Notices by Raghav Agrawal (impactology@mastodon.social)

Cool Jobs: Scientific glassblowers shape science

https://www.snexplores.org/article/cool-jobs-scientific-glassblowers-shape-science

"Beakers, pipettes, flasks and more. Few people realize that skilled artisans make most scientific glassware by hand (and mouth). This career truly marries art and science. Some people came to glassblowing after training in science. Others started as artists who realized their craft could help advance cutting-edge research"

Meet Kevin Moeller, scientific glassblower | Argonne National Laboratory

https://www.anl.gov/article/meet-kevin-moel

Want to work with friendly, experienced peers in a chill, manageable work setting that really encourages deep craftsmanship and intuitive skill-building in software.

Honestly, school and college, especially in India, don’t really push for that kind of excellence.

I think that daily collaboration with talented, kind people in a real business environment will help me level up way faster than just courses.

What would a Manhattan Project-scale initiative for building open-source appropriate technology, guided by critical technical practice (Agre) and tools for conviviality (Illich) be like

@clarity

Basically you're talking about this kind of dynamic in relationships right hehe?

I love the concept of chosen family in queer spaces, like finding deep connection amongst people via a common struggle but does classism exist in those queer spaces?

Like do poor queers get treated differently from the filthy rich ones?

Is anyone livestreaming their product-building or freelance/design/dev work like an open kitchen?

Like doing twitch livestreams showing how they code, design, build something from scratch

I’d love to watch, follow, or learn from people doing this.

@clarity Thanks Clarity!

(btw I just love your name, it's so thoughtful)

@clarity Ah great! Will check out Fugitive Telemetry

Is there any science fiction novel with any of these scenarios

Disabled minds design the tools

Neurodiverse learners define the curricula

Chronically ill and low-income people co-create health systems

Nobody is made to earn their right to exist

Technology follows care, not the other way around

A realization that I had too late in life as an Indian — You're always solving a problem at a scale here, like that's the one universal constant here in every aspect of life, that you're almost always a part of trying to distinguish yourself from : Bheed (a large crowd)

To make things manageable, we build depersonalized systems, rigid workflows, and one-size-fits-all tools.

But what we gain in scalability, we often lose in dignity, flexibility

This especially applies to teaching to the test, exam based education

Almost every problem in India is about scale — having way too many people — so we end up creating depersonalized processes, workflows, institutions, and tools with default setups that can handle a huge population.

Traveling in India, especially outside the big cities, you notice how every solution to a problem that feels pretty standardized and a bit detached is really all about our scale

The question is: how do you scale creative cognition, higher-order thinking, real invention across a bheed?

What would a true Cognitive Commons for India look like—something a village, a town, a crowd could draw from—not just to sort themselves, but to transform how they know, think, and create?

Solutions that feel cold or standardized aren't just bad design—they're coping mechanisms for scale

Take our edu system. Teaching to the test, exam-based learning, IIT-IIM prestige monopolies—they’re not designed to nurture creativity. They're signaling & filtering systems, built to sort millions

Everything, everywhere, is about distinguishing yourself from the bheed—the overwhelming crowd

Almost every 'default' we have in India—whether in education, hiring, public services—feels rigid, impersonal & often frustrating at an individual level. But it exists because it has to work for a bheed

Every sucky default for every problem space in every domain we have is because that solution despite being sucky at an individual level scales for a bheed.

How does one scale creative cognition and higher order thinking across a bheed, what sort of cognitive commons can we make that a bheed can draw from that shifts our baseline ways of knowing, thinking

“I’m not stupid. I just need more time to think.”

But the world — schools, apps, deadlines, interfaces — punish slowness.

Meetings move on before you speak.
Notes vanish before they connect.

Most digital tools are made for speed, for output. Not reflection. Not ambiguity. Not neurodivergent depth.

Most people don’t lack ideas. They lack space to let them breathe. You’re not bad at thinking. You’re using tools that make reflection feel like a flaw.

For doing this I want to explore what would it be like redesigning penpot for neurodivergent designers.

I want to design tools for the minds that traditional education forgot.

The slow.
The nonlinear.
The reflective.

I want to build systems that reward clarity over speed. That honor thoughtfulness, uncertainty, pause.

Most UX gaslights us into rushing.
I want to build tools that let us breathe.

Because some of us were never meant to “move fast and break things”

We were meant to notice, reflect, and build something that lasts

https://mastodon.social/@impactology/114387104009486182