onfocus

"...email has stayed, and has largely stayed decentralized, and from that — its ubiquity and lack of central authority — email has become one of the most boringly powerful publishing platforms around." Newsletters, amirite?! I agree that it feels like an exciting time for email and I really need to get back to posting my favorites. Are you thinking about starting your own newsletter? There's a guide for that: Newsletter Guide. And here's the obligatory Simpsons reference.

I agree with this. Repeating a frame or an idea—even to mock it—distributes and strengthens that idea. I love Colbert but I stopped watching a long time ago. Laughing wasn't enough to make up for the disturbing source material. It reminds me again that the old Internet cliché don't feed the trolls is something the media hasn't adopted yet. See also the great way Jay Smooth put it: Don't Link to the Line Steppers.

"Figuring out how to fix those blurry image quizzes quickly takes you into philosophical territory: what is the universal human quality that can be demonstrated to a machine, but that no machine can mimic? What is it to be human?" Yeah, this. But also: DAMMIT THESE ARE BROKEN AND ANNOYING AND ON EVERYTHING.

Speaking of digital habits, Cal Newport has a new book called Digital Minimalism. This GQ interview has some great gems on the rise of social media, like this: "It took this careful attention engineering, and cultural engineering, to try to make this seem innovative, and high-tech, and like you had to be doing this. If that falls apart, the whole thing goes." Ezra Klein also recently had him on his podcast: Cal Newport has an answer for digital burnout.

I never get tired of these stories where people change their digital habits. This piece by Kashmir Hill is an extreme example, but also a good illustration of how ubiquitous the major tech companies are. Understanding the often hidden architecture of our tech environment helps us make mindful decisions. A couple other posts in this genre I've enjoyed lately: Bye, Bye, Google by Bogdan Popa and Pulling the plug on Facebook by Drupal founder Dries Buytaert.

Great news for Gimlet, especially for my favorite show Reply All. Congrats! Troubling aspect: could this signal the end of open web distribution of podcasts? Moving away from RSS to walled gardens would be a total buzzkill.

Update (2/6): It is so, Audio-First.

Listen up you stinklinguists! This formula for creating new, creative swear words is the crapgrenade you've been waiting for. (NSFW, obviously.) What I find even more hilarious are phrases that are not remotely related to swear words but sound like they are. Prime example: this cracks me up every time I think about it.

Not following the daily long scream of social media news? This article is a good way to catch up on the fresh horrors. Facebook is really leading the way in ethical absence:

• TechCrunch: Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them
• Mashable: Facebook employees react to scandal on gossip app
• ProPublica: Facebook Moves to Block Ad Transparency Tools — Including Ours

But don't count Google out yet! The Verge: Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps. And why is Apple suddenly the arbiter of justice? Shouldn't that be the role of our government? Yes, says Apple: Tim Cook Calls for ‘Data-Broker Clearinghouse’ in Push for Privacy Rules. This is all happening while Facebook's stock is soaring: Facebook keeps growing despite scandals and privacy outrage. The Market will not fix this. I guess there's nothing anyone can do. Let's just get weird again.

Dear nerds, please do not ruin this problematic yet delightful 80s pop tune with any more of your overwrought nonsense. I think we have mined this vein enough.

10. We need strong regulation to protect our privacy
20. Goto 10

I think every large company has violated our privacy now—selling user data is the culture! So we need to change that culture via regulation. Congressional investigations with no follow-up are not scaring companies; so promises like this ring hollow: AT&T says it'll stop selling your location data. The week before it was IBM selling Weather Channel app location data: Los Angeles Accuses Weather Channel App of Covertly Mining User Data. With no repercussions we'll see these headlines over and over.

"...somehow you have been transported to a parallel future where everything is more alien than familiar." I love his limited palette here. They remind me of Masashi Wakui's night photos of Tokyo that I stumbled across on Flickr years ago.

This really rang true for me, especially: "I don’t sit there and think about what other people might think about what I’m writing — just the person who emailed me. To me, this is closer to what true friendship is like." I feel like we've collectively forgotten what private one-on-one relationships are.