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I really like this extension that tells you if a book you’re viewing at Amazon is available at your local library. I wish it could tell me how much money I’ve saved over time. And I wish it could speed up my holds while I’m dreaming.

I’m on board with this plan. Take a look if you haven’t seen it yet. I’m even more on board with the widespread online mocking of this type of reaction to it: Elizabeth Warren's plan to cancel student loan debt would be a slap in the face to all those who struggled to pay off their loans. My favorite response from @petridishes: "this plan to stop slapping people in the face is a slap in the face to all those who were slapped in the face."

You might want to celebrate this Earth Day by revisiting Blackened by Metallica. When I was listening to this in junior high I was only vaguely aware it was about nuclear winter if I thought about it all. I was mostly interested in the guitar work. Maybe I grew up to care about the environment because of the heavy metal I listed to?

“We understand prices. But in a community, many of these transactions are not priced. You may do more favors than you get. You may not even get greater status as a result of something you do.”

This Freakonomics Radio interview with economist Raghuram Rajan is fantastic. He talks about the value of communities and the difficulty economists have quantifying their value. Local communities are also one of the primary ways we find meaning in our personal lives. There's a lot to think about there.

Google Maps has had indoor street view for seven or eight years now. This site collects images of the Google Maps robot caught in the mirrors of those interiors. The juxtaposition of lavish preserved 18th century decor with the utilitarian machine eye feels like something out of a Kubrik movie. And the lack of humans in most pictures makes it look like a post-depopulation survey.

There are many reasons D&D is having a cultural moment and this article mentions a few. I think the game design decision to use more gender inclusive language and imagery in the 5th edition has been a big part of it.

“Handmaidens to authoritarianism.”

I’m impressed with these campaign brand guidelines which are fairly complex but conveyed clearly. The font is strong—I’m happy dems have moved away from serif fonts. Don’t miss the hand lettered state names.

I also enjoyed this review of the brand at Brand New: Water Under the Bridge.

Thanks a lot gray lady, you calling D&D cool officially makes it uncool! aw, who am I kidding—it was never cool and I wouldn’t have it any other way. *ruffles D&D’s hair*

Short answer: yes, some clever public awareness campaigns around responsible tagging help. Sometimes not sharing a thing we love is the best way to love it. See also the cautionary tale of The Broccoli Tree.

Living the dream? On one hand this is a clever way to game Instagram. On the other hand, social networks are supposed to be about being social with other people so bots like this make it a less social environment. (I've also thought that hashtags in text are machine garbage that make things less human so I'm an outlier.) And businesses just blindly handing out gifts to antisocial media accounts? What? This whole article is an exquisite mess.

"Remember ‘We’re the free speech wing of the free speech party’? How vain and oblivious does that sound now? Well, it’s the morning after the free speech party, and the place is trashed."

Fascinating interview with fourteen content moderators who have worked at various services like Google, Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook.

Webster’s Dictionary defines serverless as—well, it doesn’t define it yet. But I like Postlight’s take on it here. I’m also a fan of Airtable which does structured data and media entry well. With some light glue in Node.js form, you can present that data and media with HTML & CSS. I could see using this when you don’t need the overhead of running WordPress but you want some structure around how you enter content. Neat idea! In conclusion, serverless structure still requires servers.

This is so good! This album let me hear these worn-in 70s soft rock favorites with new ears and you can feel JoCo’s joy emanating from every layer. It’s too late to back the Kickstarter, but I think you can still get some groovy swag. It’s also on Spotify and the like. RIYL: feelings.