Recently updated blogs

Performance reviews are useful for two things: Thing #1: Succession planning. There’s a decent chance you’ll get a new manager before the next performance review. That new manager needs to know how you’re doing, where you’re excelling, where you’re struggling, what you’ve accomplished, what your goals are, etc. Reading past performance reviews helps with that onboarding. Thing #2: Compensation. If your company ties performance ratings to raises and bonuses then …

‘Listen to your body: all you have to do is wear it’This is the promise of the FitBit Inspire 3, launched in 2022. This is a product, the ad tells us, that ‘makes fitness so fun, you’ll move more, love it and see how it all adds up’. Oh, and don’t forget: ‘track it or it didn’t happen’.The global fitness tracker industry was worth around $54 billion in 2023 and …

Can a map be a mile long? Kevin Kelly (founding editor of Wired Magazine) and David Rumsey created one with The Speed of The Earth art installation, a roughly one mile long line of 30 strobe lights mapping the rotational speed of the earth on its axis - 1156 feet per second or 788 miles per hour. Installed at Burning Man on the Black Rock Desert in Nevada in September …

The Five Flys, from left: Rich Murlo, Tony Tonon, Steve Kucey, Skip Nehrig and John Gallagher. Photo courtesy of Tony Tonon The Five Flys released their only single “Livin’ for Love” / “Dance Her By Me” in 1966. It was the last single on Samron Records S-104, and the only one with Coaldale, PA on the label. Members included Rich Murlo, Tony Tonon, Steve Kucey, Skip Nehrig and John Gallagher. …

Some months ago, I wrote a guide on building a warm-weather wardrobe on a budget. This was a tricky thing to do; different people have different conceptions of warmth, and dressing well often involves layering, a concept that upets many people who are just starting to get used to the idea of getting dressed in warm weather. Luckily, as the weather starts to get chilly, people will be more and …

This is a version of the opening statement I contributed to the panel “Evolving Perspectives on AI and Design” at the Design & AI symposium that was part of Dutch Design Week 2024. I had the pleasure of joining Iohanna Nicenboim and Jesse Benjamin on stage to explore what could be called the post-GenAI possibility space for design. Thanks also to Mathias Funk for moderating. The slide I displayed: My …

If you’re not practicing something with regularity, like a few times a week, your ability will start to ebb rather than flow. Too much ebbing means any flow will start to dry up, parched of life, before it disappears for good. It takes will and effort to build a strong habit, but the more you practice the easier it becomes. I’ve noticed this to some extent with writing. I find …

Nooitgedacht Trout Lodge nestled in the valley belowIt took longer than expected to drive from Swaziland to the trout belt in Mpumalanga, thanks in most part to South Africa's deteriorating roads, but vast dust clouds had also slowed traffic. I don't remember South Africa being so dusty but perhaps it was always that way.Our youngest child had woken up by the time we drove into the lively town of Dullstroom, …

Keynote Speech given at the Transgender Theology Conference, 2024 It is striking that, across continents, and centuries, and theologies, the one unifying thing that appears in the struggles of oppressed peoples is faith. Faith that draws people onward, inspires them to call out against their oppressors, and encourages them to see themselves as worthy of more. Faith is a fire in the soul, it enables us to do incredible things, …

Joel is a MA student in the Communication and Culture program at York University in Toronto, where he plans to research the empathetic potentials of digital roleplaying. If he’s not playing and dissecting a strategy sim or RPG, then the chances are he’s off driving someone crazy by gushing about his favourite games. More of his writing can be found at www.thethirdmedium.com. What do you do with a kid who …

This past spring, I was asked by the Society for the Protection of Prespa if I would be interested in photographing the rivers, streams and waterside forests of Prespa as part of a project called ‘Prespa’s Green and Blue Lifelines’. The idea intrigued me from the very beginning, in large part because it would entail … Continue reading The Theory and Practice of Rivers

I have a server hosted at Mythic Beasts and I’d run out of disk space. They have instructions but I’m not experienced enough to be able to follow them as is, though I broadly followed it to make sure I was roughly on track. Here’s what I did so I can do it again. I do not necessarily think I did it in the optimal or correct way, but it …

I adore Nala Sinephro’s 2021 debut, Space 1.8, and this year’s follow-up, Endlessness, is equally captivating. I’ve wanted to see her play live for some time and her mesmerising show at The Barbican didn’t disappoint. A terrible photo, but it’s my photo. It was an experience to cherish, though I won’t attempt to dissect it in detail — just a few notes for my own benefit. Nala sat on the …

The journey is over, gentle readers. Today is the publishing birthday for Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore from The New Press. This book answers (to my satisfaction, if no one elses) the question that I posed in my graduate school application in 1998. Why did the memory of a early eighth century Syrian teenager become my history in my mid 1980s Lahore? My path …