Ideas
If you restrict your team from taking most/all of their vacation in a block, then you are discriminating against team members who travel far to visit family. Instead, setup resilient frameworks around backup and support.
Project Alias is a 3D-printed safety feature to add to your home “digital assistant", inspired by Cordyceps!
Winner of “Best Headline” for the Angela Davis story that is ongoing
Let’s have an Epiphany
“For, look, darkness covers the earth
and deep darkness covers the nations,
but the Lord shines on you;
his splendor appears over you.”
Epiphany
The twelve days of Christmas have concluded, and we are now in Epiphany. This is when Christians celebrate the arrival of the Magi who came to witness the newborn Jesus. In some traditions, we also celebrate his baptism, or even Jesus’s miracles and ministry.
Epiphany is a “manifestation”. As the verse above alludes to, and as Pastor Shannon says, it’s the “Light breaking in.”
In these dark times, where are you seeing the light breaking in?
A Theme for January
In Common Prayer, the suggested theme for January is “Shared Economics.” The economics of Caesar and Empire are harmful to people and the world, but the Spirit repeatedly calls people to live differently. The prophets and Jesus had a lot to say about how we handle economics, yet it’s a topic that many Christians avoid engaging deeply. In January, we are invited to investigate alternatives and to perform holy experiments.
This January, I’ll be reading and writing about one of the suggested books: God’s Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth Gospel.
Want to join me? Let me know!
2018 was full of challenges for me, and likely for you. Were we able to grow from them? Will we in 2019?
“Our American Christians are too busy saving the souls of white Christians from burning in hellfire to save the lives of black ones from present burning in fires kindled by white Christians.”
Ida B. Wells quoted in The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
Sunday quote:
This is one of the reasons I prefer blogs (and micro.blog) over ad-based systems that are designed to favor knee-jerk reactions over deep learning and discussion.
The idea of an attentional commons (and the ensuing attention economy) is a really helpful paradigm.
Mennonite pastor arrested resisting ICE arrest
“During these times I’ve realized that the call of Jesus’ nonviolent love is to resist the violence of this world with our bodies.”
Redemption must be institutional, not just individual.
Schneier: How Surveillance Inhibits Freedom of Expression
We don’t yet know which subversive ideas and illegal acts of today will become political causes and positive social change tomorrow, but they’re around. And they require privacy to germinate. Take away that privacy, and we’ll have a much harder time breaking down our inherited moral assumptions. How Surveillance Inhibits Freedom of Expression
On regression in game design
The impact of a mechanically bad rule is usually that refs have to house rule around it, which they love doing. The impact of a socially, culturally bad rule is the propagation of bullshit that we as a culture have been trying to work past and through.
Cool new resource: An ethics checklist for data scientists. I’ve added it to my Security Thinking for Big Data list. #security
Awesome Gift List: Resistance Board Games
Food for Thought: 2018-03-12
I waited too long to publish this last batch, so the list is long. Hope you find some of these interesting! Recommend your own in the comments:
This is a hilarious and informative philosophical response about “puzzles for libertarians". (I’m probably one of the few people who reads both Current Affairs and Slate Star Codex.)
I’ve shared quite a bit about the Attention Economy. Richard Beck, here, brings that conversation out of the realm of advertising, software, etc. and into social interactions.
From Current Affairs, The Nice Cop, an article by someone who was friends with the killer of Philando Castile.
"It is ridiculous to think that you can arm your police with a military-grade arsenal, tell them that everyone they see is a potential threat, and not have bloodshed in the streets….It may be a necessary evil to have some units of armed police, but they should be few, small, and lightly-armed with pistols, shotguns, and rifles….In the event that unarmed police had to confront armed suspects, they would do what cops already do: call for backup.”
You’ve heard about the various folks repenting for what they’ve done to attention with tech. Some of them are banding together at Humane Tech to make things better. Here is their first resource page. Lots of good advice on there.
I like these “25 Principles of Adult Behavior”
"We’re ultimately after justice, not fairness. And by stopping with fairness, we are shortchanging the people most at risk.” from The Problem with Building a “Fair” System
"It’s not beneficial to us to turn content recommendations over to an algorithm, especially one that’s been optimized for garbage.” From Facebook is Killing Comedy
Related: YouTube: the Great Radicalizer: “It seems as if you are never ‘hard core’ enough for YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. It promotes, recommends and disseminates videos in a manner that appears to constantly up the stakes.”
“Get out of jail free” cards. Remember, even “benevolent” discrimination in execution of the law leads to further inequalities.
"Creating a social stigma around people who refused to cede the street to cars was a means for car companies to redirect blame back onto victims and strengthen motorists’ claim to the right-of-way.” On the Creeping Criminalization of Walking
’When you create a Human+AI team, the hard part isn’t the “AI”. It isn’t even the “Human”. It’s the “+”.’ Humans are good at asking questions. AI are good at answering them. This “centaur” pairing is effective.
We all know hiring for security expertise is difficult. Here’s a heatmap including supply/demand ratios by state.
Where countries would be in Pangea.
Cool infographic about the naming of tea in different languages.
Another cool infographic about happiness.
This idea of “Near Enemies” is a very useful concept.
"Smaller crowds outperform larger crowds and individuals in realistic task conditions.” Anybody have a copy of this article?
Food for Thought: 2018-01-23
This essay from LeGuin helps explain why her writing is so great: The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
Update: She has passed
Waging Nonviolence interviews the executive director of Life After Hate and and they discuss how we help people leave violent organizations.
“I’m simply tired and bored by a progressive Christianity that doesn’t believe in anything, at least anything beyond Jesus being a model exemplar of liberal humanism.” From Experimental Theology
A good breakdown of USA immigration issues.
Experimental Theology looks at idolatry in the workplace.
Quality essay on Toxic Tech Culture.
Cory Doctorow says there’s more to the long game in the attention wars.
Related: Here’s how to turn your phone greyscale, with a quick shortcut to restore color when you need it.
“The #Resistance Just Gave Darth Vader’s NSA Broad Spy Powers” Less sarcastic article here.
Solid Last Jedi thinkpiece roundup:
Not the Droid You’re Looking For: Subtler Political Points from The Last Jedi from C4SS
Why so many men hate The Last Jedi but can’t agree on why from Bitter Gertrude
Lure of Myth from Slate
From the makers of Juicero, we now have “raw water”. Yes, people are charging exorbitant amounts for dangerous water.
Shellfish, which generally stay in the same area, are good subjects for observing the effects of our waste entering the ocean.