The Tyranny of the Car
May
29
2024
When I waited all of 10 minutes for my near-silent air conditioned electric bus ride back home from Lidl a few days ago, I again played the 'count the single occupant cars' game. Yes, still a ratio of approx 75-80% single occupant journeys. In Malta…
/ Read MoreAbsent critical voices in AI and Higher Education
Apr
29
2024
/ Read MoreThe absence of critical voices in AI and Higher Education debates has become a deafening silence. This think-piece reflects on why this might be, and where to find trusted academic sources that go against the grain to highlight the situation…
The shifting sands of tech
Apr
09
2023
This post is about the shifting sands of technology we find ourselves in as simple flesh and bone humans trying to deal with the landscapes of media and information in our datafied lives. Nothing is certain, nothing is permanent. It is actually a bit…
/ Read MoreSelective democratisation of the arts: who needs your book, song, painting
Feb
08
2021
"When Toni Morrison said ‘write the book you want to read,’ she didn’t mean everybody" (Fran Lebowitz).
I recently saw this statement in a social media feed. Momentarily I thought someone had singled something pithy out of the current Lebowitz…
/ Read MoreThe World At War
Jun
06
2019
When we were kids we’d watch The World At War, a hugely popular documentary series on TV, narrated by Laurence Olivier. Anyone of my generation will have seen this, we will all remember the…
/ Read MoreRadical Candor, Radical Constructivism
May
06
2019
In a professional environment it’s difficult to speak out and say what you really think. Often you might wait until bursting point and then everything comes out under the cloud of a bad temper ‘emotional outburst’. You get a reputation for having tantrums,…
/ Read MoreRight Click, Refresh
Feb
01
2019
I once had an acquaintance who had a saying: “right click, refresh”. This was around 2003 or 2004, maybe even earlier. It was before flat screen monitors were common, when they were still expensive, back when we all used to have big white PC towers,…
/ Read MoreDepressed teachers, neoliberal commodification and coffee
Nov
22
2018
I attended a lively symposium yesterday with speakers from various universities and nationalities: Ireland, Sweden, Cyprus, Malt...
/ Read MoreThe impermanent landscape of now
Jan
11
2018
The problem is that what I see today is not what will be here tomorrow. Like watching a river, the water flowing by, it is not only the content of digital streams that is perpetually in beta (Garnett & Ecclesfield, 2011, p. 9), but the whole landscape…
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