infrastructure
This week, I’m distilling some things we can learn from Marc Levinson’s 2006 (or in the second edition, 2016) book, The Box. The Box tells the story of the intermodal shipping container, an object you may not even know you should care about.
do
“Do” is a new series on Fridays. Elsewhere in my Friday posts, I focus on ways of trying to stay creative and focused in a distracting world. “Do” is practical interventions for specific tasks. The first “Do” is about reading aloud and recording as a part of editing my writing.
participation
Roller derby (a team sport on roller skates) is embedded in a culture of self-organization, inclusion, and openness. What can other values-led communities learn from a sport that's made a virtue of inclusion?
F/LOSS
In what will ideally not be the beginning of a new series, I give the bookpile treatment to a hot new document from the European Commission. The "Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, accompanied by an EU Open Source Strategy" isn't all great, but offers some specific hope.
AI
There seems to be a growing undercurrent of despair and disempowerment in discourse around "AI." The belief that the horse has left the barn encourages apathy and acceptance. But I'm to ready to give in just yet.
coping
Coping is short posts on Fridays about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. In Coping 13, carving out room for joy in one's work.
F/LOSS
Software choices are about both capacity and self-perception. When we decide on a certain tool, it is not just a choice about accomplishing a task, but also about using tools that resonate with who we think we are.
Critical technoscience, human readable
Coping is short posts on Fridays about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. In Coping 12, reading the world instead of the news when out and about.
Rotterdam is defined by its port, one of the largest in the world. What does it mean for a city to be so closely entangled with global shipping?
As I continue to work on a project about urban pigeons, I've been struggling with the human-pigeon relationship. More than anything else, I've been wondering: what is it that humans find so wrong with pigeons?
The last five years have done a lot, in terms of "AI" and its impact on the world. The things I love on the internet are being hollowed out by the effects of scrapers and hyperscale data centres. Education is struggling with a race to the bottom, academic publishing is in the same boat. Now what?
Coping is short posts on Fridays about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. In Coping 11, doing related tasks in parallel.
Making things yourself can be a political act. Does doing it yourself offer a meaningful opportunity to challenge hegemonic political structures? It depends on how you see the politics of consumption.
If I can, I will build it, cook it, grow it, or mend it. Why do these things matter? There are a lot of answers to that question, but the main ones have to do with feeling a sense of agency in a world that encourages dependence.
It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that certain choices, tools, or systems are inevitable and can't be changed. This doesn't need to be the case, and shouldn't be.
Coping is short posts on Fridays about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. In Coping 10, doing things with other people.
We’re in the middle of a terminology land grab: words are being co-opted and freighted with new meaning. While "AI" can mean a lot of things, it now typically means “whatever helps us sell our product.” I explain why pushing back on the land grab is politically important.
Bookpile is short posts on Fridays about what I’m reading now and what I’m liking about it. This week, I'm listening to, rather than reading, Janice Gross Stein's The Cult of Efficiency.
Super-charged capitalism creates an environment where individuals feel the need to cram more day into their day. We still need to live, but time pressure presses down on our ability to do it without help. Enter solutions like the meal replacement drink.