All posts by She Seeks Serene

My Journey of Reimagining Life, Love and Education

Preview: MIT Technology Review – July/August 2023

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MIT Technology Review – July/August 2023: ‘The Accessibility issue’ features Connecting climate change and the digital divide. A blind educator working to make images accessible to everyone. How the app meant to streamline immigration at the border may be making things worse. Plus regulating robotaxis, Metaverse attorneys, and the forgotten history of highway photologs.

The future is disabled

Looking down a neighborhood street where a man in wheelchair has crossed with wife and daughter.

We need to take steps toward a more inclusive future—one that we all can inhabit.

“Technology,” wrote the late historian of technology Melvin Kranzberg Jr., “is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.” It’s an observation that often doesn’t stick with people as they think about technologies related to accessibility.

The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility. What happened?

a tiny person in the center of a maze protruding from the screen of an iPad

For people who can’t speak, there has been depressingly little innovation in technology that helps them communicate.

A piece of hardware, however impressively designed and engineered, is only as valuable as what a person can do with it. After the iPad’s release, the flood of new, easy-to-use AAC apps that LoStracco, Shevchenko, and their clients wanted never came. 

London Design Biennale: ‘Future Is Rural’ In Japan

Dezeen Films (June 28, 2023) – Photographer Edmund Sumner has created a film featuring eight projects that emphasis the   Future is Rural theme of the Japan Pavilion at the London Design Biennale, which was curated by Yuki Sumner. Yuki Sumner aimed to highlight projects by artists, designers and activists tackling issues such as depopulation and an ageing society in rural Japan, in the film.

News: Russia Propaganda Recasts Mutiny Narrative, Israel Expands West Bank

The Globalist Podcast, Wednesday, June 28, 2023: We discuss how the Russian propaganda machine is trying to retell the weekend’s events to its citizens and explain how Russian influence may sway Polish voters.

Plus: an exploration of the decades-long evolution of the word ‘diva’. 

The New York Times – Wednesday, June 28, 2023

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Putin Casts Mutiny as Proof of Solidity, as Belarus Opens Doors to Rebels

A photograph released by Russian state media showing President Vladimir V. Putin addressing members of Russian military units, the National Guard and security services at the Kremlin on Tuesday.

Belarus said it had taken in the mercenary boss Yevgeny V. Prigozhin and might welcome his Wagner troops, while Russia dropped a criminal investigation of him for the weekend uprising.

Supreme Court Rejects Theory That Would Have Transformed American Elections

Demonstrators gathered in front of the Supreme Court in 2022 to protest the case, Moore v. Harper.

The 6-to-3 majority dismissed the “independent state legislature” theory, which would have given state lawmakers nearly unchecked power over federal elections.

Russian General Knew About Mercenary Chief’s Rebellion Plans, U.S. Officials Say

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, may have believed he had support in Russia’s military.

The Unexpected Rescuers Who Found Colombia’s Missing Children

Colombia’s Indigenous Guard has long had to fight for a space in the national narrative. Today, it is at the center of the country’s biggest story.

Travel: Walking Tour Of Bad Gastein, Austria (2023)

Walking Tours Only Films (June 28, 2023) – Bad Gastein is an Austrian spa and ski town in the High Tauern mountains south of Salzburg. It’s known for the belle epoque hotels and villas built on its steep, forested slopes.

The Wasserfallweg is a path offering views of the town’s central Gasteiner Waterfall plummeting to the valley floor. Gothic frescoes adorn St. Nicholas Church. The Gasteiner Museum chronicles the town’s thermal springs and notable guests. 

Alaska Architecture: Waterfront Home Tour

Wall Street Journal (June 27, 2023) – This luxury oceanfront property in southeast Alaska, with concrete floors and a pink kitchen, cost $2.07 million to build and furnish.

