gas light
snow day
Recent Web Tuesday
First, a big congratulations to friend of the blog Anil Dash, new CEO at Fog Creek. And a 2nd big congratulations on their launch of Gomix—a hosted community app builder. I love the view source philosophy behind it. It'll be fun to see what people build with it.
And here are some recent links:
The State of Things
And here are some recent links:
The State of Things
- New York Times: The Array of Conflicts of Interest Facing the Trump Presidency (closed loops)
- Washington Post: Trump's stock holdings may give him a personal stake in rules on banks and oil firms
- New Yorker: Now Is the Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About
- Politico: Trump inherits Obama boom
- New York Review of Books: Trump: The Choice We Face
- MIT Technology Review: Social Media Is Killing Discourse Because It's Too Much Like TV (by mefi's own hoder)
- Facebook's Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible With News ("The last thing Facebook wants is to contradict you in any way.")
- The Guardian: Google, democracy and the truth about internet search
- Mike Monteiro: How To Fight Fascism
- Nielsen Norman Group: The Distribution of Users' Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think
- GDS design notes: We've updated the radios and checkboxes on GOV.UK
- Lawrence Lessig: The Equal Protection argument against "winner take all" in the Electoral College
- Electors Trust
- New York Times: Why I Will Not Cast My Electoral Vote for Donald Trump
- Fusion: What GitHub did to kill its trolls
- Buzzfeed: Silicon Valley's Most Popular Forum Bans Stories About Politics
- Keeping Instagram Safe: More Tools and Control (added anonymous reporting for self-injury posts)
- FBI to gain expanded hacking powers as Senate effort to block fails (thanks for fighting this, Ron Wyden)
- Buzzfeed: After Trump's Win, Secure Messaging App Signal's Downloads Increase 400%
- EFF: Power Up Your Donation
- It doesn't look like anything to me (via @codinghorror)
- So bad it's good: Toto - Africa (many more at mefi)
- Christmas Gifs ( NSFW )
mirror ornament time
Untitled
the path
The Elements of Eloquence
I want to share a book I read recently that I absolutely loved: The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth.
My introduction to this book was this tweet:
Forsyth devotes one chapter to each figure of rhetoric identified by the Ancient Greeks. He describes them as, "...techniques for making a single phrase striking and memorable just by altering the wording." Some figures are familiar friends like alliteration. Some figures like hendiadys evade ease and detection. Some figures work across sentences like these three that start with the same words: anaphora. Of course you don't need to know the figures of rhetoric to use or appreciate them, but knowing how they work can help you employ them strategically.
The most fun aspect for me was the way Forsyth uses each figure to describe that figure throughout each chapter. Identifying each use became something of a puzzle to solve while learning about how puzzles work. Forsyth also frequently gives a prime example of each figure that everyone knows. Then he draws on everything from Shakespeare to poetry to music lyrics to illustrate each one. He demonstrates that rhetorical figures aren't a dusty relic, they're a part of the natural way we use language that we can tune into and appreciate.
It was a joy to read and joy is in need. And like all correct-thinking people, Mark Forsyth has a blog. It's The Inky Fool.
My introduction to this book was this tweet:
I felt like I was getting a glimpse at the source code that runs English. Not at the syntax and grammar level (though there is a bit of that), but the presentation layer. I got the preview from Amazon and stumbled on this passage:Things native English speakers know, but don't know we know: pic.twitter.com/Ex0Ui9oBSL
— Matthew Anderson (@MattAndersonBBC) September 3, 2016
A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they may be, exquisitely. That is the one and only difference between the poet and everybody else.That passage felt like demystifying a mystical process and from there I was hooked. I ordered the book and read it cover to cover.
Forsyth devotes one chapter to each figure of rhetoric identified by the Ancient Greeks. He describes them as, "...techniques for making a single phrase striking and memorable just by altering the wording." Some figures are familiar friends like alliteration. Some figures like hendiadys evade ease and detection. Some figures work across sentences like these three that start with the same words: anaphora. Of course you don't need to know the figures of rhetoric to use or appreciate them, but knowing how they work can help you employ them strategically.
The most fun aspect for me was the way Forsyth uses each figure to describe that figure throughout each chapter. Identifying each use became something of a puzzle to solve while learning about how puzzles work. Forsyth also frequently gives a prime example of each figure that everyone knows. Then he draws on everything from Shakespeare to poetry to music lyrics to illustrate each one. He demonstrates that rhetorical figures aren't a dusty relic, they're a part of the natural way we use language that we can tune into and appreciate.
