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2021-02-21

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Pfizer Exec admits “We never tested vaccine against transmission”
12 October 2022
Pfizer Exec admits “We never tested vaccine against transmission”
A senior Pfizer executive has admitted under oath that the company never tested their Covid “vaccine” to see if it prevented transmission. Pfizer’s Chief Executive in Charge of Developing Markets Janine Small was testifying in front of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Covid19 on Monday, when Dutch MEP Rob Roos asked: Was the Pfizer …
Pandemic Treaty: Reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated
11 October 2022
Kit Knightly A few days ago the British Medical Journal published a report headlined: Don’t let economic crisis distract from preparing for a future pandemic The headline is quoting Sarah Gilbert – team leader behind the development AstraZeneca Covid “vaccine” – addressing the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) when it opened on September 29th. …
Only Adult Children Still Believe US Propaganda
11 October 2022
Edward Curtin Veteran OffG contributor Edward Curtin shares his interpretation of the conflict in Ukraine It should now be quite clear to any reasonable person that the Biden administration is hell-bent on destroying Russia and will risk nuclear war in doing so.  It has already started World War III with its use of Ukraine to …
WATCH: Torturing the Truth
10 October 2022
We all know that torture is bad, but are we really aware of how much of the narrative of the past two decades was constructed on torture testimony? Do we know the CIA contractors who developed the torture program or the steps that the intelligence agencies took to cover up their illegal activities? And, when …
DISCUSS: Crimean Bridge Attack and Russian Retalliation
10 October 2022
In the early hours of Saturday morning, an explosion allegedly rocked the Crimean Bridge, the bridge spanning the Kerch straits and linking Crimea to the Russian mainland. The explosion damaged the rail bridge and caused a partial collapse of a small section of the road bridge. CCTV appeared to show a truck exploding or perhaps …
This Week in the New Normal #49
9 October 2022
Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world. 1. Swift outlines potential CBDC network The international payment network SWIFT announced this week they have plans in place to creat a global network of …
Russia “compulsory” military vax policy – is it a “hoax”?
8 October 2022
Catte Black A short while ago Riley Waggaman, a fairly frequent contributor to OffG wrote an article alleging that the Sputnik V shot was compulsory for all military personnel, including the newly mobilized. On the face of it, this seems not particularly controversial or surprising. Waggaman cited numerous sources in Russian newspaper articles and Russian …
Governors up for Reelection 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025
1 June 2022
Of the 36 gubernatorial seats up for re-election in 2022, twenty are Republican, and sixteen are Democrat.
Current Members of the U.S. House of Representatives
4 May 2022
This is a list of individuals currently serving in the United States House of Representatives as of the 117th Congress
U.S. Senate Seats up for Reelection in 2022
4 May 2022
It's 2022 vision time. The U.S. Senate elections will be held on Tuesday, November 8, 2020. Thirty-four of the 100 Senators are up for reelection and will serve a six-year term from January 3, 2023, until January 3, 2029. The time to start organizing is now.
Why Do So Many Elderly Run America?
31 March 2022
Why are US politicians so old compared to other countries?
Could Putin Be Vulnerable to a Coup?
14 March 2022
Could Putin be vulnerable to a coup or uprising? All of the grievances that traditionally motivate a coup against a dictator are in place.
Should U.S. Flight Attendants Be Paid During Boarding?
18 February 2022
The majority of U.S. airlines don't pay their flight attendants until the airplane door closes, even though plane boarding is one of the most stressful parts of their job.
QAnon vs. Hitler's Brownshirts
28 January 2021
The world has seen QAnon before. It was called Nazism.
Aftermath of flooding in Brazil’s Amazonas state
21 May 2022
Aftermath of flooding in Brazil’s Amazonas state

The post Aftermath of flooding in Brazil’s Amazonas state appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

People take the plunge with a shark dive in Florida
18 May 2022
People take the plunge with a shark dive in Florida

The post People take the plunge with a shark dive in Florida appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

