BlogFlock

I was recently prompted to test my blog's layout when rendered in right-to-left text. Running a website through an automatic translator into a language like Arabic or Hebrew will show you any weird little layout glitches which might occur.

But mechanical translation is a bit of an unthinking brute.…

Every Friday, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.

I don't have a pithy summary this week. It's been a heavy week. These links – about documenting atrocities and finding values-aligned work – reflect that.

Did I miss something…

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is get out of bed and turn on my fairy lights. I read for a little while under the warm glow of the lights while the sun is not yet visible in the winter morning. I am reading…

[Minnesota Governor Tim Walz]

Minnesota is experiencing unprecedented ICE action — which is a kind of punch-pulling euphemism for what has felt like an all-out fascist invasion that has included murder, kidnappings, toxic chlorine gas set off in city streets, and ICE officers staking out stores and businesses,…

[Corey Ford at Point C]

This resonated:

“I had always been a linchpin and had chafed under cog-like conditions. I uncovered a key insight:

The process for finding a cog job and the process for finding a linchpin job are completely different.

I had been following a cog…

I wanted to start this blog post with a quote. I started flicking through Walden, which I have just finished reading, for one that would be appropriate. But then I realised any choice would be arbitrary, for the wisdom is so deep within the book that any choice would leave…

I start my degree in art history at the Open University in under two weeks. Just after the holidays, I got access to the materials for my first year, which is made up of two modules: “Discovering the arts and humanities” and “Cultures”. In the former module I’ll study a…

[Joseph Cox at 404 Media]

This is racial profiling on a grand scale:

“Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s…

This is an an interesting and varied set of sci-fi/fantasy stories. Some barely a couple of pages, others cutting short at just the right time. They are all on a similar theme - the strife between parents and children. Whether it is a twisted take on classic fairy tales, or…

Date: 14/1/26
Tags: #productivity #mental-health #mental-model #bugs #debugging

I.

In 1947, Grace Hopper and her team at Harvard were working on the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator. The machine was massive, a deafening clatter of electromechanical relays, and it had stopped working. They opened the casing to find the problem.…