alexandra's pile of notes

I’ve seen quips to the effect of “if public libraries were invented today, they’d be outlawed.” The joke is increasingly becoming reality, most recently thanks to a decision in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Particularly in a country where we’re seeing rapidly intensifying campaigns against books, libraries, and librarians, I am extremely concerned by an outcome that not only imposes further limits on how libraries can provide books to the people who need them, but seems to view libraries as detrimental to society. We must fight to protect our rights to read freely, and fight back against the censorship, surveillance, and rent-seeking that publishers and book distribution platforms have been working to not only normalize, but protect by law.

Before going to a protest, demonstrators or observers should note that their cellphones may subject them to surveillance tactics by law enforcement. If your cellphone is on and unsecured, your location can be tracked and your unencrypted communications, such as SMS, may be intercepted. Additionally, police may retrieve your messages and the content of your phone if they take custody of your phone, or later by warrant or subpoena.

The Responsible Tech Guide (2024) is our flagship resource here at All Tech Is Human. It is designed to provide information, inspiration, and illumination of pathways for more individuals to be involved in the Responsible Tech ecosystem.

When The Pew Charitable Trusts created Pew Research Center in 2004, we were surveying Americans using the established industry method at the time: calling people on their landline phones and hoping they’d answer. As the Center marks its 20th anniversary this year, survey methods have become more diverse, and we now conduct most of our interviews online.

Public opinion itself has also changed in major ways over the last 20 years, just as the country and world have. In this data essay, we’ll take a closer look at how Americans’ views and experiences have evolved on topics ranging from technology and politics to religion and social issues.

In agricultural days, staying in-tune with the seasons was important. When should we plant seeds? When should we harvest? When will the rains come? Are they late this year? Knowing what was happening with nature was the difference between a plentiful harvest and a barren crop.

Pinball Map is an open source, crowdsourced worldwide map of public pinball machines.

Four Thieves Vinegar Collective has made DIY medicine cheaper and more accessible to the masses.

But while the color blue dominates Lowcountry skies and waters, for centuries it was nearly impossible for human hands to reproduce. Only indigo—a leggy green plant that emerges from the soil in bushy, tangled clumps—can generate the elusive jewel tones.

In Beaufort County and elsewhere in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, blue had the power to protect enslaved Africans and their descendants, known as the Gullah Geechee, from evil spirits. But the color was also the source of incomparable suffering. Indigo helped spur the 18th-century transatlantic trade, resulting in the enslavement of thousands.

The Global Nonviolent Action Database provides free access to information about hundreds of cases of nonviolent action, from all continents and most countries, for learning and for citizen action. The database is a project of Swarthmore College.

I'm happy to report that this page (like most housework) will never be finished. It is a living document that grows and matures, just like most of real life. It is not a "work in progress", for this would imply not much intrinsic value until that magic day it is completed.