A photo of the STEVE I saw last night. If you are reading this as an email, click the post title to see the image. You have to chase the beautiful things sometimes. Be in the right place, have a bit of luck, being open to a bit of surprise. On Sunday I was really sick with some kind of blow-through flu/cold that laid me out all weekend. But I managed to drag myself out of bed later in the day and get a walk in. One of my favourite walks on my home island takes me down a little …
It’s undeniable that in the time I have been publishing on the web (and before that on usenet and bbs’ dating back to 1992) we have seen a shift from protocols to platforms. Back in the day, people made protocols so we could all talk to each other, regardless of the platforms we used to do it. The web today runs on these protocols, which allows us to use all kinds of different platforms to communicate. Think email. We all use different email programs, but when I send a message, it gets to you regardless. The enclosure of the commons …
It’s a snow day here on Nexwlelexwm/Bowen Island. After a couple of weeks of clear warms weather, winter seems to have finally gotten around to giving us a little blast of snow and cold. we’re looking at a week or so of colder than normal temperatures on the back of these squally snow events we’ve been having for the past twelve hours. After shovelling and salting the driveway, wrapping my water pump in a blanket and checking the heat tape on the pipes, I settled in to watch soccer and catch up on local news. It’s been 24 hours of …
Interesting links that crossed my path this month. You can find these in real time at my Mastodon site, which is also mirrored on Bluesky. Happy New Year to all.
Confirmed yet again that the way to build community, and indeed strengthen participatory and democratic societies is to do work together. Peter Levine, who I feel like everyone should read, has a nice little blog post today that serves as a bit of a gateway to his own research and thoughts on this topic. Here’s his basic thesis: People are more likely to trust institutions if they are involved in diverse, participatory groups, because such participation gives them a feeling of agency, teaches them that compromise is necessary (it’s not a sign that leaders are corrupt), and encourages them to …