Nice post with links to lots of resources
Reads
Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
Croeso/Welcome to the Welsh course on Duolingo. This Duolingo course is designed to cover the CEFR levels A1 and A2 as taught on the LearnWelsh/DysguCymraeg Mynediad and Sylfaen level courses for adults in Wales. See https://www.learnwelsh.cymru
Recent fieldwork and analysis have revealed evidence for 20 or more massive, prehistoric shafts, measuring more than 10 metres in diameter and 5 metres deep. These shafts form a circle more than 2 kilometres in diameter and enclose an area greater than 3 square kilometres around the Durrington Walls henge, one of Britain’s largest henge monuments, and the famous, smaller prehistoric circle at Woodhenge.
University of Adelaide research has for the first time statistically proven that the earliest standing stone monuments of Britain, the great circles, were constructed specifically in line with the movements of the Sun and Moon, 5000 years ago.
“These people chose to erect these great stones very precisely within the landscape and in relation to the astronomy they knew. They invested a tremendous amount of effort and work to do so. It tells us about their strong connection with their environment, and how important it must have been to them, for their culture and for their culture’s survival.” ❧
Connection to environment and importance for culture’s survival.
Annotated on September 18, 2020 at 07:46AM
I led the team of researchers that discovered that Stonehenge was most likely to have been originally built in Pembrokeshire, Wales, before it was taken apart and transported some 180 miles to Wiltshire, England. It may sound like an impossible task without modern technology, but it wouldn't have been the first time prehistoric Europeans managed to move a monument.
A host of previously unknown archaeological monuments have been discovered around Stonehenge as part of an unprecedented digital mapping project that will transform our knowledge of this iconic landscape – including remarkable new findings on the world's largest 'super henge', Durrington Walls.
A trio of researchers from the University of Leicester and the University of Southampton has found evidence that suggests the Avebury monument might have started out as a single-dwelling home. In their paper published in Cambridge University's journal, Antiquity, Mark Gillings, Joshua Pollard and Kristian Strutt discuss their study of the Neolithic monument and what they found.
Archaeologists said Monday that they have discovered a major prehistoric monument under the earth near Stonehenge that could shed new light on the origins of the mystical stone circle in southwestern England.
Archaeologists said Monday that they have discovered a major prehistoric monument under the earth near Stonehenge that could shed new light on the origins of the mystical stone circle in southwestern England. ❧
Why in God’s name are they using the word “mystical” in a science article about this? It’s use only serves to muddy the water and encourage fanciful speculation and further myths.
Annotated on September 18, 2020 at 07:00AM
Stonehenge, a Neolithic wonder in southern England, has vexed historians and archaeologists for centuries with its many mysteries: How was it built? What purpose did it serve? Where did its towering sandstone boulders come from?
With the Scottish independence referendum looming over the horizon—scheduled to take place on September 18, 2014—the presence of Scotland’s regional and minority languages has become more relevant than ever. Today, the only official language in Scotland is English, while Scottish Gaelic and Scots are recognized as regional languages. You might ask: what’s the difference?
Diablo Cody is co-writing the "untold true story" that will be produced by Amy Pascal.
There are so many untold and inspiring stories and who better to tell it than me. ❧
Of course there will be a huge amount of bias from her perspective.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 12:18PM
Madonna being front and center to guide her own biopic should not be a surprise from anyone who has followed her career. But it is noteworthy since most biopics, when based on people or musical acts, tend to have their subjects as consultants and executive producers, involved mainly from rights points of view. This has been the case with recent hits Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody. ❧
And I think she’s learned from Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody that if you’re heavily involved in making and producing your own biopic, it’s unlikely anyone else will do one anytime soon and you’ll be able to control not only the immediate narrative, but also the long term narrative (at least within popular culture).
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 12:23PM
The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others.
