LA’s Shade Balls: The ecological costs of plastics in water
Putting 20,000 black plastic balls in water after people have been warned against throwing plastic into waterways has sparked a number of questions. Our plastic expert talks about…
Tag: Technology
Image as Method: Conversations on Anthropology through the Image by Andrés Romero
What follows is a series of conversations conducted after the recent Image as Method symposium, which took place on May 4th and 5th, 2015, at Columbia University’s Heyman…
Malthus and the #EXPO2015
The subject of EXPO 2015 is “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, which coincides with the “European Year for Development”. The European page contains the slogan “How can…
We’ve Modified Our Behavior So We Can Text and Walk
We may be driving technology to respond to our needs in various areas, but this is one instance where we’ve definitely demonstrated that we’re also adapting to…
Pixelization in Crip Time: Disability, Online Sociality, and Self-Making in Russian Apartments by Cassandra Hartblay
Vakas is a Russian man in his 30s with a traumatic brain injury acquired during childhood. He spends most of his days in his room in his family…
Web Roundup: Assorted stories by Lily Shapiro
It’s been a very busy week, and I imagine everyone has been reading a lot about Charleston, SCOTUS, the ISIS attacks, and Greece. This web roundup isn’t going…
Thinking about and with “Selfies” in the Classroom
I often long for a classroom in which students eschew electronics in favour of pen and paper, a classroom that favours slow reading and reflection, rather than one…
Vortrag: Indigene Modernität durch digitale Medientechnologien?
Budka, P. 2015. Indigene Modernität durch digitale Medientechnologien? Infrastrukturentwicklung, Technologieaneignung und soziokulturelle Praktiken im Nordwestlichen Ontario, Kanada. Vortrag im Colloq…
Mapping the rainforest? I’ve got an app for that.
By Gill Conquest When I was a kid, the one thing I wanted more than anything else in the world was a computer-in-a-book, where I could look up…
Creating In/Abilities for Eating by Dikaios Sakellariou
I am lying in bed. It is 4 am. The TV is flickering. I am listening for it, I am waiting for it. Next to me a gentle…
Ethics (etc) in a box: How a disinfectant spray became my friend and ally by Courtney Addison
Fieldnotes The box is white, and adorned with a rectangular red button about half the size of my palm. White is clean, sterile, new. Red is alarm, is…
21. Review of Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous
Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. Gabriella Coleman. Brooklyn, NY: Verso Books, 2014. 464 pp. John Postill RMIT University Melbourne, 12 June 2015 forthcoming, Americ…
How the Ocean Cleanup Array Fundamentally Misunderstands Marine Plastics and Causes Harm
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Ocean Cleanup array, designed to clean plastics from the ocean like a baleen whale, is one of these…
Aligned Anxieties: Rethinking Critiques of the Internet through the Anxieties of Web Professionals
The following is a paper I gave at the 2015 Theorizing the Web Conference on April 18. Below you will find: my presentation with audio, the video of the…
What I’ve been reading lately: the not-so-weekly digest (#5)
Presenting another installment of a collection of most-highly-recommended articles and websites that shaped my thinking throughout the past few weeks on the following topics: design, research, busines…
OJT=UWI’s Cepep
The phenomenon of “Bullshit Jobs” in Trinidad… A common complaint I hear informally from some graduates at the UWI concerns the disconnect between what they know and the…
Storify: Accidentally by Design Panel at #AAA2014
[View the story “Accidentally by Design #AAA2014″ on Storify]
It Knows the World: What the Wolfram Language Can Teach Anthropologists about the Problematic Nature of Ontological Approaches (#AAA2014)
Here is the prezi (with audio) of my presentation from the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting for 2014. It Knows the World: What the Wolfram Language Can Teach Anthropologists…
#AAA2014 Presentation on Ontology and the Wolfram Language
I am excited to be attending the American Anthropological Association Meeting again this year! I will also be presenting a paper with a great panel of digital anthropologists,…
Why do we need to have so many meetings?
These days my calendar is a source of stress. My morning routine of reviewing my appointments for the day during my commute often leaves me dreading the coming…
quantification prescribing interaction
Artist and composer ↑Ben[jamin] Grosser, currently teaching at the School of Art & Design, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, two days ago has published his fine article “&da…
brandnew ancient games
Obviously I am not at all informed, let alone up to date—granted. But then again this wasn’t really to be expected. Not that I’d have any time for…
Lessons on Branding & Loyalty from the Popcorn Seller
How can a brand give something for free that is helpful to their consumers and also creates brand loyalty? Apple has recently shown that this is not easy…
From Sligo to the Big Apple
One hundred years ago, in October 1914, Irish fiddle player Michael Coleman left his native County Sligo to travel to America. He first got work performing at music…