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erika owens

@erikaowens.com

1.9K followers 510 following 578 posts

tech, journalism, music, TV, wandering, biking, and laughing way too loudly. newly based in sheffield, previously philadelphia banner image is by www.instagram.com/harshadisfree via atlas obscura

Posts Replies Media

erika owens @erikaowens.com · 26/11/2025

bonus followup about moving the cat via said boat: erikaowens.com/blog/moving-...

stripey cat in a queen mary 2 cat coat (??) on a leash on the deck of a boat

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erika owens @erikaowens.com · 02/07/2025

anyone want an assortment of old lefty magazines like jacobin, boston review, dissent, current affairs, the baffler? pickup in philly or i will happily ship the whole thing media mail to anyone!

a stack of several lefty magazines like baffler, jacobin, current affairs, and others.

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erika owens @erikaowens.com · 08/04/2025

this chart (from 2011!!!!) shows _so many more_ models for relationship within journalism than fear and following the algorithm - ijoc.org/index.php/ij...

Table 1: Journalistic Models and Their Visions of the News Audience.
The audience’s relationship to journalism as . . .
The audience’s internal relationship to itself as . . .
The audience’s relationship to politics as . . .
Professional journalism sees:
* . . . . . . consumptive, agendareceiving, occasionally as sources.
*. . . atomistic, consumptive
*. . . . disengaged, aggregated.
Public journalism sees
*. . . . . . deliberative, agendasetting.
*. . . a conversational public.
*. . . engaged, communicative via deliberation.
Indymedia journalism sees
*. . . . . . participatory, agendasetting. Journalism provides audience with “ammunition.”
*. . . agonistic, witnessing, and occupying miniature, subordinate “public spheres” .
*. . . engaged, confrontational, witnessing.
Algorithmic journalism sees
*. . . . . . agenda-setting, nonparticipatory, atomized.
*. . . algorithmic, quantifiable.
*. . . predictable, understandable through “big data,” unconcerned with eliminating “bad information.

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erika owens @erikaowens.com · 15/03/2025

first try at english hamantaschen. turned out pretty ok!

three plastic boxes of hamantaschen - vaguely triangular-ish cookies with filling in the middle, these are fig, apricot, and fake nutella

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erika owens @erikaowens.com · 18/02/2025

woohoo, got my @theflytrapmedia.bsky.social sticker pack, all the way in the UK. thanks!

an assortment of stickers from the flytrap including "fuck the algorithm" "no thoughts only vibes" with a cat, "live, laugh, labortions" and "the flytrap: bringing back the feminist blog"

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erika owens @erikaowens.com · 08/09/2024

that's pretty good. i'm also partial to the URL for the william way center in philly.

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erika owens @erikaowens.com · 21/06/2024

what other digital subscriptions are $9 PER WEEK? and require you to call to cancel? also this email is terrible and they didn't even copy edit it. it's well known that there are problems with how news orgs handle subscriptions, but this transactional approach still managed to surprise me!

screenshot of an email from the philadelphia inquirer saying: Just as the news keeps changing, so do the ways in which we deliver it. We have recently made several upgrades to our news products to better serve you, including:

Faster-loading pages on our e-Edition and mobile app.
More journalists covering local communities, Philly sports, and food.
Premium articles on Inquirer.com exclusively for our subscribers.

In order to continue to create the kind of high-quality, reliable news report you expect from The Inquirer, we must increase the price of subscriptions. Effective your next renewal date, your renewal charge will be $35.96, equivalent to $8.99 per week. This will ensure that you will continue to receive the in-depth and award-winning coverage that you currently enjoy.

What stories can you expect to see from The Inquirer this year? In addition to daily breaking stories, our newsroom continues to look at the link between “forever chemicals” and devastating illnes

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erika owens @erikaowens.com · 25/04/2024

it is really jarring seeing data from your life represented. when it's your life, it just is. at least for me, it takes visualizations like this to realize what an outlier my experience is. also puts into stark perspective the losses so many people are facing in war, famine, instability right now.

data visualization showing how many relatives have died for people followed in a cohort since they were a teenager, as of 2021 when they are in their late 30s.

for people with no adverse experiences ~2 people have lost 2+ parents, siblings, partners; ~6 have lost 1; and the rest (dozens?) have lost zero. for people with some adverse experiences it's ~3 have lost 2+ people, ~30 have lost 1, the rest have lost zero. for people with many adverse experiences, the proportion is similar to the group that had some adverse experiences.

these figures are represented by tiny people of various color shades corresponding to the number of relatives lost.

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erika owens @erikaowens.com · 02/01/2024

closed 2023 in nearly the nerdiest way possible. not sure what it portends for the new year.

this is a golden first place image duolingo shows you if you come in first in their "diamond league" of people absurdly susceptible to gamification of a learning app

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erika owens @erikaowens.com · 26/05/2023

i've started playing violin again after like, what, 25yrs? i searched for goblin violins to express my current state and, yeah, pretty much! www.atlasobscura.com/articles/norwa… (illustration: Harshad Marathe)

Illustration by Harshad Marathe of a "fossegrim" - some kind of scaly, long-nosed, taloned, goblin-y creature of Norwegian lore sitting hunched over playing a violin to an audience of delightful rabbits.

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