techno musing

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šŸ’« Rekindling Momentum

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šŸ’« Rekindling Momentum

some personal notes // vol. 8

Vadini
Oct 5, 2021
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šŸ’« Rekindling Momentum

vadini.substack.com

It’s been a while!

School & work picked up and my confidence & creative energy dropped — it happens. In place of writing and building, I’ve spent the last few months becoming immersed in learning. Joining the Reboot community has no doubt played a huge role in that.

I started using Goodreads (add me!), and my reading pace sped up at least 2x thanks to seeing regular reading updates from 20+ peers. My goal is to hit 20 books completed by the end of the year; not too high, but definitely a faster pace than I’ve ever read since elementary school. So far, some favorites include Pachinko and the Art of Being.

I joined multiple book clubs & discussion groups, which has opened me up to worlds of new topics that I hadn’t previously considered. As of late, I’ve been learning more about governance and labor and how technology interplays with them. I never really ventured into the sociopolitical realm, given my 8+ years of STEM education, but I’m glad I was finally exposed to these discussions. I feel like the middle dude in the bell curve meme; I know how much I don’t know and I’m eager to learn it all.

Over all of that, I’ve finally been realizing the mental blocks that were holding me back. I was a relentless perfectionist, and this prevented me from building momentum in any of my ideas. As I work through that, I published a short piece on the invisible labor behind Google Maps. After reading Ghost Work through a Reboot book club, I got curious about the labor going behind the applications we use every day, and it turns out Google Maps used a lot of it (paid and unpaid). If you’re curious how Google was able to map the entire world, give it a read!

šŸ’« Updates

  1. Despite avoiding crypto discourse for a while, I’m going to be taking Buildspace’s NFT course starting next week. Join me!

  2. I published an article on the invisible labor behind Google Maps. It was interesting learning how such a complex service was built, and concerning to see some of the practices Google used.

  3. I joined Georgia Tech’s Effective Altruism Fellowship. I’m not 100% sold on effective altruism yet, but look forward to getting this deep dive (and hopefully will publish some thoughts after)!

šŸ’« Digital serendipity

Standout content from the last few months:

  1. Reboot’s magazine, kernelmag.io, was recently published! In addition to a super cool website, the first issue includes many in depth pieces from members of the Reboot community. The main thesis behind it is ā€œexamining technology’s role in shaping our collective featureā€.

  2. Interesting exploration of digital fashion. I thought the video was particularly relevant given all the recent conversation around the ā€œmetaverseā€.

  3. šŸ’€

    Twitter avatar for @TimeaTabori
    Timea Tabori @TimeaTabori
    Diversity in tech be like
    A screenshot of Netflix series Squid Game, where a character says ā€œwe already an have elderly man and a woman, so we need to find more men.ā€
    10:26 PM āˆ™ Oct 2, 2021
    122,852Likes15,032Retweets

That’s all for this time! Here’s to rekindling momentum in your creative endeavors.

—VadiniĀ 

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šŸ’« Rekindling Momentum

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