Month: January 2025

Replied to Links to Text Fragments (cogdogblog.com)

I feel father comfortable swimming in HTML and writing the stuff by hand (I thought at one time everyone would learn to write HTML). It never tops being refreshing to learn one more trick.

Source: Links to Text Fragments by Alan Levine

I never knew that there was an option to select a link to the highlighted text in the browser. For years I have been using the Fragmentation plugin in WordPress, I guess this makes that obsolete?

I really like the prospect of pointing to a particular section of text when linking out from my blog. I like(d) Hypothesis for this, but find the workflow of creating a highlight that I would then link to a bit tedious and time consuming.

Watched 2023 film directed by Ben Wheatley by Contributors to Wikimedia projects from Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

Meg 2: The Trench (titled Shark 2 in some territories[2]) is a 2023 science fiction action film directed by Ben Wheatley and a sequel to The Meg (2018), based on the 1999 novel The Trench by Steve Alten. Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, and Dean Georgaris all return as writers from the first film, with Jason Statham, Sophia Cai, Page Kennedy, and Cliff Curtis reprising their roles alongside Wu Jing, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, and Skyler Samuels. Like the previous film, it follows a group of scientists who must outrun and outswim the megalodons when a malevolent mining operation threatens their mission and forces them into a high-stakes battle for survival.

Source: Meg 2: The Trench – Wikipedia

I Found Meg 2 on Netflix. I wonder if Jason Statham’s absurd heroics makes him one of the funniest people on film or maybe I have been listening to too much Sizzletown? Favourite line:

We do what’s in front of us, then we do the next thing.

Liked Outsource & Centralise by Tim Klapdor (heartsoulmachine.com)

Centralisation, as Taleb might put it, ensures an organisation becomes fragile. It robs it of the ability to grow knowledge, which eventually makes the organisation dumber and less able to adapt to a changing environment.

So, despite what the spreadsheets might say, outsourcing and centralisation significantly harm the organisation as a whole. It adds a cost rather than removes one, ensuring the organisation is less agile and adaptable.

Source: Outsource & Centralise by

I am not exactly sure what I want from my ‘Now’ page, but this is a start …

I returned to work a few weeks ago. We have been reviewing the system after the recent upgrade and trying to tie up various loose ends before schools starts. All in all, it has been frustratingly slow as I feel some many things are waiting on others and are out of my control, sadly.

On the home front, other than a few days in San Remo, we stuck to doing various day trips and local activities during the holidays.

Personally, I have been reading quiet a few books on music:

  • Rip It Up and Start Again by Simon Reynolds
  • Heartbreak is the National Anthem by Rob Sheffield
  • Talking to Girls about Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield
  • Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
  • How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard
  • The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
  • Squat by John Safran
  • Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield

While in regards to my acquisitions, I added the following to the mix:

  • Moments Bend (Architecture in Helsinki)
  • Moon Safari (Air)
  • Dancing in my Dream (Twinkle Digitz)

With regards to my writing, I wrote the following:

Replied to Robb Knight (rknight.me)

My post on automating my /now page was very popular and I am proud of what I managed to do but I’ve been thinking for a while it’s very impersonal. It’s data. It’s not a page written by me in any meaningful way.

Leon had some similar thoughts on this with an idea for each blog post being a section of a page but rendered as one. The end goal for him, and me, is that the new additions get syndicated via RSS, POSSE, and so forth. I like the idea of redirecting /now to the latest post tagged as now so one could see the latest version of what I’m doing now.

Source: On Transient Slash Pages by Robb Knight

I have always been interested in the idea of a Now page, it is something that I miss about my newsletter. However, I felt that replacing the content loses the history. I really like the idea of writing a post and having /Now pick up the latest post.

Replied to https://brainbaking.com/post/2025/01/you-should-compile-your-own-philosophy/ (brainbaking.com)

Now you know why my hopes of reaching eighty diminish by the day. But it’s not too late to create my own philosophy. I’ve never felt a more urgent need to do something than this. I have been taking notes on how to live and how great philosophers before our time approach life in general, but in 2025, it is time to grab those notes and rework them into something of my own. Then I too can rest assured that the remainder of my life, all I have to do is to live up to my own set of rules.

Source: You Should Compile Your Own Philosophy by Wouter Groeneveld

—

Wouter, the idea of my own philosophy has me thinking about Angus Hervey’s idea of holding on tightly … and letting go lightly. I feel like my blog probably captures a philosophy, maybe? However, to bring it together? To make it more condense? To eliminate all its contradictions? Here I am reminded of (or haunted by) Michel Foucault:

Aren’t you sure of what you’re saying? Are you going to change yet again, shift your position according to the questions that are put to you, and say that the objections are not really directed at the place from which you are speaking? Are you going to declare yet again that you have never been what you have been reproached with being? Are you already preparing the way out that will enable you in your next book to spring up somewhere else and declare as you’re now doing: no, no, I’m not where you are lying in wait for me, but over here, laughing at you?’

