The coronavirus pandemic is changing a lot our daily lives, sometimes in small but significant ways. This article from South China Morning Post writes about one such change in Asia: “As Covid-19 changes chopstick habits, diners ponder how to keep family love and intimacy alive”.
The Youtube channel Philosophy Overdose uploaded this great video. The video is a compilation of some people discussing the differences between positive versus negative liberty/freedom.
A short but brilliant video from NPR explaining the segregation of lives and neighbourhoods in the US:
In 1968, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act that made it illegal to discriminate in housing. Gene Demby of NPR’s Code Switch explains why neighborhoods are still so segregated today.
In an article at MIT Technology Review, Ethan Zuckerman makes an interesting point on how years of police body cams and bystander cellphone video has not stopped police violence. He recalls how these kinds of surveillance are linked to the ideas of the panopticon. But that one aspect of Jeremy Bentham’s hope for a completely transparent system has not been achieved.
Een artikel van Lode Vanoost “Over korte gazons, droog weer en gezond verstand in coronatijden”. Groot gelijk dat door de populaire “gazons” het probleem van droogte gewoon veregeren:
Onze gazons zijn in werkelijkheid een permanente aanslag op de natuur. Een kort gazon is een tegennatuurlijk fenomeen. Elke permanente monocultuur van één gewas op dezelfde plaats, zoals ons gazon, leidt tot bodemverarming. Elke plant haalt uit de bodem immers alleen die elementen die hij nodig heeft. De natuur houdt met zijn mengeling van soorten alles in evenwicht. Verarmde bodems zijn op hun beurt veel gevoeliger voor droogte.
Ian Bogost and Alexis C. Madrigal wrote a fantastic piece at The Atlantic, “How Facebook Works for Trump”. In this article they explain how the systems developed by Facebook to optimise advertising campaigns based on machine learning and with little human interaction are effectively exploited by the Trump campaign. They are very right in their conclusion that in this way Facebook systems are taking over some of the work of the campaign.
In an article at The New York Times, Victoria Turk writes about “How the Coronavirus Is Changing Digital Etiquette”:
The pandemic has caused the way we communicate to evolve, and our relationship with technology is being pushed into new territory. Although states are slowly reopening, much of our professional and personal lives will continue to be lived almost entirely online for the foreseeable future. Digital etiquette rules remain more important now than ever.
Noam Chomsky explaining how the work ordinary people do every day that form the base on any change in the world. Via Open culture
Now playing via Klara radio, “Aldo Romano, Louis Sclavis, Henri Texier - Viso di donna” 🎧
A short video about the the Hong Kong’s (ding-ding) trams and an inside look into the workshops where the trams are made and maintained. I loved riding these trams when I was visiting a friend in HK.