Excited to receive reprints of these classic texts for one of the summer projects we’re working on:

Full text

Full text

Are you designing for the Internet of Things?

Haiyan Zhang made a clever little website to help you know for sure:

Is it the Internet of Things?

Favourite questions: Does it stalk you? Is it the future? Did BERG make it?

Leaving our mark: Fossils of the future

“[W]hat traces of human civilisation would future scientists find in the strata of the Anthropocene epoch?

One feature of the fossil record we are creating for the basal Anthropocene strata is unlike any past geological transition.

Millions of years from now, palaeontologists will likely excavate a disproportionately large number of bones belong to large to medium-sized mammals. Weirdly, they may think, the fossils are almost entirely of just a small handful of species. And their bones are on every continent apart from Antarctica.

Their discoveries will be a sample of our cows, sheep, goats and pigs which we have selected, transported and reared in their billions to feed the seven billion of us.”

“Consider animal demographics in an intensive agricultural world, says Jan Zalasiewicz: “Instead of having a natural terrestrial ecosystem consisting of two or three hundred vertebrate species all coexisting and all being moderately common, we and the creatures we keep have suddenly exploded as populations.”

About 60% of the weight of all the back-boned animals on the Earth’s surface today is our livestock. The mass of all the people takes up another 30%. The remaining nine or so percent is all of the wild creatures.

Any individual land animal’s chances of being fossilised are extremely poor … However, [some] researchers speculate that enough livestock die on the range or get swept away in floods for them to take more than their fair share of the coming palaeontological limelight in the Anthropocene boundary layers.”

Seriously. Cute.

These week-old merino lambs at Mangaiti Station had been separated from their mothers and were being raised in the Thompson family’s front garden. At this age they require bottle feeding several times a day, but when they’re ready to forage they’ll be returned to the flock.

The academic year has come to an end, and an exciting summer of research is just around the corner!

Last month we went to Mangaiti Station, the North Island’s only merino stud breeder. It was the end of lambing season and, as you can see below, the weather was still a bit cold and some of the new lambs had been given felted jumpers for added warmth. As the Kiwis say, “Cute as!”

Luckily, we were just in time to help with tagging the stud lambs, which basically involves three simple steps:

1) identify which lambs belong to which RFID-tagged ewes;

2) use a handheld RFID reader to identify the ewes;

and 3) put a temporary visual ID tag in the lamb’s ear, using an applicator not unlike the one that pierced my ears.

Later, each sheep will be given an EID tag as well as a more permanent, and non-reactive, brass ID tag.

Sometimes the electronic ID tags are lost and, occasionally, the tags cause infection and need to be removed. When we were there, the old-fashioned metal shears above were used to cut the pin holding the tag in one ewe’s ear, leaving a circular, tag-shaped hole where the infected flesh had rotted away. The ewe gave no indication she was in pain, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this scenario could be easily avoided with the use of different materials or through better tag design.

One thing that’s been made abundantly clear to us–and especially so during lambing season–is that merino breeders and growers are heavily invested in doing whatever they reasonably can to ensure that their animals don’t only survive, but actually thrive.

I’m currently writing up some of my observations for a paper I’ll be giving at the CSAA conference next month in Sydney, and I’ve found the concept of tinkering (via Care in Practice: On Tinkering in Clinics, Homes and Farms) to be particularly useful in thinking about what it means to be bound to livestock in unsentimental ways and still genuinely care for them.

Now, what else is happening?

Well, next week Catherine and I are heading down to the South Island to visit Glenaan Station, Mt Hay Station and Beckford Farm, which is home to some gorgeous coloured merino, and we hope to visit a few more stations in Otago before the end of the month as well.

And as if that’s not enough, we’ve got five incredibly cool design projects happening this summer so be sure to stay tuned for updates on what we’re doing and making!

Update 16 November

I broke my ankle last week and am not going anywhere until the new year. (Boo! Hiss!) On the upside, we’ll still be doing some awesome design work over the summer, so please stay tuned for updates from me and some awesome research assistants!

A former research assistant of mine just pointed me to FJP: a weird and wonderful blog about interaction design that gets updated each week and has no archives or social media extensions, which makes it pretty ace in my books above and beyond its content.

And apologies to the author, but this post is just too good to let slip away. It’s what I always try to explain to my students, but better put:

Opening Your Mind So Wide the Ghosts Slip In

When I’m designing, I believe in ghosts. Let me explain.

I’m an analytical person. I believe in science and logic. I don’t actually believe in ghosts in any serious way.

But part of great design is taking lateral leaps of logic, of challenging assumptions, letting the world change your mind, staying receptive to new experiences and ways of thinking, channeling the energy and ideas around you, knowing anything is possible, letting your intuition drive your thinking, not saying no, not shutting things down, re-evaluating your point of view, treating everyone as if they have something to teach you, staying mentally agile, sharp, light, nimble, and quick.

And when I’m in that mode, when I’m truly in touch with my creativity, when my mind is necessarily wide open, the ghosts slip in. Of course ghosts might exist, just like of course this design problem has a solution just out of my reach, one I can discover as long as I keep working at it.

In that moment of creative inspiration, everything has to be possible. When I’m designing, I believe in ghosts. I have to.

Nice.

Hi, my name is Anne and I am a researcher an educator.

Of course, I’m both. But the reason I work at a university instead of doing research somewhere else is because I love teaching. Not every moment of it, for sure, but my best moments with students have been amongst the best moments of my life.

And now, just in time for the start of term in the northern hemisphere (and not too late for those of us in the south) my friend and colleague Matt Ward has offered some excellent reflections on what it means to be a facilitator of learning. The whole post is worth reading, but here are some of my favourite bits:

1. Teaching is really difficult
It’s a fine art. I started my career feeling that my job was to create ‘great designers’. I would crit work and deliver lectures to promote a certain way of designing, a certain way of thinking – hopefully engaging students enough to inspire them to do ‘good design’. However, as I progress in my career I realized that this isn’t actually my job. It’s merely a convenient side effect. My main job is [to] promote learning, the fine distinction is that students can produce unsophisticated design work but still have an excellent learning experience.

4. Sparking imagination
The most important reason for us to be here is to spark our students’ imaginations. It’s important to stand back from the content, the detail, to understand the impact and relevance to our subjects to our students’ lives. The good part, is that we live in fascinating world, your job is to show them how wonderful it is. This means that it’s important to remain enthusiastic. The daily, yearly grind of an academic can be tough, but the best way to make your job brilliant is to show your love and excitement for your discipline. Enthusiasm is contagious… be proud to be a cheerleader.

6. Debunking complexity
One of the most important roles we have as educators is to unravel the messy complexities of our subjects. It’s very difficult to remember what starting to study a subject at university is like, our students sometimes miss the ‘most basic’ of skills, language and knowledge. Therefore, breaking down complex language and difficult concepts is essential.

8. Humor / Humility
Don’t be superior, people learn best from people they connect with and admire. Academics have the tendency to act superior – they waft in, deliver their words of wisdom, waft out. Most people in the position to lecture are smart, but being clever isn’t enough, be nice.

On the first day of my doctoral studies, Charles Gordon told me that we were all brilliant so the best way to distinguish myself was to be kind. I don’t always succeed, but as time goes on I can think of no more important academic aspiration. Reading Matt’s post this morning reminded me why I teach, and reminded me to never get complacent about it. I do a lot of the things he suggests, but I also learned a few things that I can’t wait to put into practice. Thanks Matt!