‘What, do you imagine that I would take so much trouble and so much pleasure in writing, do you think that I would keep so persistently to my task, if I were not preparing – with a rather shaky hand – a labyrinth into which I can venture, into which I can move my discourse, opening up underground passages, forcing it to go far from itself, finding overhangs that reduce and deform its itinerary, in which I can lose myself and appear at last to eyes that I will never have to meet again. I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write.

Source The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language by Michel Foucault

Liked Getting Left Behind Makes Me Irrationally Angry by Kin Lane (Kin Lane)

So….why is it bad to be left behind? Isolation. Fear. Violence. Is there safety in the future? Is there safety in keeping up with pack? I am pretty confident that I want to be left behind by artificial intelligence. I see AI and the Internet just like I see the automobile. It is a future that didn’t and won’t pencil out. I am fine with getting out of the car here, or having the car leave without me. I don’t believe that the AI skills are the skills of the future. To quote Kate Crawford, artificial intelligence is neither artificial nor intelligent. I am fine with being left behind. However, I get irrationally angry when people are telling me that I am going to be left behind. I am doing the work on these feelz, but that doesn’t mean the feeling has gone away. Especially when someone using it to try and yank my chain. To help me in this work I will keep writing about what it means to be left behind, or what it means to move into the future (or not). I want to understand more about why people wield the phrase “left behind”. What is their intent? What is the source? But please remember, if you too are left behind, I am here, and I will call grandma to come over and help keep us safe.

Source: Getting Left Behind Makes Me Irrationally Angry by Kin Lane

Liked https://edusources.nl/materials/888a5386-975b-47bb-8080-4f943730136c/cards-against-pedagogy (edusources.nl)

This card game is designed as a fun and interactive way of getting teaching staff to know each other while reflecting on different elements of their teaching. It is based upon the popular game, Cards Against Humanity, but this particular version can be used as an effective professional development activity because at the end of each round of the game, participants must discuss their answers to a reflection question. The reflection questions focus, for example, on their educational philosophy, their challenges, their growth as an educator or their achievements so far. This is a print and play version of this game, ideal for groups of 3 to 6 people with additional blank cards provided for you to make your own, should you wish.

Source: Cards Against Pedagogy

Link to PDF document

Liked https://blog.ayjay.org/things-made-and-in-the-making/ (blog.ayjay.org)

My attitude toward the works I have completed — at at this point that’s fifteen books and a couple of hundred essays and reviews — is that I have never finished anything to my own satisfaction, I have only been forced to abandon it. That’s why I am psychologically incapable of re-reading anything I’ve written. I may retrieve small chunks of it for one purpose or another, but I’ve never re-read anything of mine longer than a blog post. I learned early in my career that revisiting what I’ve published brings only regrets. So, you know, as the man said: “Fare forward, voyagers.”

Source: things made and in-the-making by Alan Jacobs

Liked https://archive.md/1gI1K (archive.md)

There is an assumption that great artists, especially subversive ones, live radical lives and embrace progressive politics. But Lynch was closer to Ralph Ellison, another artist from America’s heartland who peeled back the veneer of the political consensus to show both the fundamental cruelty and tender humanity of ordinary life. He was a filmmaker for whom conventional electoral politics were as sterile as conventional realism was stifling. But as Mel Brooks supposedly said, David Lynch was actually “Jimmy Stewart from Mars.” He was both all-American and something alien.

Source: David Lynch was America’s greatest conservative filmmaker by Tim Carmody

ᔥ “Jason Kottke” in Provocative from Tim Carmody: David Lynch was America’s grea… ()

Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_(novel)

The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S. E. Hinton published in 1967 by Viking Press. The book details the conflict between two rival gangs of White Americans divided by their socioeconomic status: the working-class “Greasers” and the upper-middle-class “Socs” (pronounced /ˈsoʊʃɪz/ SOH-shiz—short for Socials). The story is told in first-person perspective by teenage protagonist Ponyboy Curtis, and takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1965,[1] although this is never explicitly stated in the book.

Hinton began writing the novel when she was 15 and wrote the bulk of it when she was 16 and a junior in high school.[2] She was 18 when the book was published.

Source: The Outsiders (novel) – Wikipedia

I was reminded of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders recently … I cannot remember exactly when I first read The Outsiders, but I am pretty sure it was at high school.

