Hello world

A colleague of mine who is generally very right is constantly pointing out to me that there are things in my head that I take for granted or assume everyone also knows. This comes up when we’re writing together. He’s one of my more regular and more successful writing partners, and we’ve done some very good work together. To his perpetual incredulity, we frequently run into topics where I’ll flippantly say “Well, it’s [obscure fact], isn’t it?” which then results in ten minutes of what that obscure fact or concept is and why I assume it to be common knowledge.

This publication is meant to remedy that problem in two ways. First, I’m working on getting better at sharing esoteric information I take for granted. How can I demystify concepts based in jargon? Can I become more practised at explaining the hard-to-explain? A decade since I finished my PhD, I feel that I’ve become much worse than I used to be at writing for a non-academic audience. It would be nice to get that skill back, so I’d better start practising.

Second, I’m hoping other people might have a use for some of these knowledge blobs floating around in my head. I’ll be writing about the things I research (broadly: how do people and societies interact with, use, subvert, and cope with new technologies), but also about interesting things to read, reflections on how to do creative and thoughtful work during the ongoing hell of the present day, and more.

So: Welcome. And please do join me (roughly once a week) as I try to find useful and interesting shapes to fit some information into.