Highlights

 

Repeating In The Name 📻

06/30/2022 • #220

The radio station replaying Rage Against the Machine’s signature song over and over is doing its best to devalue the work for purely corporate reasons, but the song is too good to be diluted.

To start off here: “Killing in the Name,” an obvious reference to Rodney King and a vicious attack on the police state, sounded like a revolutionary song in 1992. It sounds like a revolutionary song now. The politics still sound modern. So does the… Read More

06/28/2022

Turning Heel 😈 : 

As proven by Kraken’s leadership manifesto and other recent leadership dramas, it’s now cool to be a total jerk even if it makes you insufferable. You’ll still get plaudits anyway. From somebody.

#219

06/27/2022

Tech’s Role In Stacking The Deck 🃏 : 

There are a lot of issues that Friday’s Supreme Court ruling on abortion exposed. One that shouldn’t be ignored? The role that big tech may have played in the decision.

#218

06/23/2022

Monocultural Studies 🧐 : 

A debate kicks up about whether the browser universe would benefit from a single dominant browser. We’re not in the Internet Explorer days anymore, but the choice still doesn’t makes sense.

#217

06/21/2022

The Bad Default 🌍 : 

A big reason why Internet Explorer limped into the history books comes down to Microsoft’s slow upgrade strategy at a time when the browser was dominant.

#216

06/20/2022

The Fingerprint You Leave ☝️ : 

As third-party cookies go the way of the dodo, digital fingerprinting is going to become an increasingly prominent tactic for tracking users. As a new website suggests, your taste in browser extensions alone can be enough to identify who you are.

#215

06/16/2022

Meet Your Heroes 🕹 : 

On the time I met Zophar, the guy from Zophar’s Domain, a quarter century after I first worked on his site.

#214

06/14/2022

Netflix’s Timing Problem ⏱ : 

In a world of Barry and Severance, the once-innovative model of dumping a whole season at once feels kind of old hat. And the best example of this might be Netflix’s crown jewel, Stranger Things.

#213

06/13/2022

The (Artificial) Truth Is Out There 🤖 : 

A Google employee sticks his neck out for the idea that bots may have souls. He’s probably wrong, but it’s still a big problem for Google.

#212

06/09/2022

Absurd Images From Thin Air 🖼 : 

Pondering the cultural value and obsessive nature of using Dall-E, the tool that generates images from whatever weird ideas you can conceive.

#211

06/07/2022

Open-Tent Policy 🎪 : 

Why you shouldn’t take a combative tone when it comes to explaining an expert topic to someone else. Don’t be a keeper of the gate.

#210

06/06/2022

Past the Expiration Date 🥛 : 

Old hardware that isn’t being actively updated anymore is often still useful—as long as those who own it have the option to figure out an upgrade path. Old iOS devices don’t have a path forward.

#209

06/02/2022

The Other Side of the Lens 📸 : 

Sony, which produces a number of camera components for smartphones, implies that the DSLR might soon meet its match in the form of a smartphone camera. Cue skepticism.

#208

05/31/2022

Jailbreakers’ Revenge 🔓 : 

A famed jailbreaker is making headway in an antitrust case involving the famed Cydia app store. His argument: Apple made so many changes that it was infeasible to keep the store running.

#207

05/30/2022

The Hyphens are Load-Bearing 🐻 : 

Why there’s a new slasher movie coming out based around the Winnie-the-Pooh cultural franchise—but not the Winnie the Pooh cultural franchise.

#206

05/26/2022

Take Care When Speaking Up 🙊 : 

Politically charged public tragedies like the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, can lead to poorly timed messaging when not thought through. Don’t be afraid to give yourself a moment of discussion.

#205

05/24/2022

The Missing Second Factor 🔐 : 

Google, for some reason, let its Authenticator app break for a sizable chunk of its Android users over the weekend, leaving at least some of them without an easy way to log into their accounts. WTF, Google?

#204

05/23/2022

An Open-Window Admission 🪟 : 

After years and years of basically being Mac and Linux only, I admit that I’ve grudgingly come to appreciate Windows. I would appreciate it a lot more if it had an easy-to-access third level key to type em dashes and curly quotes, but it’s better than I’ve given it credit for.

#203

05/19/2022

Time of No Reply (All) 🎙 : 

The iconic podcast Reply All is ending its original format after an eight-year run. Drama nearly consumed it near the end, but for a long time, it was one of the greatest podcasts out there.

#202

05/17/2022

Rich Guy Causes Chaos 💸 : 

On Elon Musk and his strange attempts to (apparently) weasel out of the Twitter deal. It reminds me of a movie character who immediately ditched something he wanted as soon as he got it.

#201