Platypus

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Engineering Through Stuckness

 Meenakshi Mani  March 10, 2026

This article is the first in a series about stuckness in science and technology. Read the introduction to the series here. What might we learn from the experiences of tech professionals being stuck? How does stuckness come about and what do these moments represent? This post traces two stories from different worlds: an Indian NGO and an American Big Tech corporation. One follows Leena , an employee at InnovateTech, an Indian education technology (EdTech) NGO. The other follows Cody, a software engineer at Microsoft, working in the United States. On the surface, Leena and Cody have more differences than things in common. Their employers operate in very different cultural and technological contexts influenced by distinct economic and political machinations. Their everyday experiences as they move through the world, one as a brown woman, and the other as a white man, have significant contrasts. (read more...)

Recent

Hip Hop Sampling and the Akai MPC as a Platform for Spatiotemporal Discourse

 Jonathan Givan  March 5, 2026

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The Akai Music Production Center (MPC, formerly known as the MIDI Production Center) is a series of sequencers/samplers/interfaces first designed by Roger Linn and released in 1988 to critical acclaim. The MPC series soon became one of the most influential technologies in modern music production. The flagship model, the MPC60, included many features that made it an immediate hit with artists: a 4 by 4 layout of comfortable pressure sensitive pads, 16 voice polyphony, 13.1 seconds of sampling, frequency response of 18kHz, and MIDI (an acronym for musical instrument digital interface, a protocol that allows electronic instruments to communicate with each other). These feature allowed for easy connectivity to other MIDI devices found in studios at the time like synthesizers and other samplers, high quality sampling and playback, and an instrument that feels good to play. (read more...)

Series: Theorizing Stuckness in Science and Technology

 Michelle Venetucci, Shoko Yamada  March 3, 2026

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What might we learn by studying science and technology through the lens of stuckness? Stuckness is a ubiquitous experience in the everyday work of science and technology. Scientists are constantly frustrated with unexpected obstacles to their research plans (Messeri & Vertesi, 2015). Technologists who aspire to change the world often end up reproducing current structures of power (Rider, 2022). In popular discourse, scientific and technological practice has been associated with progress as steady betterment. As Leo Marx (2010) notes in tracing the emergence of the word “technology” in English, scientific and mechanical innovations became synonymous with social progress in the 19th century. And yet, getting stuck is a quotidian experience among experts in these fields, from experiments that fail to grant applications that are rejected. (read more...)

A Promise of Safety for Everyone, Anywhere, Any Time: The Panic Button, The City, and the Box

 William F Stafford Jr  February 24, 2026

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By the time panic buttons were installed in buses, taxis, and autorickshaws starting in 2012, their deployment in Delhi’s public transit vehicles had already been under discussion for some time. Policymakers and engineers had considered them as one among many measures available to address anxieties that movement through the public spaces of the city by these means was inherently and increasingly fraught with danger. In the case of autorickshaws, panic buttons where integrated directly into their fare meters as part of a new meter format introduced in 2012 – the Integrated Electronic Fare Meter (IEFM) – which sought to address broader suspicions about the commercial honesty and social morality of autorickshaw operators. The IEFM incorporated GPS receivers and SIM cards which allowed for the identification and transmission of locational data, with each IEFM linked to a centrally administered software platform to track and monitor each vehicle. (read more...)

Transnational Translations: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Platforms and Labor

 Malcolm Katrak, Anushree Gupta, Debopriya Shome  February 18, 2026

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This article is the third in a series about gig and platform worker unions in India written by members of the Labor Tech Research Network. Read the introduction to the series here, and the second post in the series here. As the landscape of technology-mediated work has evolved rapidly over the years, spanning across diverse geographical contexts, a wide range of academic disciplines, knowledges, and expertise have become relevant for engaging with the technopolitics surrounding it. The multidimensional and dynamic expansion of digital platforms into yet newer industries and sectors, through the use of novel technological and institutional forms, has made interdisciplinary approaches for the critical study of technology and society indispensable for grounding technological innovation in contextual realities. Moreover, intricately entangled global supply chains in the age of hyper-financialized technocapitalism restage labor politics as industry and work are restructured. (read more...)

(Seed) Cycling Toward a Crossroads: Menstrual Positivity and Hormone Practices Under Right-Wing Regimes

 Anna Wood  February 4, 2026

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Over the past several years, menstrual and hormonal cycles have gained significant public attention across the US and Europe, concurrent with growing skepticism towards biomedicine and an idealization of the natural. From widespread rejection of hormonal contraceptives in favor cycle-based fertility tracking, to satirical social media trends around hormonal cycles, discourses around menstruation reflect a broader zeitgeist around naturopathic wellness. A constellation of women’s health advocates, right-wing influencers, and lay experts have helped to proliferate negative information around hormonal contraceptives, including testimonials about side effects and doubts about their safety. This has unfolded alongside a renewed embrace of non-pharmaceutically suppressed menstruation. (read more...)

Writing About/With Platform Unions: The Role of Culture, Politics, and History

 Ambika Tandon, Debopriya Shome, Kaveri Medappa  January 28, 2026

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This article is the second in a series about gig and platform worker unions in India written by members of the Labor Tech Research Network. Read the introduction to the series here. This post offers a worm’s-eye view of the tensions and opportunities shaping platform labour organising in contemporary India. Platform work has exposed larger numbers of workers, especially younger workers with little memory or experience of organizing, to mobilize against capital and to do so using innovative means and campaigns (Wadikar, 2025). Building upon literature on platform workers’ mobilization in India (Ray and John, 2025), we highlight how efforts to organize emerge within regionally specific terrains of culture, politics and histories of labour mobilization. Through three vignettes, we bring the everyday together with the cultural, political histories and contexts of three metropolitan Indian cities – Bengaluru, Delhi and Kolkata, cities in which we have lived and engaged in research and activism with platform workers. Spanning between 2019 and 2025, these vignettes reflect the political landscape in India. They shed light on the capital–state nexus that limits the power of workers, unionization efforts built on foundations of loyalty and often exclusionary hypermasculine politics. What are the tensions and contradictions that we confronted while doing research with ‘gig’ worker unions? How do we navigate making certain aspects of unionizing visible while muting others? How can we be less extractive and more useful to the workers we write about? (read more...)