{"id":18551,"date":"2022-11-14T12:20:22","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T12:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barazalab.com\/?p=18551"},"modified":"2023-11-27T12:39:59","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T12:39:59","slug":"lead-curator-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tuwele.com\/baraza_update\/lead-curator-is-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Lead Curator is Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Curator\u2019s Desk<\/b><\/p>\n

Greetings friends:<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad to be back in your inbox after a four month hiatus! Baraza has been crushing it in my absence, and I\u2019m excited about the big things we are planning to bring your way. Since I wrote my last newsletter a lot has happened \u2014 Kenya has got a new president, Eliud Kipchoge set another world record in the marathon, and Elon Musk set about doing whatever he\u2019s doing at Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0A few weeks ago I was having great fun on this Wikipedia page where I discovered a number of phrases that are apparently Kenyan English, including \u201cIt has refused\u201d, to mean <\/span>it\u2019s not working<\/span><\/i>, \u201cAre you getting me\u201d, to mean <\/span>do you understand what I\u2019m saying<\/span><\/i>, and \u201cOne of these fine days\u201d to mean <\/span>some time in the future<\/span><\/i>. All this was greatly entertaining to me (and I see no problem with any of these \u2018wrong\u2019 phrases), and so in celebration of our English I changed my Twitter display name to Doing My Level Best, which is allegedly another Kenyanism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While I was having all this fun, Elon Musk bought Twitter and proceeded to do many nonsensical things, one of which is to effect a ban on name changes if you\u2019re verified on Twitter. So now I\u2019m stuck as Doing My Level Best in that digital space, which is a bit ironic because all I was doing was my level best! But all this has also made me think deeper about the nature of existence in the digital world: are you your digital identity? What does it mean for algorithms and platforms to create and validate identities? And what does it mean when lines of code can pronounce one non-existent? For me it\u2019s just my Twitter display name that\u2019s frozen in time until Mr. Musk decides otherwise, but it\u2019s a situation that gets more serious when you realize how much of our lives are situated in spaces that can be shut off, withdrawn and disappeared on a whim.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, here\u2019s:<\/span><\/p>\n