AI
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
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.
work
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.
bookpile
Bookpile is short posts on Fridays about what I’m reading now and what I’m liking about it. This week, How to Argue with a Racist, by Adam Rutherford.
ecosystems
The feeling of being at home is precious. Finding places and situations where it's possible to relax and trust that we have space to build things, space to make mistakes, and space to be ourselves is essential in a world going through a perpetual polycrisis.
creativity
For most of my working life, a habit in my writing practice has been to keep a document where I can store sentences and ideas that need to be taken out of the main text. It's like Limbo, but for writing. For years, I called it a graveyard, but I now call it a compost heap. This is why.
definitions
I like doing the boring work, and the work that underlies the shiny things. Often, what’s needed but not top-of-mind is the ability to understand and critique the underlying structures we seldom think to challenge. In that spirit, I want to talk about categories.
Critical technoscience, human readable
It's easy to forget the plurality of opinions that exist on even small topics. Thinking about the role of pigeons in cities has helped remind me that differing opinions exist even in the smallest nuances.
Language is a means of belonging, judging, and increasingly, of deciding who gets to be in and who doesn't. The impetus towards increased language requirements in immigration criteria is not the only way to think of language competence, or of belonging.
Bookpile is short posts on Fridays about what I’m reading now and what I’m liking about it. This week, it’s the catalogue which accompanied Canada's 2003 entry at the Venice Biennale, Jana Sterbak's dog-based video work, From Here to There.
As more data is collected, stored, and computed, there's a gold rush on for applications of real-world data in both trivial and critical fields. Whether it's accuracy of delivery robots or facial recognition, we must remember not to heed our own maps at the expense of the territories they represent.
Coping is short posts on Fridays about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. In Coping 9, collecting shiny ideas.
The first in a periodic series called "Reading," today's text covers a seminal academic article you might like, but find long and dense. I break down Susan Leigh Star's 1999 article, "The Ethnography of Infrastructure" and explain why it matters.
Today's Friday bonus describes how I've (partially out of spite) automated my process for making slide decks. All with good, old-fashioned, artisan Linux tools.
The work we do may not always be entirely consistent with our own morals. How do we draw the lines of what's acceptable and what needs to change? And what do institutional software choices have to do with meat?
Coping is short posts on Fridays about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. In Coping 8, the power of language to feel like one's self.
Software use and purchasing decisions are often seen as purely technical or functional. This hides the reality that software is loaded with politics. It's essential to attend to the politics of software when making choices about its use.
Bookpile is short posts on Fridays about what I’m reading now and what I’m liking about it. This week, it’s a love letter to the joys of reading fiction.
What is the relationship between standards and global flows of movement? This essay explains the replacement of geography by standards, bringing work I did in 2014 up to date, and laying out why you should care.