{"id":189655,"date":"2026-06-12T15:29:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/?p=189655"},"modified":"2026-06-13T07:27:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T12:27:48","slug":"notes-from-the-department-of-circular-communications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/notes-from-the-department-of-circular-communications\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes from the Department of Circular Communications"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A query about “armchair paleontology” in the Halupedia<\/a> led circuitously to an entry about Auguste Dubois-Lacroix<\/a> (b. 1842, Paris; d. 1907, Pont-de-Ch\u00e9ruy), “an individual whose primary professional skill was the avoidance of notice.”<\/p>\n

… a highly unremarkable civil servant whose posthumous notoriety arose from the ADLB<\/a>, a complex and ultimately unsuccessful initiative he spearheaded during his tenure at the Ministry of Applied Obfuscation.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

… The stated objective of the ADLB was to enhance the clarity and efficacy of government communications by making them deliberately more difficult to understand. The underlying philosophy, according to contemporary documents attributed to Lacroix, was that true administrative efficiency lay in preventing unauthorized comprehension.<\/p>\n

… Under Lacroix’s direction, the ADLB developed a series of groundbreaking techniques. These included the systematic introduction of non-sequiturs, the invention of new verb conjugations requiring three or more preceding subordinate clauses for correct interpretation, and the mandatory inclusion of obscure references to the Catalogues of Unnecessary Objects. The notorious Protocol of Ten Thousand Delays<\/a>, a prime example of ADLB’s methodology, became legendary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Roadrunner with flying armadillos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An inquiry about the flying armadillos of west Texas led quickly to the Archives of Misplaced Endeavors<\/a>, the Project to Quantify the Weight of Apathy<\/a>, and the Ministry of Futility Studies<\/a>. Further research touched on the Treaty of the Fourth Dimensions Annexation<\/a>, Viking Pineapple Relocations circa 975 CE<\/a>, the Society for the Advancement of Spurious Mathematics<\/a>, Chronometric Discontinuity<\/a>, and many more remarkably obscure topics.<\/p>\n

So it seems that not only can AI assemble listenable songs, realistic photographs and incalculable reams of prose of many kinds, it is capable of passable satire as well. (The entire prompt for the top illustration was “Ministry of Applied Obfuscation.” GPT added all the verbiage, not me.) I still prefer the scholarship of Will Cuppy<\/a>, Alan Coren<\/a> and Henry Beard<\/a>, but as an occasional satirist<\/a> myself, I find Halupedia disquietingly competent. Has AI developed a sense of humor?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A query about “armchair paleontology” in the Halupedia led circuitously to an entry about Auguste Dubois-Lacroix (b. 1842, Paris; d. 1907, Pont-de-Ch\u00e9ruy), “an individual whose primary professional skill was the avoidance of notice.” … a highly unremarkable civil servant whose posthumous notoriety arose from the ADLB, a complex and ultimately unsuccessful initiative he spearheaded during … Continue reading “Notes from the Department of Circular Communications”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,711,13,33,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curiosities-and-silly-stuff","category-fake-art","category-humor-and-horror","category-weird-world-web","category-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xam3-NkX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189655"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189792,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189655\/revisions\/189792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}