Video timeline: 0:00 Living on the water 0:54 Living room 1:32 Kitchen 2:25 Deck and nook 3:54 Primary bedroom 4:49 Outside space

The home includes a strawberry wall, a floating chair that costs over $3,000 and ocean views from every room. Homeowner Kristi Linsenmayer describes the joys and challenges of custom-building a home over the water in rural Ketchikan.

Australia Design: Parkside Residence In Adelaide

The Local Project (June 27, 2023) – A house openly engaging with its surrounding context, Parkside Residence is both outwardly and inwardly focused to reference the existing formal language it is immersed within. Ashley Halliday Architects proposes a light-filled family home that combines heightened detailing with a sense of the familiar.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Intro to the Light Filled House 00:42 – The Project Brief 01:11 – A Walkthrough of the Home 02:17 – Creating A Cosy Home 02:50 – The Cathedral Glass Wall 03:20 – A Focus on the Landscaping 03:56 – The Colour and Material Palette 04:41 – Experiencing the Freshness of the Home

Set within a heritage-rich area of inner south-east Adelaide, Parkside Residence is imagined as a house of considered proportions. In acknowledging its adjacent neighbours and the traditional forms in place, the proposal aims to also celebrate the silhouettes of the existing streetscape through the formation of two main gabled pavilion arrangements. Aligned perpendicularly to one another, the pair sit separated with a connective corridor space to bind them.

Whilst the home is a modern insertion within its traditional setting, by respectfully honouring the formal language of the established rooflines, the structure adds to the rhythm of the streetscape. Ashley Halliday Architects focuses on balancing both the privacy and experience of the house from within with a series of spaces that nestle comfortably. Ikon Projects crafts Parkside Residence to transition from a privately veiled home at the front to a more open collective of spaces to the rear.

News: New Zealand & Saudi Arabia Leaders Visit China, Russia ‘Mutiny’ Fallout

The Globalist Podcast, Tuesday, June 27, 2023: New Zealand’s prime minister, Chris Hipkins, visits China for trade talks as Saudi Arabia sends a top delegation to an economic forum in Tianjin.

Kiwi journalist Lisette Reymer and China analyst Isabel Hilton discuss what’s on the agenda and why Beijing is turning its attentions to the Middle East. Plus: the latest claims from Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Progizhin and Guatemalans go to the polls in an election mired by democratic backsliding.

The New York Times – Tuesday, June 27, 2023

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Putin Says Russia Is United Behind Him, After Quelling Rebellion

Watching President Vladimir V. Putin’s address to the nation on television in Moscow on Monday.

President Vladimir V. Putin spoke angrily of those who want “Russians to fight each other,” but his former ally, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, said the mutiny he led was not a coup attempt.

Minefields and Menace: Why Ukraine’s Pushback Is Off to a Halting Start

The Ukrainian Army is encountering an array of challenges that has complicated the early stages of its counteroffensive, especially the large swaths of minefields. But its leaders are urging patience, insisting the main push is yet to come.

Intensifying Rains Pose Hidden Flood Risks Across the U.S.

A red truck is surrounded by water on a highway with cars behind it and buildings in the distance.

In some of the nation’s most populous areas, hazardous storms can dump significantly more water than previously believed, new calculations show.

A.I. May Someday Work Medical Miracles. For Now, It Helps Do Paperwork.

Dr. Matthew Hitchcock poses for a photo in a lab coat, blue shirt and colorful bow tie.

The best use for generative A.I. in health care, doctors say, is to ease the heavy burden of documentation that takes them hours a day and contributes to burnout.

Politics & Ideas: The Critic Magazine – July 2023 Issue

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The Critic Magazine (July 2023 Issue) – The new issue features The errors of escalation; The end of German stability?; Brahms: sublime genius on a major scale, and more…

The errors of escalation

The errors of escalation

What does it mean and why is it so dangerous?

Paul Winter

A fresh face for an old friend

The National Portrait Galley’s renovation doesn’t disappoint, bringing light and space to tell the story of the nation

Helen Barrett