The moon is seen during a lunar eclipse in Los Angeles
16 May 2022
The moon is seen during a lunar eclipse in Los Angeles

The post The moon is seen during a lunar eclipse in Los Angeles appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

Wildfire in California
12 May 2022
Wildfire in California

The post Wildfire in California appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

A Swiss farmer works in his field with his tractor in Sullens
10 May 2022
A Swiss farmer works in his field with his tractor in Sullens

The post A Swiss farmer works in his field with his tractor in Sullens appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

Verstappen beats Leclerc to win first Miami Grand Prix
9 May 2022
Verstappen beats Leclerc to win first Miami Grand Prix

The post Verstappen beats Leclerc to win first Miami Grand Prix appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

Judge releases Oath Keepers member pending trial for U.S. Capitol attack
5 May 2022
Judge releases Oath Keepers member pending trial for U.S. Capitol attack

The post Judge releases Oath Keepers member pending trial for U.S. Capitol attack appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

The Texas Border County at the Center of a Dangerous Right-Wing Experiment
12 October 2022
The Texas Border County at the Center of a Dangerous Right-Wing Experiment

Officials in rural Kinney County, Texas, are pushing Gov. Greg Abbott to take ever more extreme action against migrants and asylum-seekers.

The post The Texas Border County at the Center of a Dangerous Right-Wing Experiment appeared first on The Intercept.

Biden State Department Embraces Flawed Logic for Bolivian Coup in Leaked Report
12 October 2022
Biden State Department Embraces Flawed Logic for Bolivian Coup in Leaked Report

Adopting debunked claims of election fraud, the report reflects Trump-era support of the far-right coup regime of Jeanine Áñez.

The post Biden State Department Embraces Flawed Logic for Bolivian Coup in Leaked Report appeared first on The Intercept.

“Election Interference”: Oil Price Hike Is Saudi Arabia’s October Surprise Against Biden
11 October 2022
“Election Interference”: Oil Price Hike Is Saudi Arabia’s October Surprise Against Biden

“The Saudis are working to get Trump re-elected and for the MAGA Republicans to win the midterms.”

The post “Election Interference”: Oil Price Hike Is Saudi Arabia’s October Surprise Against Biden appeared first on The Intercept.

In Pig Welfare Case, Supreme Court Could Doom State Regulatory Laws Aimed at Industry
10 October 2022
In Pig Welfare Case, Supreme Court Could Doom State Regulatory Laws Aimed at Industry

The right-wing justices who claim to support “states’ rights” could once again expose their hypocrisy in the service of big business.

The post In Pig Welfare Case, Supreme Court Could Doom State Regulatory Laws Aimed at Industry appeared first on The Intercept.

The Right's Anti-Vaxxers Are Killing Republicans
10 October 2022
The Right's Anti-Vaxxers Are Killing Republicans

Since Covid-19 vaccines arrived, the gap in so-called excess deaths between Republicans and Democrats has widened, a new study says.

The post The Right’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Killing Republicans appeared first on The Intercept.

Texas Claims It’s “Too Late” for DNA Testing That Could Get Rodney Reed Off Death Row
9 October 2022
Texas Claims It’s “Too Late” for DNA Testing That Could Get Rodney Reed Off Death Row

Now Reed is taking his fight to the Supreme Court.

The post Texas Claims It’s “Too Late” for DNA Testing That Could Get Rodney Reed Off Death Row appeared first on The Intercept.

Activists Acquitted in Trial for Taking Piglets From Smithfield Foods
9 October 2022
Activists Acquitted in Trial for Taking Piglets From Smithfield Foods

The nation's largest pork producer argued that the removal of two sick piglets was a case of theft and burglary. DxE called it a rescue.

The post Activists Acquitted in Trial for Taking Piglets From Smithfield Foods appeared first on The Intercept.