Lacking the free time of the hippies, work itself ho become the main route to self-fulfilment for much of the,virtual class’. ❧
They’re right that overwork and identification with work has become all too prevalent over the past several decades.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:11AM
Community activists will increasingly use hypermedia to replace corporate capitalism and big government with a hi-tech ‘gift economy’ in which information is freely exchanged between participants. ❧
I know the idea “gift economy” was around in the late 2000’s and even more prevalent in the teens, but not sure where it originated. This is one of the earliest sitings I’ve seen.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:15AM
In this version of the Californian Ideology, each member of the ‘virtual class’ is promised the opportunity to become a successful hi-tech entrepreneur. ❧
In retrospect, it’s really only made a much higher disparity between the top and the bottom.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:19AM
Almost every major technological advance of the last two hundred years has taken place with the aid of large amounts of public money and under a good deal of government influence. The technologies of the computer and the Net were invented with the aid of massive state subsidies. ❧
examples of government (public) funding for research and it’s effects
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:23AM
Americans have always had state planning, but they prefer to call it the defence budget. ❧
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:24AM
Entrepreneurs often have an inflated sense of their own ‘creative act of will’ in developing new ideas and give little recognition to the contributions made by either the state or their own labour force. ❧
Techbro hubris
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:25AM
When Japanese companies threatened to take over the American microchip market, the libertarian computer capitalists of California had no ideological qualms about joining a state-sponsored cartel organised by the state to fight off the invaders from the East! ❧
A good example of so-called capitalists playing the do as we say and not as we do game.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:27AM
In American folklore, the nation was built out of a wilderness by free-booting individuals – the trappers, cowboys, preachers, and settlers of the frontier. Yet this primary myth of the American republic ignores the contradiction at the heart of the American dream: that some individuals can prosper only through the suffering of others. The life of Thomas Jefferson – the man behind the ideal of `Jeffersonian democracy’ – clearly demonstrates the double nature of liberal individualism. The man who wrote the inspiring call for democracy and liberty in the American declaration of independence was at the same time one of the largest slave-owners in the country. ❧
Some profound ideas here about the “American Dream” and the dark underbelly of what it may take to achieve not only for individuals, but to do so at scale.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:29AM
Working for hi-tech and new media corporations, many members of the ‘virtual class’ would like to believe that new technology will somehow solve America’s social, racial and economic problems without any sacrifices on their part. ❧
In retrospect, this has turned out to be all-too-true.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:31AM
Slave labour cannot be obtained without somebody being enslaved. At his estate at Monticello, Jefferson invented many ingenious gadgets – including a ‘dumb waiter’ to mediate contact with his slaves. In the late twentieth century, it is not surprising that this liberal slave-owner is the hero of those who proclaim freedom while denying their brown-skinned fellow citizens those democratic rights said to be inalienable. ❧
This is a powerful example
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:33AM
Abandoning democracy and social solidarity, the Californian Ideology dreams of a digital nirvana inhabited solely by liberal psychopaths. ❧
And nearly twenty years later, isn’t that roughly what we’ve got? (aside from the digital nirvana, which didn’t work out so well.)
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:35AM
A 6,600-word internal memo from a fired Facebook data scientist details how the social network knew about specific examples of global political manipulation — and failed to act.
A reminder to continue on my quest to remove my data from Facebook and delete my account.
“In the office, I realized that my viewpoints weren’t respected unless I acted like an arrogant asshole,” Zhang said. ❧
Sad that one would have to act like a techbro to have their message at work be heard.
Annotated on September 14, 2020 at 09:40PM
Prodigal tech bro stories skip straight from the past, when they were part of something that—surprise!—turned out to be bad, to the present, where they are now a moral authority on how to do good, but without the transitional moments of revelation and remorse.
I also wish that the many, exhausted activists who didn’t take money from Google or Facebook could have even a quarter of the attention, status and authority the Prodigal Techbro assumes is his birth-right. ❧
amen
Annotated on September 14, 2020 at 11:12AM
Nighat Dad runs the Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan, defending online freedom of expression and privacy for women, minorities and dissidents. That’s real courage. Gus Hosein has worked in tech and human rights for over 20 years, runs Privacy International, the UK-based non-profit, and is the most visionary thinker I know on how to shake up our assumptions about why things are as they are. Bianca Wylie founded the volunteer-run Open Data Institute Toronto, and works on open data, citizen privacy and civic engagement. The “Jane Jacobs of the Smart Cities Age,” she’s been a key figure in opening up and slowing down Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs juggernaut in Toronto. Aral Balkan runs Small Technology Foundation and works on both the tools and the policies to resist surveillance capitalism. Unafraid of being unpopular, even with other activists, Balkan freely hammers rights organizations or conferences for taking big tech’s sponsorship money while criticizing the companies’ practices. In the western Balkans, hvale vale works tirelessly and cheerfully on women’s rights, sexual rights and the political and practical path to a feminist internet. Robin Gross, a Californian intellectual property lawyer, could have put her persistence and sheer pizazz to work defending big entertainment companies, but instead she’s worked for decades against the copyright maximalism that strangles artists’ creativity and does nothing to increase their incomes. I would love to hear their voices amplified, not (just) the voices of those who took a decade and more to work out the rottenness at the core of big tech. ❧
An interesting list of anti-big tech evangelists and activists. I’ve got some issues with Aral being included here–as a prior professional iOS app developer, he’s more likely a counterexample of just the thing she’s talking about here.
Annotated on September 14, 2020 at 11:16AM
I’m re-assessing how often I help out well-established men suddenly interested in my insights and contact book. It’s ridiculous how many ‘and I truly mean them well’s I cut out of this piece, but I really do, while also realizing I help them because they ask, or because other people ask for them. And that coffee, those introductions, that talk I gave and so much more of my attention and care—it needs to go instead to activists I know and care about but who would never presume to ask. Sometimes the prodigal daughter has her regrets, too. ❧
We all need to do a better job of amplifying the voices that have been marginalized for too long.
Annotated on September 14, 2020 at 11:23AM
This morning I was close to giving up on my micropub endpoint. It has taken a significant amount of time to get the project to the stage I am at now. There is still more to do. I have not yet completed the server deployment. I’m having issues with wsgi that I have not yet fixed. I thought that may...