Coping 15: Big nature

Coping is short posts (normally on Fridays) about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. In Coping 15, the importance of being near (big) nature.

Choice & harm & context

We make choices of varying degrees in the technologies we use, and the technologies that are used on us. I argue that it's especially important to think about potential harms in technologies which are required or unavoidable.

Coping 14: Specificity

Coping is short posts (normally on Fridays) about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. In Coping 14, the importance of specificity in productive dialogue.

Athletic robots

If you take a cursory look around, you'll find robots programmed to perform human sports. From the RoboCup football tournament to promotional videos of industrial robot arms playing table tennis, why is the visual language of sport so important in promoting robotics?

Notes on Fordism

Fordism has permeated the way not just industrial manufacturing, but broad aspects of society are managed. And it's not all conveyor belts. What values underlying Fordism shape the way we look at technology and labour today?

Bookpile 14: The Five Dollar Day

Bookpile is short posts on Fridays about what I’m reading now and what I’m liking about it. This week, it’s The Five Dollar Day, by Stephen Meyer III.

A dream of liberatory technology

It's time to start dreaming again about technology with liberatory potential. The belief, that the outcomes of technological changes to society are inevitable needs to be challenged. Technology is not apolitical, and it's time to build technologies which mirror our values.

Friday bonus: The cult of busy

Many individuals, groups, and organizations valorize, normalize, and validate being too busy. Buying into the cult of busy, on both an individual and an organizational level, reinforces real problems. It's a systemic problem, but we can also try to subvert it and support each other.

Design for Dreaming

Design for Dreaming showcases post-WWII conspicuous consumption at its most glamorous. What was Design for Dreaming, and how can we understand its relevance 70 years later?

Bookpile 13: Imagination: A Manifesto

Bookpile is short posts on Fridays (though this time it's a Saturday) about what I’m reading now and what I’m liking about it. This week, it’s Imagination: A Manifesto, a call to action by Ruha Benjamin.

Wants

It’s far too easy to fall into the trap of reactivity, taking time to think about what isn’t good or desirable in the state of the world, without considering what would be desirable instead. For that reason, today I present to you, instead of an essay, a list of wants.

Friday bonus: Robeson and Morris

A long-running and only slightly imaginary side-project is a fictional design research company called Robeson and Morris. I like to say that Robeson and Morris was, in fact, the world’s first design research firm.