I need to see more of this guys games.
12 October 2022
I need to see more of this guys games.
I need to see more of this guys games. submitted by /u/DoubleOScarn to r/funny [link] [comments]
Thoughts?
12 October 2022
Thoughts?
Thoughts? submitted by /u/Paint_Her to r/conspiracy_commons [link] [comments]
The sub for each country and its user count [fixed] [OC]
12 October 2022
The sub for each country and its user count [fixed] [OC]
The sub for each country and its user count [fixed] [OC] submitted by /u/Ceu_64 to r/MapPorn [link] [comments]
US Drug Overdose Deaths - 12 month ending count [OC]
12 October 2022
US Drug Overdose Deaths - 12 month ending count [OC]
US Drug Overdose Deaths - 12 month ending count [OC] submitted by /u/rosetechnology to r/dataisbeautiful [link] [comments]
Some are starting to apologize for buying one of the biggest conspiracies in recent history
12 October 2022
Some are starting to apologize for buying one of the biggest conspiracies in recent history
Some are starting to apologize for buying one of the biggest conspiracies in recent history submitted by /u/pacosteles to r/conspiracy [link] [comments]
I've never flown directly over London before. It was beautiful
12 October 2022
I've never flown directly over London before. It was beautiful
I've never flown directly over London before. It was beautiful submitted by /u/TheUnexpectedBosun to r/london [link] [comments]
Which of these means ‘the fear of zombies’? 🧟‍♀️
12 October 2022

These all are real words, but only one isn’t a fear of a ‘spooky.’

View Poll

submitted by /u/NotAnOctopusIPromise to r/polls [link] [comments]
Knowing
11 October 2022

There’s a repeated catchphrase used throughout Christopher Nolan’s film Tenet: ignorance is our ammunition.

There are certainly situations where knowledge is regrettable. The somewhat-silly thought experiment of Roko’s basilisk is one example. Once you have knowledge of it, you can’t un-know it, and so you become complicit.

Or, to use another example, I think it was Jason who told me that if you want to make someone’s life miserable, just teach them about typography. Then they’ll see all the terrible kerning out there in the world and they won’t be able to un-see it.

I sometimes wish I could un-learn all I’ve learned about cryptobollocks (I realise that the term “cryptocurrency” is the more widely-used phrase, but it’s so inaccurate I’d rather use a clearer term).

I sometimes wish I could go back to having the same understanding of cryptobollocks as most people: some weird new-fangled technology thing that has something to do with “the blockchain.”

But I delved too deep. I wanted to figure out why seemingly-smart people were getting breathlessly excited about something that sounds fairly ludicrous. Yet the more I learned, the more ludicrous it became. Bitcoin and its ilk are even worse than the occassional headlines and horror stories would have you believe.

As Jules says:

The reason I have such a visceral reaction to crypto projects isn’t just that they’re irresponsibly designed and usually don’t achieve what they promise. It’s also that the thing they promise sounds like a fucking nightmare.

Or, as Simon responded to someone wondering why there was so much crypto hate:

We hate it because we understand it.

I have yet to encounter a crypto project that isn’t a Ponzi scheme. I don’t mean like a Ponzi scheme. I mean they’re literally Ponzi schemes: zero-sum racing to the bottom built entirely on the greater fool theory. The only difference between traditional Ponzi schemes and those built on crypto is that crypto isn’t regulated. Yet.

I recently read The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, a novel with the collapse of a Ponzi scheme at its heart. In the aftermath of the scheme’s collapse, there are inevitable questions like “How could you not know?” The narrator answers that question:

It’s possible to both know and not know something.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

Clearleft recently took on a project that involves cryptobollocks. Just to be clear, the client is not a fly-by-night crypto startup. This is an established financial institution. It’s not like Mike’s shocking decision to join Kraken of all places.

But in some ways, the fact that this is a respected company almost makes it worse. It legitimises cryptobollocks. It makes it more likely for “regular” folk to get involved (and scammed).

Every Thursday we have an end-of-week meeting and get a summary of how various projects are going. Every time there’s an update about the cryptobollocks project, my heart sinks. By all accounts, the project is going well. That means smart and talented people are using the power of design to make the world a little bit worse.

