A few months ago I was nominated for a dubious “Developer 30 Under 30” award. I attended the first reception to speak with the organizers about representation in Tech, and the impact these lists have on how we (individually and collectively) identify who moves into STEM. I wanted to ensure they took this seriously; specifically, that they wouldn’t promote a toxic status quo. Then this happened: There was a lot of internal discussion about “fairness”, etc. Most was disappointing and unsurprising; some was encouraging. The list got re-ordered, for whatever that’s worth. But if there was any lingering doubt in your mind about industry awards, they are 100% made up and unrepresentative of…

Title lifted from . The results of the US presidential election last Tuesday shocked me. I checked Twitter to find that my entire feed felt the same. Again. Oops, I created a comfortable echo-chamber for myself. Social news algorithms have been under intense scrutiny over the past week. I wanted to see what other people’s social media bubbles looked like, so I wrote a little shell script1. I’m not interested in building empathy for racists. I am interested in improving my own awareness. This tool displaces me from the narrative I chose and delivers me from opinions I agree with. It’s helped me realize just how powerful a curated social feed can be as a tool of persuasion…