In a previous article, I discussed the curious entanglement between the Hydra online drug marketplace and post-soviet urban planning. This peculiar business model requires not only physical and online infrastructure, but also new language to accommodate for all the creative activity taking place due to this platform and the specific experiences of drug users in the former Soviet Union it produces. This…
2020 has been a year marked by conversations about racism and colonialism taking their rightful place in the mainstream. So the convergence of conversations about racism in society and racism in technology is of no surprise. And Eurocentrism of digital media. People have compared facebook’s global expansion to colonialism, noting the similarities in savior narratives, references to themes of equality, democracy, basic…
Our lives keep getting busier and busier every year. We love to rush things, increase our standards and receive better results in a shorter period of time. Everyone must have heard by now about the “successful success” way of living. Maybe such a way of constructing one’s living is great in terms of productivity and simultaneously being useful for the world, but…

Wikileaks has become famous through publishing secret information. With its new and radical approach to the freedom of information, Wikileaks distinguishes itself from classical news organizations, but it does not exist completely separate from them. Wikileaks, for example, has only been able to gain such prominence and thereby such a huge audience because it collaborated with some of these traditional news platforms.…
Facial recognition software is one of the most hotly debated technological advancements of our time. The possibilities of misuse brought many companies to put the development and use of facial recognition on hold. But new start-ups, and the enormous demand of public and private security organizations have made facial recognition a spooky reality. There are many cities around the world that employ…

By: Marcel Beentjes My last podcast for this course is about order desks that are used in GAMMA shops since a few years and that can be used in other shops too. Such an order desk is not only used for promoting online sells because it’s a source of videos and ideas and a platform where you can find help, tips and…
While I was wondering what I should write about in my last blog, I realized how much I actually enjoyed writing. As I am considering doing a minor in journalism – and even masters -, I searched online for future expectations if I were to become a journalist. Regrets. I should not have done that. I stumbled on an article by the…
It’s a very popular sci-fi trope, a cutesy robot that the viewer develops warm feelings for as the machine proves itself to be capable of acting as a human would, even exhibiting some semblance of emotion. These robots are, of course, not human, yet we can’t help but feel sad if something were to happen to them, how come, and how close…