All I remember was the two gangs, the Socs and Greasers. It was interesting revisiting this after reading Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange and Jack Charles’ discussion of violence growing up in the 60’s:

I remember one particular evening, I saw a bunch of kids getting off the train at Blackburn station, joining the masses in the village. The numbers kept growing. The air was thick with tension and testosterone. The boys were all ribbing each other and carrying on, and it got quite intense. People started tearing palings off nearby shops, using other bits of wood and grabbing iron bars and just going at each other. It was like something out of a movie. I legged it out of there quick smart, before anyone could clock me.

Source: Jack Charles – Born-Again Blakfella by Jack Charles

However, what surprised me in returning to the text was constant presence of smoking:

Johnny had been smoking since he was nine; Steve started at eleven. So no one thought it unusual when I started. I was the weed-fiend in my family—Soda smokes only to steady his nerves or when he wants to look tough.

Source: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

And

I was sitting there, smoking a cigarette, when Jerry came back in from making a phone call. He stared at me for a second. “You shouldn’t be smoking.”
I was startled. “How come?” I looked at my cigarette. It looked okay to me. I looked around for a “No Smoking” sign and couldn’t find one. “How come?”
“Why, uh,” Jerry stammered, “uh, you’re too young.”

Source: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

And

“Wanna smoke?” I offered him a weed, but he shookhis head. “No, thanks. Uh, Ponyboy, one reason I came here was to see if you were okay, but you—we—got to go see the judge tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “I know. Hey, holler if you see one of my brothers coming. I’ll catch it for smoking in bed.”

Source: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

And

First Randy was questioned. He looked a little nervous, and I wished they’d let him have a cigarette. I wished they’d let me have a cigarette; I was more than a little shaky myself.

Source: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

This is something that I noticed in my recent rereading of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye too. Other than wondering who was actually providing all these cigarettes’ (maybe they were cheaper in the past?) I was left wondering when cigarettes stopped being present in texts, moved to the margins? I cannot remember cigarettes’ in John Marsden’s Tomorrow series (checking, the only reference is Chris collecting grog and cigarettes when they were scavenging), but I am left wondering if it is just something that I am more aware of these days as cigarettes in society have changed, especially in teen books?

Continue reading “📚 The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)”

Checked into
Although I have used chatbots like Gemini and CoPilot in passing, I have never used any of this in the classroom. It was therefore interesting to hear the presentation explore Gemini, presented by Steve Smith.

Google provide two options for engaging with Gemini:

  • App (free)
  • Workspace (paid)
    However, even with the free, when using an educational account, your data is never a part of the training set.

Some of the ideas for teachers touched on for how Gemini might help in education included:

  • Creating the first draft of a lesson plan based on a prompt.
  • Developing resources.
  • Summarise emails when behind.
  • Generating overviews using NotebookLM.

While for students, there is the option for Gemini chat for 13+ with built-in guardrails. Some of the ideas shared included:

  • Getting feedback
  • Doing research
  • Creating things

Importantly, this feature needs to be turned on and is not on by default.

Some resources shared as a part of the session included a hub of all things Google and AI, as well as slide deck of 30 things that Gemini can help you with.

One of the other presenters also shared a piece of research that might be worth exploring:

Identifying the components of foundational Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy – Early results from a Delphi study

This article provides some initial results from the first phase of a Delphi study to identify the critical components of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy curriculum. This article explores the study results that address a four-level capability model, but only the lowest level of this model. The Delphi panel comprised 17 experts in AI, and the first round of the study used a survey to gather the experts’ responses in three areas that were based on previous literature – knowledge (and concepts) of AI, skills related to AI, and understanding AI in context. A structured thematic analysis revealed several themes under these categories. For foundational knowledge and concepts, it was determined that three areas were needed, namely 1) what is AI? 2) applications of AI, and 3) AI technologies. Skills were divided into cognitive and technical skills, with cognitive skills further divided into 21st-century and applied skills. Understandings comprised social issues, risks, and debates. The repeated ideas that formed these themes gave rich insights into how an AI literacy curriculum might be structured and provided a firm foundation for subsequent rounds of the study, which will involve further iteration and consolidation of these ideas.

The catchphrase throughout was “Enable, empower, equip, evolve”. With the focus on moving forward, I was left thinking about Marshall McLuhan’s tetrad:

  • What does the medium enhance or amplify?
  • What does the medium make obsolete?
  • What does the medium retrieve that had been made obsolescent earlier?
  • What does the medium “flip into” when pushed to the extreme?
Checked into
I attended a webinar offered by Google run by Steve Smith to go through the various changes associated with Google Classroom.

