I think Bridgy’s development history demonstrates the kinds of challenges that arise when trying to build alternatives alongside corporate platforms, instead of simply opting out. While principled technologists attempt to build a Web for the future, they must work through the present. This means contending with messiness, heterogeneity, and resistance from established infrastructures.
Month: January 2019
Here’s a pitch — We have capacity and like to solve problems. We’re creative people with expertise in a wide range of stuff and things. Get in touch. In the meantime, we’ll be tinkering and building and writing and making. Never static, the members of the We Are Open Co-op carry on.
What are some ways that students can best learn digital literacy skills?
Thank you for the mention Ian. I think the best ways to learn (or teach) digital literacies are through experiences. The problem with this – and I guess a lot of learning when I think about it – is that there is not much room for mistakes. I wonder if this is what you were trying to capture with your post on anonymity. This is why I like the idea of starting out with closed spaces, before moving into the open.
I am not into frameworks so these are just suggestions for an approach to listening. It may not be rocket science but these are my thoughts…it starts with recognizing that our listening is limited by what we hear (how widely we are exposed to diverse ideas and how deeply we interact with them) and also how we hear (how open we are, how aware of our own biases and where others are coming from) and how we notice what we don’t hear (silence, between lines).
Maha Bali reflects on the different approaches to listening, including widely, deeply, openly, repeatedly, outside, inside, to silence, between the lines and to take action. On the flip side, Bali warns about lip service listening.
From a trash-filled Earth to the futuristic Axiom and back again, WALL·E is a finely crafted balance between consumerist dystopia and sixties space-race optimism. Please join me, then, for a detailed dive into the uniquely robotic future of a remarkably human film, as seen through the eyes of its eponymous hero, WALL·E.
More astonishing to me was that in mining his characters’ thoughts and private struggles, Faulkner used elevated maximalist language, the poetic and truest manifestation of these poor country people’s psyches and souls—and not the inarticulate staccato utterances that we hear realistically employed in active dialogue in scenes. This lashing together of characters and readers, through the tongues of the angels, is I think the most brilliant of all his moves. I felt as if knew each one to the marrow, their secrets and their sorrows, and most intriguingly to me their selfish inner motivations, the motors that made them run.
It’s a golden time for Antarctic research, with more and more countries taking a direct interest in the great southern continent. But suspicions abound as to the real motivations of key Antarctic players.
Antony Funnell leads an investigation of the future of Antarctica, including the positioning of different countries in relation to 2048 when the current treaty to protect the continent expires. The feature investigates the geopolitics associated with military, research and resources. This also includes the place of the surrounding nations as launching points for this activity. I remember teaching about the resources associated with Antarctica in Geography, but what I feel was missed in hindsight was why it matters, especially as the world progressively warms up. Discussing the Arctic, Dahr Jamail explains how the degredation of such spaces impact us all. This is also something James Bridle discusses in his book the New Dark Age.
Main Feature: Benjamin Law shares his experience of being a gay teenager in an Australian school.
Regular Features: Marco Cimino discusses his podcast Oh the Humanities! (and Social Sciences), Cameron discusses a UK study on managerialism and teacher professional identity and well-being.
I have found myself wondering why Levinas’ thinking about the ‘Other’ and ‘Otherness’ continues to hold people’s attention. I have come to the conclusion that it is not so much whether or not we recognise that the ‘Other’ exists. In fact I can’t see how anyone could be unaware of the ‘Other’. Every person is a unique individual, different to every other person, so every human encounter is with the ‘Other’. It’s more about how we respond to the ‘Other’. Do we try and dominate the ‘Other’? Do we accept responsibility for the ‘Other’? Do we try to listen and learn from the ‘Other’? Levinas invites us to listen to the voice of the ‘Other’. This, he believes, is our moral and ethical responsibility.
Facebook is the new crapware https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/facebook-is-the-new-crapware/ Technological Sovereignty, Volume 2 http://hacklabbo.indivia.net/book/sobtec2/en/ Leaving Facebook as a...
A few more links associated with Facebook to add to my collection.