What will the metrics of success be for this project? Will success be measured by an increase in the amount of Bitcoin trading? I find it hard to see how that can possibly be called successful.

And I haven’t even mentioned the environmental impact of proof-of-work.

Right now, Clearleft is in the process of trying to become a B corp. It’s a long process that involves a lot of box-ticking to demonstrate a genuine care for the environment. There’s no checkbox about cryptobollocks. And yet the fact that we might enable even a few transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain makes a complete mockery of all of our sustainability initiatives.

This is why I wish I could un-know what I know. I wish I could just hear the project updates and say, “Crypto? Don’t know much about it.” But I can’t.

For seventeen years, I’ve felt nothing but pride in the work that Clearleft has done. I’d happily talk about any one of the case studies we’ve worked on. Even on projects that didn’t pan out as expected, or that had all sorts of tricky complications, the work has always been second-to-none. To quote the Agile prime directive:

Everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.

Now, for the first time, I can’t get past that phrase “what they knew at the time.” On the one hand, I’m sure that when they started this project, none of my colleagues knew quite how damaging cryptobollocks is. On the other hand, the longer the project goes on, the harder it is to maintain that position.

It’s possible to both know and not know something.

This is a no-win situation. If the project goes badly, that’s not good for Clearleft or the client. But if the project goes well, that’s not good for the world.

There’s probably not much I can do about this particular project at this point. But I can at least try to make sure that Clearleft doesn’t take on work like this again.

The audio from dConstruct 2022
7 October 2022

dConstruct 2022 was great fun. It was also the last ever dConstruct.

If you were there, and you’d like to re-live the magic, the audio from the talks is now available on the dConstruct Archive. Here they are:

George Oates Lauren Beukes Daniel Burka Sarah Angliss Matt Webb Seb Lee-Delisle Anil Seth

Thanks to some service worker magic, you can select any of those talks for offline listening later.

The audio is also available on Huffduffer on the dConstruct Huffduffer account. Here’s the RSS feed that you can pop into your podcast software of choice.

If you’re more of a visual person, you can watch videos of the slides synced with the audio. They’ve all got captions too (good ones, not just automatically generated).

So have a listen in whichever way you prefer.

Now that I’ve added the audio from the last dConstruct to the dConstruct archive, it feels like the closing scene of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Roll credits.

Supporting logical properties
30 September 2022

I wrote recently about making the switch to logical properties over on The Session.

Initially I tried ripping the band-aid off and swapping out all the directional properties for logical properties. After all, support for logical properties is green across the board.

But then I got some reports of people seeing formating issues. These people were using Safari on devices that could no longer update their operating system. Because versions of Safari are tied to versions of the operating system, there was nothing they could do other than switch to using a different browser.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but as long as this situation continues, Safari is not an evergreen browser. (I also understand that problem lies with the OS architecture—it must be incredibly frustrating for the folks working on WebKit and/or Safari.)

So I needed to add fallbacks for older browsers that don’t support logical properties. Or, to put it another way, I needed to add logical properties as a progressive enhancement.

“No problem!” I thought. “The way that CSS works, I can just put the logical version right after the directional version.”

element { margin-left: 1em; margin-inline-start: 1em; }

But that’s not true in this case. I’m not over-riding a value, I’m setting two different properties.

In a left-to-right language like English it’s true that margin-inline-start will over-ride margin-left. But in a right-to-left language, I’ve just set margin-left and margin-inline-start (which happens to be on the right).

This is a job for @supports!

element { margin-left: 1em; } @supports (margin-inline-start: 1em) { element { margin-left: unset; margin-inline-start: 1em; } }

I’m doing two things inside the @supports block. I’m applying the logical property I’ve just tested for. I’m also undoing the previously declared directional property.

A value of unset is perfect for this:

The unset CSS keyword resets a property to its inherited value if the property naturally inherits from its parent, and to its initial value if not. In other words, it behaves like the inherit keyword in the first case, when the property is an inherited property, and like the initial keyword in the second case, when the property is a non-inherited property.