Over ten years old, the suggestion given Classroom as Grand Central Station. It serves as the hub for learning and teaching. In addition to core Google applications, there are a range of add-ons that sit inside Classroom, this prevents any chance of data leaks in moving between ecosystems.

Focusing on teachers, the discussion was how it empowers and gives back time. Some of the features highlighted to celebrate this were:

  • Teacher analytics to zoom in and out of data.
  • Share view of page with guardians to provide a means of bring them into the classroom.
  • The ease of grading and giving feedback supported by comment banks
  • Interactive resources, including Practice Sets and Interactive questions for YouTube. Interestingly, Interactive Questions allows teachers to safely push out clips without actually going to YouTube.
  • Tagging skills and standards.
  • Easily export and share classwork across the school.
  • Administrators can join a class as a visitor, useful for checking in or adding a co-teacher.

From a student perspective, classroom offers a range of opportunities, such as:

  • Differentiation.
  • Interactive video activities.
  • Assign to student groups
  • Assign reading activities using Readalong.
  • Self-managed Practice Sets.
  • Originality reports that encourage critical thinking.

In addition to 6-step program for using Classroom, a link to the Google Classroom course was shared.

I have not really kept up with Google and all the changes in the last few years as my work has moved in different directions. It was interesting to see where it had come, but also intriguing to considering where it might be going, especially with the addition of Gemini. Using the Back to the Future protocol, I wonder what the ideal outcome of using all these tools would actually look like? I think that the reality is probably that it is used in different ways in different circumstances.

Replied to The ABCs of Blogging: Always Be Commenting by ReverendReverend (bavatuesdays.com)

So acknowledging the definite limits of commenting to save the world, I’m still making a commitment in 2025 to spend a lot more time commenting on other folks work than I have in a long time. I may be overthinking this, but I have gotten the sense that folks might be planning a return to the blog.

Source: The ABCs of Blogging: Always Be Commenting by Jim Groom

Jim, when I first saw the title, I thought it was going to be about the eighties pop group ABC.

In a way, ABC were doing what Roxy Music had done ten years previously, which was create a shiny pop environment, slightly at odds with the times. In ABC’s world, men wore suits and women were grateful – before breaking their men’s hearts. The defining quality of their music was its intelligence, driven by a desire to elevate the pop genre rather than simply turn it into a commodity.

Source: Sweet Dreams – The Story of the New Romantics by Dylan Jones

To play on Jones’ description, maybe the ABC of Blogging might be something like:

In a way, bloggers were doing what the creators of zines had done ten years previously, which was create a shiny pop environment, slightly at odds with the times. In this world, bloggers wrote posts and readers were grateful – before then leaving a comment. The defining quality of blogs are their intelligence, driven by a desire to elevate ideas rather than simply turn it into a commodity.

Replied to Hottest 100 2024 – triple j (triple j)

Each year, you, along with hundreds and thousands of people from all around the world, choose the songs that have soundtracked your life, leading to one hell of a listening party in January. It’s a countdown curated by you, for you!

Source: Hottest 100 2024 – triple j by @triplej

I must be honest, I am more Double J, than Triple J these days, however I always find it interesting to stop and reflect upon my favourite songs of the year. So here my list of the ten songs that grabbed me this year:

without you – annie hamilton

There was no new music from Jake Webb this year, but he did produce annie hamilton’s Stop and Smell the Lightning. For me, without you was the standout track.  The song’s intensity builds and builds, without exploding. I also love how the drums slap.

Pull the Rope – Ibibio Sound Machine

Ibibio Sound Machine were a new discovery this year (found via Pitchfork’s new music). With the strong groove throughout, this song feels like it could be placed in the middle of a Chemical Brothers set. Alongside the Hot Chip produced Electricity (which I subsequently bought on vinyl), these albums soundtracked a few of my jogs this year.

I think about it all the time – Charli xcx

I really was not sure about Brat based on the early singles, 360 and Von Dutch. However, as a whole, I feel that the album really clicked. My favourite track ebbs and flows and depends on the moment, but I think about it all the time is a real standout for its rawness and honesty. “I think about it all the time / That I might run out of time.” This stands out even more on the album as it is following by the contrasting 365.

Life – Jamie xx feat Robyn

Jamie xx’s In Waves ebbs and flows throughout like the crashing of waves, but it really hits with Life. As a track, I find it gives me life and possesses me every time I listen to it. Whether it be my feet or my hand, something always starts tapping.

