Great series on Threads from a small publisher on the destruction of Twitter and what it means for them. I am not currently using Twitter or any diaspora service, although you may see me parked on them as either @bobbie or @bobbiejohnson. I don’t trust the ones set up by people who have gotten it wrong before (see Threads, Bluesky) while federated services like Mastodon just aren’t there yet and I don’t want to invest […]
Startup world has plenty of hustle guys: people who admit that Silicon Valley’s appeal to them is essentially get rich quick. It also has a lot of true believers—people who are deeply attached to a vision or a feeling or driven by sheer possibility—even if only a handful actually turn out to be able to deliver what they believe. What it also has in abundance is people present as the second group but are, in […]
From a piece on the French organization trying to create urban forests at high speed: Previously on the blog: Tree aesthetics
As somebody with no real ability to visualize, I am fascinated by the fact that other people can actually see things in their imagination: the existence of an actual mind’s eye. (Those of us with some form of aphantasia always remember when we discovered that this wasn’t just a metaphor, but a lived experience for some people—usually when they read this New York Times piece that went viral in 2015.) And I’m not the only […]
Currently reading Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, By America and happened across a statistic which made me sit up: the number of undocumented immigrants living in the US peaked in 2007 and has been slowly declining ever since. Here are the numbers according to Pew, from 2019—remember that when the politicians get their blood up.
“At the end of the day, the benefits of making decisions together far outweigh the extra time it sometimes takes to include people in decision making. In a time of journalist burnout and cynicism, bringing in democratic and power sharing models allows staff to feel heard, valued, and excited to come to work—and stay here.” Intrigued by this democratic decision-making framework for news organizations put together by staff from The Appeal. Won’t work everywhere, but […]
Earlier this year, we went to Legoland California for a family trip. We were lucky enough to get a VIP tour of the build room, the place where designers and architects build the displays. Inside, the tables were groaning with models-in-progress, and the walls were stacked with drawers containing every conceivable size, shape, and color of Lego brick. I was excited, of course, a fan in his element. We all were. But I also had […]
• Brocken spectres are the terrifying ghosts that appear when you cast a shadow on a cloud that has a light source behind it. • Marcin Wichary is getting ready to launch his many–years-in-the-making book about keyboards, Shift Happens. The effort and dedication to making this thing is visible in every element of how he has put it together, including the book’s delightful website. • Did you know the CIA has a museum?
There are many ways to become invisible. If you’re a person you can try to go underground, take yourself off the grid. If you are a new US military bomber, you can use the laws of physics and materials science to stay off the radar. And if you are a glass frog, you can simply turn your blood transparent. We’re transfixed by invisibility, the art of disappearance. It’s magical. Sometimes that absence is a problem: […]
• Laura Hazard Owen’s Nieman Lab piece on what journalism will lose if Twitter goes away brought many of the costs of the current drama together in one place. I’ve downloaded my data and mothballed my account. • Sorrow compounded when I finished reading Lincoln in the Bardo. I’d picked it up after hearing George Saunders interviewed by Alexis Madrigal on KQED radio, having enjoyed A Swim in the Pond in the Rain last year […]
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