Now I’ve got three CSS features working very nicely together:

@supports (also known as feature queries), logical properties, and the unset keyword.

For anyone using an up-to-date browser, none of this will make any difference. But for anyone who can’t update their Safari browser because they can’t update their operating system, because they don’t want to throw out their perfectly functional Apple device, they’ll continue to get the older directional properties:

I discovered that my Mom’s iPad was a 1st generation iPad Air. Apple stopped supporting that device in iOS 12, which means it was stuck with whatever version of Safari last shipped with iOS 12.

Design systems thinking
26 September 2022

As you can probably tell from the stuff I’ve been linking to today and today’s Clearleft newsletter, I’ve got design systems on my mind.

What I like about design systems is they encourage systems thinking …in theory. I mean, it’s right there in the name, right? But in practice I see design sytems focusing on the opposite of systems thinking: analytical thinking.

Okay, I realise that’s a gross oversimplification of both systems and thinking and analytical thinking, but why stop now?

Analytical thinking is all about breaking a big thing down into its constituent parts. By examining the individual parts you gain an understanding of the whole.

This is a great approach to understanding the world, particularly when it comes to phenonema that work the same everywhere in the universe. But it doesn’t work so well with messy phenonema like, say, people doing things together.

Systems thinking takes the opposite approach. You look at the bigger picture with the understanding that the individual parts are all interconnected somehow and can’t really be viewed in isolation.

To put it very bluntly, analytical thinking is about zooming in whereas systems thinking is about zooming out.

When it comes to design systems—or design in general—you need to have a mix of both.

If you neglect the analytical thinking, you may end up with a design system that has well-documented processes for how it operates, but is lacking the individual components.

If you neglect the systems thinking, you may end up with a design system that’s a collection of components, but with no understanding of how they’re supposed to work together.

Ideally, you want a good mix of both.

But I’ve got to be honest: if I had to err on one side more than the other, I think I’d rather have less analytical thinking and more systems thinking.

Accessibility is systemic
20 September 2022

I keep thinking about this blog post I linked to last week by Jacob Kaplan-Moss. It’s called Quality Is Systemic:

Software quality is more the result of a system designed to produce quality, and not so much the result of individual performance. That is: a group of mediocre programmers working with a structure designed to produce quality will produce better software than a group of fantastic programmers working in a system designed with other goals.

I think he’s on to something. I also think this applies to design just as much as development. Maybe more so. In design, there’s maybe too much emphasis placed on the talent and skill of individual designers and not enough emphasis placed on creating and nurturing a healthy environment where anyone can contribute to the design process.

Jacob also ties this into hiring:

Instead of spending tons of time and effort on hiring because you believe that you can “only hire the best”, direct some of that effort towards building a system that produces great results out of a wider spectrum of individual performance.

I couldn’t agree more! It just one of the reasons why the smart long-term strategy can be to concentrate on nurturing junior designers and developers rather than head-hunting rockstars.

As an aside, if you think that the process of nurturing junior designers and developers is trickier now that we’re working remotely, I highly recommend reading Mandy’s post, Official myths:

Supporting junior staff is work. It’s work whether you’re in an office some or all of the time, and it’s work if Slack is the only office you know. Hauling staff back to the office doesn’t make supporting junior staff easier or even more likely.

Hiring highly experienced designers and developers makes total sense, at least in the short term. But I think the better long-term solution—as outlined by Jacob—is to create (and care for) a system where even inexperienced practitioners will be able to do good work by having the support and access to knowledge that they need.

I was thinking about this last week when Irina very kindly agreed to present a lunch’n’learn for Clearleft all about inclusive design.

She answered a question that had been at the front of my mind: what’s the difference between inclusive design and accessibility?

The way Irina put it, accessibility is focused on implementation. To make a website accessible, you need people with the necessary skills, knowledge and experience.

But inclusive design is about the process and the system that leads to that implementation.

To use that cliché of the double diamond, maybe inclusive design is about “building the right thing” and accessibility is about “building the thing right.”