Un-Australians – The Fauves

I had Celebrate the Failure on high rotation earlier in the year, I felt that it captured the sentiment of a moment, even if it was written for a different time. I feel that Un-Australians builds upon this with its reflection of the current political climate. “You were in, now you’re out / And the cost of living is all you want to talk about/ It’s pain / Cos we’re the Green, woke, vegan, yes-voting Anzacs.”

Sweetest Fruit – St. Vincent

St. Vincent has spoken about the electricity that runs throughout All Born Screaming. For me, this is epitomised in Sweetest Fruit with the way the different flows – synthesiser, melody, drums – interlace throughout the track.

Blackmail Boogie – Twinkle Digitz

The opening single from the long awaited self-titled debut album, Blackmail Boogie is a sonic spell that begins with the opening oohs and aahs and comes to a crescendo with the epic guitar solo that conjures up a crowd seemingly out of nowhere. No matter my mood, this song has the magical ability of both taking me to another place, as well as reminding me that I am not alone. I wonder if the secret that Twinkle Digitz has – “If you don’t do as I do / I’m telling on you / I’m telling the truth” – is that no matter how serious we think we are, we are all a bit phony in the end?

Silver Thread Golden Needle – A. G. Cook

Across nearly ten minutes, this songs is always moving. Although the groove stays the same , there is always an ingredient being added, changed or removed. It never quite leaves you settled. I feel it is akin to running on a treadmill where the pace is just that bit too fast leaving your breath always out of sync. Genius?

Anything – Griff

I came across Griff via her cover of Charli XCX’s Apple. I subsequently fell into her album Vertigo. Some have criticised it for being safe (is that because there are no swear words), but sometimes there is nothing like a warm blanket on a cold day? Personally, I am a sucker for how slick this track is (and album is). Also, after watching some live clips, I appreciate that it is something more than Ableton and a Launchpad.

The Tortured Poets Department – Taylor Swift

My daughter and I bonded over The Tortured Poets Department this year. It is also my Jack Antonoff track of the year (although Please, Please, Please by Sabrina Carpenter was pretty good too.) I really like the way in which this track has some many sonic layers.

Liked AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it (MIT Technology Review)

Who wants to have to speak the language of search engines to find what you need? Who wants to navigate links when you can have straight answers? And maybe: Who wants to have to learn when you can just know?

Source: AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it by Mat Honan

ᔥ “Doug Belshaw” in Who wants to have to speak the language of search engines to find what you need? | Thought Shrapnel ()

Bookmarked The Exploding Whale (theexplodingwhale.com)

The original story of the exploding whale first appeared on KATU Channel 2 Portland, OR in November 1970. The story was reported by Paul Linnman with cameraman Doug Brazil who captured the event on 16mm film, the common format for TV news coverage in those days.

In conjunction with the 50th anniversary in 2020, the Oregon Historical Society had the original 16mm transfered to 4K. KATU subsequently released a remastered version of the original news report. Both the original (now) low-resolution internet video and the remastered version appear above.

Since then, the story has been retold countless times, and numerous versions of the original news story have appeared on the internet as a result. Several of them are viewable in the section below.

Source: The Exploding Whale

This never ceases to entertain me, a ‘whale of a problem’. A life long lesson, what not to do … explode a whale!

Liked Mark Zuckerberg – Dead At 36 – Says Social Media Sites Should Not Fact Check Posts — The Shovel by The ShovelThe Shovel (theshovel.com.au)

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – who died of a drug overdose in his Californian home today – says it is not Facebook’s role to be the arbiter of truth for everything people post online.

Source: The Shovel

Bookmarked https://darkpatternsgame.productartistry.com/ (darkpatternsgame.productartistry.com)

I created this interactive experience to explore the intersection of design ethics and human psychology, helping us all make more informed choices while browsing the web.

Source: Dark Patterns Detective

A useful resource for walking through different dark patterns to add to my work as a part of the CSER MOOC.

Bookmarked Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power since 1500 (calculatingempires.net)

Explore how technical and social structures co-evolved over five centuries in this large-scale research visualization.

Calculating Empires is a large-scale research visualization exploring how technical and social structures co-evolved over five centuries. The aim is to view the contemporary period in a longer trajectory of ideas, devices, infrastructures, and systems of power. It traces technological patterns of colonialism, militarization, automation, and enclosure since 1500 to show how these forces still subjugate and how they might be unwound. By tracking these imperial pathways, Calculating Empires offers a means of seeing our technological present in a deeper historical context. And by investigating how past empires have calculated, we can see how they created the conditions of empire today.

Source: Calculating Empires by

This is an interesting visualisation capturing changes in technology over time. Useful to consider alongside Justin Smith’s book The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is?