The End of Stack Overflow, Climate Prophecies, & More
Kernel 3 unlocked + holiday shipping
Happy December! Couple of deadlines coming up as we inch towards the end of the year…
📈 Send us a tiny tech review (50-300 words on something you loved or hated or something in between) by tonight!
☘️ If you want to submit fiction, poetry, or visual art to Kernel 4, do that by Dec. 8 here!
🎁 Physical magazines make great gifts… and if you get your order in by Dec. 10, we’ll get any Kernel order shipped to you (US addresses) in time for Christmas.
This week, we’re unlocking all the remaining pieces from Kernel 3! Let me pitch you on each of them — they’re all totally worth it.
⚖️ When the Computer is the Witness by Christina Tuttle
If you’ve seen Jury Duty (which, if you haven’t, you should), you’ll remember the unhinged scene where the defense attorney shows a ridiculous animation that supposedly illustrates what really happened on the day of the supposed crime. It turns out that, though such animations are widely used (usually by prosecutors), they’re vastly under-studied. I learned a ton from this essay by Christina Tuttle (edited by Archana Ahlawat) that examines how animations shape storytelling and therefore the enactment of justice.
📖 The Logic(s) of a Magazine: a Conversation with Michael Falco
Logic Magazine has been a huge influence for years (see this “Intergenerational Struggle Session” from a few issues ago). They recently rebirthed as Logic(s), and it was so fun to get to talk to Michael Falco, their interim managing editor, about the transition and their vision for a print magazine about technology. The second issue of Logic(s) is coming out soon — we’re excited and you should be too!
🔮 Climate Science Crystal Ball: Towards a Cyborg Climate Science by Kyle Barnes
If models are crystal balls, climate scientists are the psychics imbuing predictions of the future with legitimacy…. I want to believe that better science gives us better information, that better models of the climate can give us a better signal of what to do next; at the same time, I also know that there is a fundamental limitation to what statistics can tell us. This essay, edited by (K4 EIC!) Jacob Kuppermann, grapples with what predictive models can and cannot do, and what we need to fill in the gaps.
💬 Marked as Irrelevant: Why Stack Overflow’s Static Culture is Leading to a Mass Migration by Aina Z.
Lots of “twitter thought leaders” seem to say that AI killed StackOverflow, but what if it was StackOverflow’s own policies? In our first piece of software criticism — edited by Sheon Han, the originator of the term himself — Aina Z. explores the culture and policy decisions that shaped — killed? — the content on the platform.
👥 The Strategies We Need: Building and Sustaining Tech Cooperatives by Priya Chatwani
I always felt like I heard a lot about the idea of co-ops as an alternative to venture-backed startups, but never really understood how it would work in practice. This essay, written by Priya Chatwani and edited by Jackie Luo — both engineers who actually worked at tech coops — goes into the details, including those that are less “theoretically sexy” but ultimately practically critical.
🌎 Top O’ the World by Liam Hogan
There is something very charming about this story about two workmen installing solar panels in and around London… I fell in love with the two dudes in this story, doing what they can, even and especially when they suspect it might not ultimately amount to much.
Reboot publishes free essays on tech, humanity, and power every week. If you want to keep up with the community, subscribe below ⚡️
💝 closing note
Thanks for reading! You have until tonight to submit a tiny tech review (50-300 words on something you loved or hated), until Friday to submit creative work for Kernel 4, and until Sunday to get your physical magazines in time for Christmas :)
Jessica & Reboot team