Or to put it another way, maybe accessibility is about outputs, whereas inclusive design is about inputs. You need both, but maybe we put too much emphasis on the outputs and not enough emphasis on the inputs.

This is what made me think of Jacob’s assertion that quality is systemic.

Imagine someone who’s an expert at accessibility: they know all the details of WCAG and ARIA. Now put that person into an organisation that doesn’t prioritise accessibility. They’re going to have a hard time and they probably won’t be able to be very effective despite all their skills.

Now imagine an organisation that priorities inclusivity. Even if their staff don’t (yet) have the skills and knowledge of an accessibility expert, just having the processes and priorities in place from the start will make it easier for everyone to contribute to a more accessible experience.

It’s possible to make something accessible in the absence of a system that prioritises inclusive design but it will be hard work. Whereas making sure inclusive design is prioritised at an organisational level makes it much more likely that the outputs will be accessible.

Let’s get logical
15 September 2022

I was refactoring some CSS on The Session over the weekend. I thought it would be good to switch over to using logical properties exclusively. I did this partly to make the site more easily translatable into languages with different writing modes, but mostly as an exercise to help train me in thinking with logical properties by default.

All in all, it went pretty smoothly. You can kick the tyres by opening up dev tools on The Session and adding a writing-mode declaration to the body or html element.

For the most part, the switchover was smooth. It mostly involved swapping out property names with left, right, top, and bottom for inline-start, inline-end, block-start, and block-end.

The border-radius properties tripped me up a little. You have to use shorthand like border-start-end-radius, not border-block-start-inline-end-radius (that doesn’t exist). So you have to keep the order of the properties in mind:

border-{{block direction}}-{{inline-direction}}-radius

Speaking of shorthand, I also had to kiss some shorthand declarations goodbye. Let’s say I use this shorthand for something like margin or padding:

margin: 1em 1.5em 2em 0.5em;

Those values get applied to margin-top, margin-right, margin-bottom, and margin-left, not the logical equivalents (block-start, inline-end, block-end, and inline-start). So separate declarations are needed instead:

margin-block-start: 1em; margin-inline-end: 1.5em; margin-block-end: 2em; margin-inline-start: 0.5em;

Same goes for shorthand like this:

margin: 1em 2em;

That needs to be written as two declarations:

margin-block: 1em; margin-inline: 2em;

Now I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it feels really weird that you can’t use logical properties in media queries. Although as I said:

Now you could rightly argue that in this instance we’re talking about the physical dimensions of the viewport. So maybe width and height make more sense than inline and block.

But along comes the new kid on the block (or inline), container queries, ready to roll with container-type values like inline-size. I hope it’s just a matter of time until we can use logical properties in all our conditional queries.

The other place where there’s still a cognitive mismatch is in transforms and animations. We’ve got a translateX() function but no translate-inline(). We’ve got translateY() but no translate-block().

On The Session I’m using some JavaScript to figure out the details of some animation effects. I’m using methods like getBoundingClientRect(). It doesn’t return logical properties. So if I ever want to adjust my animations based on writing direction, I’ll need to fork my JavaScript code.

Oh, and one other thing: the aspect-ratio property takes values in the form of width/height, not inline/block. That makes sense if you’re dealing with images, videos, or other embedded content but it makes it really tricky to use aspect-ratio on elements that contain text. I mean, it works fine as long as the text is in a language using a top-to-bottom writing mode, but not for any other languages.

That was dConstruct 2022
13 September 2022

dConstruct 2022 happened last Friday, September 9th.

And what an event it was! All eight talks were superb. To have eight speakers and not a single dud is pretty great. To have eight speakers and each one be absolutely brilliant is more than I could’ve hoped for.

Hidde has written a summary of the talks. I loved each and every one. I got to sit there in the front row of the beautiful Duke of York’s cinema and watch these supersmart people blow my mind.

With six of the eight speakers having spoken at previous dConstructs, there was a lot of nostalgia in the air on Friday.

It was the last dConstruct.