It was a joy to read and joy is in need. And like all correct-thinking people, Mark Forsyth has a blog. It's The Inky Fool.
Wednesday Links
Another mid-week link dump. I'm trying to link beyond our new national nightmare a bit. If you only have time for one, make it The Great Silence. And then make time for Vicki Boykis' post about blogging. (Maybe I need to prioritize instead of categorize, hmm.)
The State of Things
The State of Things
- John Scalzi: Three Weeks In
- @quinnnorton: Let me say something to my friends about the political emotion of the moment.... (breathe, strategize, use reason)
- Kottke: Is liberal democracy in trouble? "Warning signs are flashing red."
- George Lakoff interview: A Brain Scientist Explains How To Turn Trump Into A 'Loser' (eg. FiveThirtyEight runs the numbers)
- Atlantic: A Reflexive Liar in Command: Guidelines for the Media
- Politico: The New Rules for Covering Trump
- AP: Writing about the 'alt-right' (new internal style guideline for accurately labeling racists)
- The News (music industry veteran on handling disruption)
- Maciej Cegłowski: Who Will Command The Robot Armies? ("What we need to do is grow up, and quickly.")
- 7 web design dos and don'ts (Monteiro: "It's time to grow up.")
- Gina Trapani: We’re All Frauds ("...get really comfortable being uncomfortable...")
- Om Malik: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum
- Leigh Alexander: It’s Time For a New Kind of Power Fantasy
- Vicki Boykis: Fix the internet by writing good stuff and being nice to people (via @mathowie)
- Gizmodo: Reddit Is Tearing Itself Apart
- The Guardian has moved to https
- More Than 1 Million Google Accounts Breached by Gooligan
- Ars Technica: Firefox 0-day in the wild is being used to attack Tor users
- Motherboard: The Entire Internet Will Be Archived In Canada...
- The Great Silence (beautiful short story via @fraying)
- Lin-Manuel Miranda to Produce 'Kingkiller Chronicle' (whoa, LMM and Patrick Rothfuss working together!? )
- Amazon LightSail: Simple Virtual Private Servers on AWS ($5/month)
Amazon Feed Generator Update: Categories
The Amazon Feed Generator is still humming away on my server. Now with categories!
Say you want to stay up with the latest cat calendars that Amazon offers. It was kind of a pain before. Now you can select Books then the Calendar category within books and that specificity makes all the difference! You'll find things like the Cats in Art 2018 Wall Calendar before anyone else.
I'm not sure who these people are buying 2018 cat calendars already but I guess it doesn't hurt to be prepared.
Related, node.js is still neat.
Say you want to stay up with the latest cat calendars that Amazon offers. It was kind of a pain before. Now you can select Books then the Calendar category within books and that specificity makes all the difference! You'll find things like the Cats in Art 2018 Wall Calendar before anyone else.
I'm not sure who these people are buying 2018 cat calendars already but I guess it doesn't hurt to be prepared.
Related, node.js is still neat.
willamette
Monday Links
This just keeps going. If you only read one article from these links, make it the NY Times article about conflicts around the globe.
Corruption
Media
Corruption
- NY Times: Potential Conflicts Around the Globe for Trump
- Vox: Donald Trump is now questioning the legitimacy of the election he won
- Atlantic: An Erosion of Democratic Norms in America
- Washington Post: Trump Foundation admits to violating ban on 'self-dealing'
- @amjoyshow: how kleptocracy could happen here...
Media
- Intercept: Some Fake News Publishers Just Happen to Be Donald Trump’s Cronies
- NPR: We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs
- Huffington Post: Media Helps Boost False Claim That 'Millions' Voted Illegally
- How the Trump Campaign Built an Identity Database and Used Facebook Ads
- @jayrosen_nyu: Evidence-based vs. accusation-driven reporting
- BBC Radio: Cambridge Analytica CEO interviewed by John Humphrys
- Daily Beast: The People Chose Hillary Clinton
- Coping with Chaos in the White House (living with narcissistic personality disorder)
- Dave Pell: America’s Achilles Heel (celebrity)
- What you can do to save America from tyranny
- TPM: This Is Not the Natural State of Things (July 2016)
Winter Berries II