Category Archives: Technology

Morozov, Graeber’s “diversity of tactics”, and Technological Justice

So I mentioned on Facebook today viz. Morozov’s somewhat unhinged and vitriolic twitter stream that I’m increasingly unwilling to denounce people for simply taking different tactical approaches to the same (or same enough) issue, specifically referencing (what I mistakenly called) Graeber’s … Continue reading

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Matthew Wasteland on the big, deep currents of history in game dev

I missed this at the end of last month (I am hunkered down in hardcore thesis/teaching/marking/paper-writing mode) but Matthew Wasteland distilled something really interesting and important about where “game development” is at right now. The interesting thing is the way … Continue reading

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Well this is weird: twitter account swapping

So Sam Crisp tweeted the following a day ago, and I only just saw it: Who wants to run my twitter account for a week? See what happens lol I thought it was a good idea, and something I’ve been … Continue reading

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Is this review of David Graeber’s new book a performative demonstration of his correctness?

Well, I wish it were, but there’s one good reason why I don’t think it is. But let me back up: I read this extract from Graeber’s new book (I’m guessing it’s probably from the introduction?) which is just fantastic. There’s something … Continue reading

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The differential gear, explained

Watch the following video, there’s a lot to unpack beyond the sheer impressiveness of explaining complex engineering: The most amazing thing to me is its tacit expectation about the audience’s ability to comprehend. This is seriously complicated engineering and it shows. … Continue reading

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Go play ‘The River’ a game by Courtney Stanton

here.

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Garden as Subtweet

In this episode of Monty Don’s BBC series on Italian Gardens he travels around looking at grand, opulent gardens built by wealthy, powerful cardinals to impress (naturally) the other wealthy cardinals vying for the papacy around the turn of the … Continue reading

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The end-game of labour automation meets social media

So if we take the idea that social media users are the labour force that produces the product (social graph, for Facebook, adjust as relevant to your preferred social media platform) then how come no one has thought about the eventual endgame … Continue reading

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Music as Labour Technology – Gandy Dancers 1973

1973 16mm film by Jack Schrader and Tom Burton that features field recordings of work chants of Gandy Dancers including aligning songs and chants to knock out slack in the rail.  Shot with a 16mm Bolex camera without sync sound, … Continue reading

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Phil Tippett’s ‘Prehistoric Beast’

Amazing short film, embedding disabled so go watch it on YouTube. Worth it for the 80s era sound design alone. I found it via this blog by someone doing a remake of the Jurassic Park: Tresspasser game. Looks super great. I’m … Continue reading

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