My world on the web
Bleak House is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between March 1852 and September 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and is told partly by the novel’s heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of Bleak House is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens claimed there were many actual precedents for his fictional case.[1] One such was probably the Thellusson v Woodford case in which a will read in 1797[2] was contested and not determined until 1859. Though many in the legal profession criticised Dickens’s satire as exaggerated, this novel helped support a judicial reform movement which culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s.[3]
There is some debate among scholars as to when Bleak House is set. The English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth sets the action in 1827;[4] however, reference to preparation for the building of a railway in Chapter LV suggests the 1830s.
Of course there’s nothing new about Dickens being able to create wonderful characters. The difference here is that, while Harold Skimpole, Mr Tulkinghorn, Krook et al fizz with bright particularity, their job is to service the story – in Dickens’s earlier novels the endless cameos tend to derail the narrative. Bleak House represents the author at a perfectly poised late-middle moment in his extraordinary art.
Welcome back to another month.
With a series of structural changes going on at work, I was asked how I felt about my job. I explained to my manager that I felt that a lot of what we do is thankless. This is not to say that schools are not thankful, but rather it feels like a large amount of our time is spent doing what feels like other people’s work. For example, this month, another buggy upgrade was pushed into production by the technical team without adequate testing or documentation. This meant that a large amount of my time was spent trying to figure out what was happening with all the problems raised by schools to raise with the technical team to fix.
On the home front, our yard redesign has somehow been completed even with the ridiculous amounts of rain that we have had. I remember raising concerns about flooding when we went to Albury, however it feels like things have only stepped up since then. It feels like a new record seems to be broken each week at the moment. Although it is hard to capture something that is so widespread, however I feel like the video of the Woolshed Falls near Beechworth summed it up for me.
Personally, I managed to go to two concerts this month, Montaigne and Art of Fighting. Associated with this, I dived into the work of Daði Freyr and Montgomery. In addition to this, I have been listening to new albums from Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift on repeat with my daughters. In regards to reading, I purchased a two month subscription to Audible. I got halfway through Miriam Margolyes’s reading of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House and gave up. Instead, I then turned to Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. I was also reminded about the fragility of my digital identity when I was hit with a handful of WordPress errors and reminded how important it is to have structured backups.
Here then are some of the dots I have been connecting together:
Education
“Let Them Leave Well”
Andrea Stringer shares some thoughts on teacher retention.
The Two Definitions of Zettelkasten
Chris Aldrich talks about what we talk about when we talk about zettelkasten.
Why Learn to Read?
Deborah Brandt explains that learning to read has meant many things over time.
Technology
Running Twitter Isn’t Rocket Science. It’s Harder
For me, Clive Thompson captures things best, explaining how working with all the variables to land a rocket is still a far cry from the complexity of grappling with 400 million Twitter users.
Blockchain’s real world problem
Ryan Barrett reflects upon the the potential of the blockchain and the importance of human trust.
The GIF Is on Its Deathbed
Kaitlyn Tiffany reflects on the demise of GIFs.
General
Why Are the Kids So Sad?
Malcolm Harris explores why children today are so sad. Hint, maybe because we all are.
You’re learning a lot, but is it valuable?
Oliver Quinlan reflects on productive learning in response to new situations as opposed to learning to cope with a dysfunctional workplace.
It’s Gotten Awkward to Wear a Mask
Katherine Wu reports on the tendency to discard mask wearing as a bad memory, instead seeking out a sense of supposed normalcy.
Bruno Latour showed us how to think with the things of the world, respecting their right to exist and act on their own terms
Stephen Muecke reflects on Bruno Latour’s life and legacy.
More Proof That This Really Is the End of History
Francis Fukuyama applies his thesis that history ends with the prevalence of democray to today.
Read Write Respond #081
So that was October for me, how about you? As always, hope you are safe and well.
Image by Bryan Mathers