Buildings are the logical conclusion of everything a society believes in. That’s the real focus of this show: not the buildings themselves, but what they say about us.

Second: there’s global dissatisfaction with modern architecture. This feeling gets written about online, but nobody’s given a voice to it on film or TV. That’s what this show will be. But this isn’t just about criticising modernity. That’s easy. This is about learning from the past in order to understand and improve the present, for everybody.

Third: there’s a drought of high-quality culture shows. When I spoke to film executives they said that only documentaries about sports, music, or true crime get funded. That’s a colossal missed opportunity. Galleries are always full, content about architecture goes viral online all the time, and people spend their precious holidays visiting beautiful cities.

Why no shows about architecture, then?

Tourists flock in their millions to see (for example) the buildings of Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona. But, if you asked those same people if they’re interested in “architecture”, they’d probably say no.

To put that another way: not many people want to watch “a show about architecture”, but lots of people want to watch a show that illuminates the real world they’re living in, each and every day.

What will the show be like?

Six episodes, going chronologically through history and arriving at the present, each focussing on the architecture and design of a specific period:

1. Middle Ages
2. Renaissance
3. Enlightenment
4. The Nineteenth Century
5. Art Nouveau & Art Deco
6. Present Day

But, in each case, the point isn’t just to learn about that era; the point is to learn about our modern world through those eras and what they’ve left behind. If you watch the pilot episode (included below) you’ll see what I mean.

So the show’s not really “about” the past; it’s about the twenty-first century.

That’s why it’s called The Modern World.

When you think of a typical history show there are loads of interviews, stock footage, archive photos, historical recreations, and graphics. We’re doing none of that. Everything will be filmed on location, because we’re telling our story only through the real world that exists right now. And, rather than going to the most obvious places, we’ll focus on buildings that aren’t well-known but should be more famous.

But that’s all big picture; what will it be like on screen?

Buildings used to look different in every country, and now they look the same. Why? Because the weather is different everywhere, and buildings were always a way of dealing with that weather, using local materials. Now we have air conditioning and we ship concrete around the world, so we don’t need to design our buildings with regard to local weather or rely on local materials.

Look at really old clocks and you’ll notice something: they don’t have a second hand… because it was only invented 300 years ago! Then you look at the present and you realise we’re surrounded by timers, by seconds ticking down and ticking up relentlessly. If we’re looking for a cause of our anxiety-inducing culture, that might be it.

When you spend time with the sun-softened bricks and time-warped timbers of old cities you notice that synthetic materials like plastic have taken over. When we’re surrounded by things that feel temporary, how do you think it makes us feel?

It’s only by seeing 19th century train stations, designed like cathedrals, that you realise tradition and technology aren’t enemies. New things don’t have to look boring: if the Victorians had designed AI data centres, they’d look like Medieval castles.

In the 1920s, at the zenith of Art Deco, people believed technology would uplift humanity. That’s why they decorated their buildings with statues inspired by electricity. Only by seeing their enthusiasm can we realise our own cynicism, and perhaps begin to fix it.

All of that… and much, much more.

But, above all else, this show is about a way of seeing. If you want to understand any society then you need to look at what it creates, not what it says about itself.

There’s a worldview in every single object; our skyscrapers are designed the same way as our phones. Learn to look at this world, to notice its details, and everything else starts to make sense.

What now?

I’ve been quiet online recently because I’ve been researching and working on scripts for six full-length episodes. Production begins when we’ve raised the funding.

The Modern World is coming.

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@nikstep Ambition in Denmark ends with a new spec house (nybyg) in the suburbs with lots of WoodUp, a Skoda Enyaq, and a set of Royal Copenhagen plates

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@DVanLangenhove @VitoComedy This is insane

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@oresundsbaron Hvorfor køber de ikke bare drengetøjet til deres piger? Vi var jo lige blevet enige om, køn er en konstruktion, ikke sandt?

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@frihedsbrevet @MBrgger Du var forud for din tid, @LarsAnders1620

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

@MetSamuel @zan2434 @eddiejiao_obj @drewocarr what a throwback

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

what if your operating system was rendered using AI?

[Zain Shah @zan2434]

Imagine every pixel on your screen, streamed live directly from a model. No HTML, no layout engine, no code. Just exactly what you want to see.

@eddiejiao_obj, @drewocarr and I built a prototype to see how this could actually work, and set out to make it real. We're calling it Flipbook. (1/5)

[Simon Fredsted @fredsted]

Neat

[Natalie Wolchover @nattyover]

Bacteria move around using a molecular machine called the flagellar motor that rotates faster than the flywheel of a race car engine and switches directions in an instant. After 50 yrs, scientists have finally figured out how it works. “My lifelong quest is now fulfilled.” Link⤵️