A lot of people seemed surprised by this even though I kept saying it was a one-off event. Really, the last dConstruct happened in 2015. This year’s event was a one-time-only anniversary event.

Obviously because the day was so great, people expressed sadness and disappointment that there wouldn’t be another. But like I said, if a band like The Velvet Underground reforms to do one last gig, that’s pretty cool; but if a band like The Velvet Underground reforms to go on endless tours, that’s kind of sad. It’s time to move on. Have one last blow-out and go out in style.

And who knows? Maybe there’ll be some other kind of dConstructy gathering in a different format. Perhaps an evening salon event is more suited to this kind of interdisciplinary mish-mash. But as a one-day conference, dConstruct is now officially over.

To be honest, there was never any doubt that dConstruct 2022 would be an excellent day of talks. I knew that each of the speakers would deliver the goods. I played it somewhat safe with the line-up. Because this was a kind of “best of” event, I could draw upon speakers from previous years who were guaranteed to be mesmerising.

In a weird way, that also highlights the biggest problem with this year’s dConstruct. Even though every individual talk was terrific, when you pull back and look at the line-up in aggregate, you can’t help but notice its lack of diversity.

That’s on me.

I could show you the list of people I tried to get. I could talk you through the spots that fell through. But all I’d be doing is giving you excuses. I could show that my intentions were good, but intentions don’t matter as much as actions. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and what we ate last Friday was wonderful but also sadly representative of dConstruct’s homogenous history. For that reason alone, it’s time to draw a line under dConstruct.

It was a bittersweet send-off. On the one hand, I got to enjoy a day of brilliant talks. On the other hand, I’m pretty disappointed in myself that the line-up wasn’t more diverse. I can make all the claims I want about valuing diversity, but they’re hollow without meaningful results.

So that’s enough looking to the past. I’m bidding farewell to dConstruct and setting my sights on the future, a future that features more and different voices.

If you came along to dConstruct 2022, thank you! If you enjoyed attending dConstruct just half as much as I enjoyed hosting it …well, then I enjoyed it twice as much as you.

Wild bees are active in woodland treetops, research shows
12 October 2022
Wild bees are active in woodland treetops, research shows
Wild bees may be just as happy visiting the high canopy of woodlands as they are among the flowers at ground level, according to new research from the University of East Anglia.
Tropics in crisis: Scientists call for preservation of Guinea's indigenous plants in WWF Living Planet Report 2022
12 October 2022
Tropics in crisis: Scientists call for preservation of Guinea's indigenous plants in WWF Living Planet Report 2022
In a report published today by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and National Herbarium of Guinea-UGANC highlight initiatives to protect biodiversity and support the well-being of local communities in west Africa, including countries such as the Republic of Guinea.
A small trench-dwelling fish makes a splash in deep-sea evolution
12 October 2022
A small trench-dwelling fish makes a splash in deep-sea evolution
The Atacama Trench is a deep-water channel running along the Pacific coast of Chile and Peru, South America. In 2018, an international team of scientists used free-falling "landers" to study the trench, gathering images and specimens of deep-sea creatures. The team discovered a new snailfish species unique to the Atacama Trench and to all other known fish species.
Reaching new heights in largest ever genome study
12 October 2022
Reaching new heights in largest ever genome study
Children's growth will be easier to assess following a University of Queensland-led study analyzing the genetic variants that influence height.
Scientists demonstrate that electricity may be obtainable from water with a high salt concentration
12 October 2022
Scientists demonstrate that electricity may be obtainable from water with a high salt concentration
Devising renewable sources of energy is a key concern for scientists, political leaders and communities as the world comes to terms with the realities of climate change and the limits of the Earth's natural resources. In an exciting new development, scientists from the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (SANKEN) at Osaka University have demonstrated that electricity may be obtainable from water with a high salt concentration, such as seawater.
New tool helps researchers investigate clouds, rain and climate change
12 October 2022
New tool helps researchers investigate clouds, rain and climate change
The Earth Model Column Collaboratory is an open-source research platform that pairs complex data with weather observations to create highly accurate climate models and forecast predictions.
Corn plants with tillers work well in restrictive environments
12 October 2022
Corn plants with tillers work well in restrictive environments
Undeniably, corn is one of the world's most important crops. From feeding humans and livestock, to its many industrial uses, humans have been growing it for approximately 10,000 years.

