sejo

Back then, a long time ago— in my discomfort with strangers, conversations, and reality— I would pull out my phone and stare down to indicate the conversation is over, and slowly place my AirPods back in: You a real ass woman and I like it/ I don’t wanna fight it. That was before, when people lived in my phone and I can escape into their curated updates instead of facing unfiltered reality. I don’t have such options now. Instead I dig into my reservoir of topics-with-strangers which has grown exponentially over the years with practice and ask her, “Where are you going?” It delights me how simple it is to have a conversation with random people

Computer science (CS) is often taught as a utopian discipline, full of powerful abstractions that can transform lives and society for the better. However, as computing has reshaped every part of society in both highly visible and highly invisible ways, it has become clear that the foundational ideas in CS carry explicit values: ones of automation, replacement, standardization, centralization, and amplification. These values have positioned it as a discipline of power, and due to the ignorance with which it is often applied, often one of oppression. In this book, we reconsider the technical and pedagogical foundations of CS and CS education from this lens, and offer teaching methods for secondary education that foster students’ critical consciousness of computing, with the hope of fostering a more equitable, culturally sustaining, and just future of computing.

[...] we each live in a present, a space for action. I no longer see you as an arrival point, far away from us on a line, or over the side of a waterfall. You, the future, are always imminent in my undecided present. We are at the center of time, and you, reading this, are also there. In both of our moments, we have so much to lose, but also so much to gain.

“As planet-bound animals, we live inside shortening and lengthening days; inside the weather, where certain flowers and scents come back, at least for now, to visit a year-older self. Sometimes time is not money but these things instead.”

A connected, people-filled, satisfying social life is a worthwhile pursuit, one of the best things that came out of my unplugging journey. I had no choice— without social media, without the internet, without digital clutter— but to find real people, real communities, real connections in real time

[...] so ask yourself, without social media, with how my life is right now, if social media was not to exist, how would I manage a fulfilling, thriving, full of wander and enjoyment social life?

keeping this around as it's getting cold here.