Studio Linda Liukas
Letter

No. 100 - Hundred ⫶ Sata ⫶ Cent

Dix fois dix

My name is Linda. I write a bi-weekly newsletter about computer science, childhood, and culture.

It took me almost five years to get to one hundred editions. A few pauses for child-rearing, some for family life, and a few for having nothing to say. And maybe most importantly, this newsletter has helped me point at something and say, this is what I find interesting. (And I still haven’t found a way to answer my twelve questions).

There are three big projects I’ve brought to some kind of finish line this spring: the playground, the non-fiction book, and crossing the 100-mark with this newsletter. All of them began in 2020. This week, for the first time in a long while, I’ve been staring out the window at my desk with no burning next thing.

I called E. and said, "I might be having a midlife crisis." She said, "Give it a few days."

So that’s what I’m planning to do.

To celebrate reaching one hundred, here’s a collection from the archive. I’ve been digging through old entries, sorting and grouping the posts. I’m really glad all of this exists. It’s not just a record of what I’ve been thinking about over the years, but how.

Practical Guides for Educators

Tiny experiments and practical activities for classrooms.

Playgrounds and urban space

These posts became a diary of planning, designing, and constructing a playground inspired by computers.

How does it feel to be a computer?

Image

These posts look at artificial intelligence from unusual angles. They ask, "Why don’t we have better words and images for the kinds of intelligence we’re building?"

Books and reading

An ode to endpapers, footnotes, translations, and reading as a tactile, resistant act.

Pedagogy of computing

What makes something worth teaching? And what makes it stay? These posts explore computing pedagogy beyond grading rubrics and standardized drills.

Drawing as a way of thinking

I was surprised to find so many posts that had to do with drawing. Drawing not as decoration, but as an investigative gesture.

Thinking with hands

A collection of posts that explore learning that begins in the fingertips: sorting pancakes, weaving computers, choreographing robots, and folding paper.

Inside the pandemic pause

Dispatches from the middle of a strange time. Reflections on teaching, entertainment, and social closeness during an era that now feels almost science fiction scifi now.

Computing as culture

This is a collection of posts that are more philosophical in nature. All of them wonder: what happens when we treat computing like culture, and culture like infrastructure? I feel like many of these are stepping stones to new projects.

Years in Review

I hate writing these, but love having them. A mix of year-end inventories and AMAs over the years.