The cult of the dead at the ossuary of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco
Strange Remains, 2015/09/29

This has nothing to do with ed tech, but EMMA's Ruth Kerr led me to the secret underground church and ossuary here in Naples filled with skulls and bones that had been fostered by a dozen or so rich noblemen in the 16th century and 'adopted' by people hoping to earn favour by helping them through purgatory. It struck me that this is an early form of socialism. I'm not sure it would fall under Chris Hedges definition of what it means to be a socialist, but I think we have to allow for variations in the format based on local conditions. In my book helping poor dead people counts.

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Hate Unicorns and the Culture They Breed
Mark Suster, 2015/09/29

I can't even print the title of this item without a language warning, so skip past this one if you dislike obscenity (I'll never understand why a certain type of writer thinks it's ok to offend a large segment of the world's readership). That said, I do recommend the article for its content. The argument is essentially that the myth of the instant-fame startup (aka 'unicorn') is harming real development in the tech industry and beyond. "And of course it’s not just our industry – it’s pervasive in society, this short-cut mentality." It's also pervasive in educational technology. Real growth and progress takes time and effort. We've been subject to this unicorn mythology, expected to revolutionize industry before the product has even been built. Give it time. Progress is coming. But it takes effort.

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