Everything tagged: "history"

Made to Measure? The Biases and Boundaries of Biometrics

Smart devices have been permitted to measure many aspects of our everyday lives, but without a strong grounding in the ways that human measurements have been used and abused in a pre-smartphone era, we risk retreading some of the more sinister paths history has drawn us down.

Apathy and Arsenic: a Victorian Era lesson on fighting the surveillance state

A tale of a two hundred year old method for fighting the surveillance state, based on the advocacy led by 19th century scientists to abolish the domestic use of arsenic. This talk offers advice on how to help everyday people have more power over their own information and how to sustain hope for the future.

Wildman Whitehouse and the Great Failure of 1858

This is a tale of long-winded rants, spectacular sideburns, and gentlemen scientists behaving badly. It is also a lesson about the importance of honest reflection in technical teamwork.

How to do an Acknowledgement of Country

How and why you might want to do an Acknowledgement of Country in your conference talk

Scientific hooliganism: what we can learn from the first hack in history

This is a tale of business secrets, flame wars, stage magic, and magnificent sideburns, direct from the records of Edwardian England.