Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 1d

This even manages to capture issues I somehow overlooked 🙃

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 1d

Seemed inevitable but man, that’s a bummer.

Hard to blame Marks for that risk but at the same time, his draft history looks increasingly checkered. IMO the “elite drafter” status is at least a little overblown, and fully in danger pending the outcome of our 2025 picks.

2

Reposted by Alex Witkowski

Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 7d

I was asked to write a piece about different genres/formats of “gathering” — the bookstack itself being one such example! This’ll be a fun collection to work through :)

Jonathan Field, Townhall meetings and the death of deliberation; Cooper
100 TRICKS TO APPEAR SMART IN MEETINGS B
MEETING GROUNDS
PRIYA PARKER
THE ART OF
GATHERING
BERGER Et al.
A Toolkit for Gathering
Draw Down
PARRY
A THEORY OF ASSEMBLY From Museums to Memes
Unfurlings
Explorations in art, activism, and archiving
IS04
* FREEDOM IS AN ENDLESS MEETING * Francesca Polletta
CERVENAK BLACK GATHERiNG
J. T.
ROANE
DARK AGORAS
MARGARBT MBAD AND PAUL, BYERS THE SMALL CONFERENCE
INSURGENT BLACK SOCIAL LIFE AND THE POLITICS OF PLACE
MOUTON
CHICAGO
Touloumi
Assembly by Design The United Nations and Its Global Interior
MACHINE PROJECT
Tang-Skidmore
DelMonico

1 5 54

Reposted by Alex Witkowski

Animation Obsessive @ani-obsessive.bsky.social · 3d

From: Fair, then Partly Piggy (1988), dir. Toshio Hirata, Oh! Production

16 430 1.3K

Reposted by Alex Witkowski

NPR @npr.org · 2d

Craig Clark, 79, calls himself the "Tech Fairy." Clark spends his time refurbishing old laptops and giving them away for free to people who need them.

Need a laptop? This retiree refurbishes laptops, gives them away to those in need

Craig Clark, 79, calls himself the "Tech Fairy." Clark spends his time refurbishing old laptops and giving them away for free to people who need them.

n.pr

20 230 1.5K

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 2d

My friend and I are working on a project now to help people get better at small talk, conversation, and overall human connection, and something we agreed from the outset is to be very clear that human connection takes time and attention. There is no quick fix. It either matters to you or it doesn’t.

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 3d

WELL THEN IT'S NOT MEANINGFUL IS IT, NICK www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

1

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 3d

San Francisco concert venues have door and start times that simply are not reflective of the reality of their city’s public transportation and infrastructure.

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 3d

If anyone’s willing to share: Is there a song that’s really important to you that was introduced to you by someone else?

A parent, a partner, an ex, a friend, a stranger, a mentor—anyone! But not just a song you like. Specifically a song that’s really important to you. An all-time favorite.

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 3d

It’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Grind mindset YouTuber Gary Vee not only makes a cameo, but has a speaking part (and not as himself!)

1 1

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 4d

I regret to inform everyone that all of those one-star reviews of Tron were actually quite generous 😬

1 1

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

One of my best friends went to college with a guy who was in a band that recorded one of my favorite indie pop songs of all time.

If my friend went to a different school, I never would have encountered this song. How much great music is buried in inaccessible internet crevices?

Rifle Men - His and Hers

YouTube video by Cantora Records

www.youtube.com

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

My own Brooklyn Nets, god bless them, have engineered in a lab a team so distasteful to my personal sensibilities that maybe the only reason I still follow them is to see if they can yet still discover new ways to dissuade me from rooting for them.

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

Doing a lot of thinking lately about what it means to be "cringe."

What makes something cringe? Why don't we like it? And are we right about that? Or is it needlessly exclusionary thinking?

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

Thinking about this as a community builder: Many interest-based spaces devolve into a predictable battle between "can't we keep this space free of politics" and "our interest can't be separated from politics." The reverse would be nice: Enter around shared values, *then* connect around interests.

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

There's a very real tension between understanding there's no hiding from politics and also aching for a digital space where you can be free from it even for just a little bit and connect with folks as regular humans sharing common interests.

1

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

Adding this to my "songs that make me feel like I can climb a mountain" playlist

Kano - Another Life (Remastered Video) (1983)

YouTube video by MellieTerry

www.youtube.com

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

If the expectation is that you grow your brand by building an audience, it almost behooves you to keep people at an arm's length so you don't dilute or endanger their fandom. They need to see you as an entertainer or expert, not a colleague or friend.

Some effectively balance both. But it's hard.

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

When someone is a friend, I believe in many cases they're actually *less* likely to evangelize your work outside of very narrow, specific situations--both because their promotion feels less credible, and because there's a discomfort around the relationship shifting from friendship to fandom.

1

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

Have spent the last three weeks processing a very bleak thought: That the propagation of content creation as a professional necessity endangers human connection by disincentivizing relationship building.

1

Reposted by Alex Witkowski

Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 5d

I regretted missing this show @ SFMoMA, but it's coming to NY! "This December, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will present 'Art of Noise,' an exhibition celebrating the groundbreaking designs that have shaped how people experience music over the past century."

“Art of Noise” Exhibition Tracing History of Music and Design to Open at Cooper Hewitt | Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

This December, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will present “Art of Noise,” an exhibition celebrating the groundbreaking designs that have shaped how people experience music over the past cen...

www.cooperhewitt.org

1 13 56

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

Ny neighborhood used to have all of these incredibly charming little hand-drawn flyers for yard sales and personal services. Now they all look exactly the same and I don't even bother reading them anymore.

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

Man, that soft, bulbous AI animation style that looks like the kind of illustrations you might see in a cheap board book about potty training is so off-putting it's becoming unsettling. It has an unintended Five Nights At Freddy's kind of eeriness to it.

1

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

If the expectation is that you grow your brand by building an audience, it almost behooves you to keep people at an arm's length so you don't dilute or endanger their fandom. They need to see you as an entertainer or expert, not a colleague or friend.

Some effectively balance both. But it's hard.

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

When someone is a friend, I believe in many cases they're actually *less* likely to evangelize your work outside of very narrow, specific situations--both because their promotion feels less credible, and because there's a discomfort around the relationship shifting from friendship to fandom.

1

Alex Witkowski @alexincommunity.bsky.social · 5d

Coming around to the fact that, especially when it comes to community, processes are built for about 90% of the cases, to buy you the space and patience for the remaining 10%--the moments when you need to give people grace and make exceptions.

1 1