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Wild bees are active in woodland treetops, research shows
12 October 2022
Wild bees may be just as happy visiting the high canopy of woodlands as they are among the flowers at ground level, according to new research from the University of East Anglia.
Tropics in crisis: Scientists call for preservation of Guinea's indigenous plants in WWF Living Planet Report 2022
12 October 2022
In a report published today by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and National Herbarium of Guinea-UGANC highlight initiatives to protect biodiversity and support the well-being of local communities in west Africa, including countries such as the Republic of Guinea.
A small trench-dwelling fish makes a splash in deep-sea evolution
12 October 2022
The Atacama Trench is a deep-water channel running along the Pacific coast of Chile and Peru, South America. In 2018, an international team of scientists used free-falling "landers" to study the trench, gathering images and specimens of deep-sea creatures. The team discovered a new snailfish species unique to the Atacama Trench and to all other known fish species.
Reaching new heights in largest ever genome study
12 October 2022
Children's growth will be easier to assess following a University of Queensland-led study analyzing the genetic variants that influence height.
Scientists demonstrate that electricity may be obtainable from water with a high salt concentration
12 October 2022
Devising renewable sources of energy is a key concern for scientists, political leaders and communities as the world comes to terms with the realities of climate change and the limits of the Earth's natural resources. In an exciting new development, scientists from the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (SANKEN) at Osaka University have demonstrated that electricity may be obtainable from water with a high salt concentration, such as seawater.
New tool helps researchers investigate clouds, rain and climate change
12 October 2022
The Earth Model Column Collaboratory is an open-source research platform that pairs complex data with weather observations to create highly accurate climate models and forecast predictions.

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Cumtown "Shapiro Meets Feeny"
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  • Cumtown

    Cumtown "Shapiro Meets Feeny"

    Jan 27, 2021 • 23:51

    Young Ben Shapiro's Unforgettable Meeting with Mr Feeny on the Boy Meets World Set.Read More

  • Louis CK

    Louis CK "Retards"

    Jan 25, 2021 • 37:55

    "Sincerely CK" is Louis CK's first stand-up special since cancel culture swept him off the mainstream stage in 2018. It does not disappoint.Read More

  • Tim Dillon

    Tim Dillon "Betterhelp Ad"

    Jan 25, 2021 • 10:47

    Long Island Millennial, crass epicure, podcaster par excellence Tim Dillon reads an ad for Betterhelp, the online personal counseling service.Read More

  • Cumtown

    Cumtown "Steven Segal"

    Jan 26, 2021 • 12:25

    Soapy titwank.Read More

  • Cumtown

    Cumtown "Mickey Mouse"

    Jan 26, 2021 • 6:32

    Mickey Mouse by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. Enjoy it, bucko.Read More

  • Ten Minute Podcast

    Ten Minute Podcast "Arnie Jason Jean-Claude"

    Jan 26, 2021 • 9:21

    Twat on a brick fuck stick.Read More

  • Cumtown

    Cumtown "Ben Shapiro DESTROYS Baby"

    Jan 27, 2021 • 1:57

    Cumboys Ben Shapiro Judeo-Christian Logic.Read More

  • Cumtown

    Cumtown "Ben Shapiro Fish"

    Jan 27, 2021 • 1:57

    Cumboys Ben Shapiro FishRead More

  • Cumtown

    Cumtown "Ben Shapiro v Tim Pool"

    Jan 27, 2021 • 0:59

    Cumboys Ben Shapiro Tim Pool.Read More

  • Michael McIntyre

    Michael McIntyre "Weird Name Spelling"

    Jan 27, 2021 • 2:07

    Michael McIntyre Weird Names.Read More

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