Returning to a theme I’ve explored previously, I recently encountered two pieces about Twitter and context: Justine Sacco is good at her job, and how I came to peace with her Forced context collapse or the right to hide in plain sight The two pieces explore different aspects of the theme, but both of them […]
Author Archives: Alexis
Some year, huh?
The only statement I can make about 2014 that I suspect most people would agree with is: that was some year, huh? The best things that happened in 2014 for me were financial and professional: I got a new job that came with a shit-ton of new fascinating problems to solve, a pretty nice pay […]
Lost in the mobility maze
A big part of the identity crisis that I’ve been struggling with lately is feeling really uncertain about my physical capabilities. Until two years ago, being physically active was been a hugely important part of how I identified myself and spent my time. Not only are two of my favorite hobbies active (cycling and hiking), […]
Gratitude inaccessibility
I’m having a problem with the inaccessibility of gratitude, currently. It’s a bit ironic and also funny, because gratitude is one of the few happiness/mindfulness practices you could say I’m “good at”, meaning that I practice it a lot and don’t normally find it difficult (see last year’s entry on this topic). I have so much […]
The marvels of social media
I get annoyed when people complain about the banality of social media. There’s been a meme going around Facebook (I’ve seen it twice now, with different things): The idea is to occupy Facebook with {THING}, to break the monotony of selfies, knominations, cat dog pics and personal videos. I have no idea what knominations even […]
Recommendation engines and the uniqueness of dislike
Twitter decided recently that it was going to change its fundamental paradigm and start putting content in your feed that it thinks you want to see, making it the last social site I personally use to try to guess what you want, instead of letting you tell it. It’s an obvious trend; it’s what Facebook has […]
Relentlessness
I’ve written a few posts before on my experience with dysthymia and therapy, and managing my tendency to depression. I haven’t written on this topic in several years, and I was reminded by the flood of posts about Robin Williams that hearing other people speak about the difficulties they have can help. One thing that […]
OKCupid: as clueless as Facebook, but not as evil.
Much has been made recently of this post on the OKCupid blog. In this post, OKCupid “confesses” to experimenting on users in order to verify that their algorithm works, in such a tone as to suggest that this is an obvious thing that everyone does and what of it? In the process, Rudder (the post’s […]
Identity crisis
Part of my not doing advocacy anymore was a desire to understand why I didn’t want to do it anymore, to understand how my relationship to riding had changed from a time when advocacy felt like an essential part of my choice to ride. I had a sudden flash of insight this week while I was […]
What comes out of the spaces
Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens. The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in mid-flight, after all. The trees do not wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood. —Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love Space. Quiet? Yesterday I wrote the first sentence from […]