Kickoff For September 26, 2022
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I’ve found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.
Daylight savings time ended on the weekend, but my mind and body are still adjusting. It’s like having mild jet lag, but only once a year. At least I know what day it is …
Let’s get this Monday started with these links:
Technology
Learning At 300 Baud, wherein we learn about the Electronic University, an early-ish attempt at digital remote schooling, which in many ways set the template for future attempts at online education.
The Digital Age is Destroying Us, wherein Jonathan Crary argues that the digital age in which we live one which puts too much power into the hands on the levers, will be overthrown by a hybrid material culture based on both old and new ways of living and subsisting cooperatively.
The US military wants to understand the most important software on Earth, wherein we learn about the worries that the American defense establishment has about the Linux kernel, and about open source software in general.
Work
Why the return to the office isn’t working, wherein Rani Molla looks at the various, and conflicting, reasons why that is and how it’s not as cut and dry a problem as many make it out to be.
The double standard of the return-to-office, wherein we learn a reason or three that more than a few managers aren’t following their employees back into the office.
They Quit. Now You’re Picking Up the Slack, wherein Megan Carnegie looks at how, in the light of mass resignations, many companies aren’t filling the vacant positions and instead piling more work on the people who’ve stayed on.
Business and Economics
When Shipping Containers Sink in the Drink, wherein Kathryn Schulz takes us on a short tour of the world of container shipping, and we learn why containers are lost and how shipping companies deal with those losses.
A World Where Finance Is Democratic, wherein Michael A. McCarthy introduces us to minipublics, a somewhat Utopian idea for making finance more democratic, and explains how that idea differs from more libertarian ones being batted around.
The Human Costs of Moving Away From Fossil Fuels, wherein Devika Dutt and Alden Young explore how a shift away from oil is affecting foreign workers in Gulf states, and how that affects local economies in their home countries.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.