2020
How Facebook has become one of the least trusted and most profitable companies in the world.
Tech journalist Steven Levy, talks about the company’s history on Fresh Air. He’s got a new book out, “Facebook: The Inside Story,” based on interviews with Zuckerberg, other top current and former Facebook execs – some of whom share their misgivings about the company – and Facebook critics.
I’m hooked on Facebook, yet I have strong misgivings about it. Living in the world requires compromising principles, and some of those compromises are appalling. And yet every day I wonder whether using Facebook is a compromise too far.
Herod Agrippa is the Lando Calrissian of “I, Claudius.”
On the I, Podius podcast: maximumfun.org/episodes/…
Super Tuesday, Explained: I listened to this entire podcast episode and I’m still confused. Short version: Lots of states have their Democratic primaries today so it’s a really big deal.
The true story behind "You've Got Mail:" The movie was based on a real conflict between a New York Barnes & Noble and a local children's bookstore.
At that time, B&N was the big bad soul-crushing superstore chain killing indy Mom-and-Pop bookstores.
Later, Amazon beat down Barnes & Noble. Yes, the same technology that brought the characters of “You’ve Got Mail” together flattened B&N.
On the Decoder Ring podcast: slate.com/transcrip…
The reality is even more complicated than Decoder Ring portrays. B&N and Borders brought books by the tens of thousands to places that were previously bookstore deserts. Pre-B&N, if you grew up in the suburbs, as I did, or in rural America, your bookstore options were a few sad B. Dalton and Waldenbooks in malls, and that’s it, unless you shlepped into a major metropolitan area.
As a teen and into my 20s, I used to love to go to the mall to browse the four shelves of science fiction and fantasy books at the local bookstores. The B&N SF/F section was bigger than the entire previous bookstore.
And a number of factors, not just the Internet, contribute to retail decline: Retail space was overextended, retail chains engaged in fancy financial hijinks. And consumers just don’t view shopping as a recreational activity as much as they used to.
Today I voted, and spent a good chunk of time updating the local Democratic Club website and social media. Also did some publicity for the next meeting, which is Wednesday. Details here:
www.lamesafoothillsdemocraticclub.org/post/meet…
I highly recommend volunteering for politics – local politics – as an alternative to arguing about it, on social media or elsewhere. Arguing politics makes you bitter. Volunteering is far more productive – and it’s fun.
Cory Doctorow’s got a new blog. It’s Pluralistic.net.
It’s his usual mix of cyber-rights, science fiction and retro pop culture. Interestingly, he’s doing it as a daily digest rather than a series of individual posts. I like it.
The design is minimalist. No HTML, not even hrefs. I’m trying out the no-hrefs look here to see how I like it.
Cory and Dave Winer are my blogfathers; when I’m fiddling with an idea, it’s often because I saw one of them do it. Mike Elgan and Jon Gruber are former blogfathers. I’m still fans of both, but their blogging direction is different from mine now.
I don’t have plans to adopt a daily digest format. It doesn’t fit my blogging habits, which are random minutes throughout the day.
Cory’s tagline for Pluralistic.net: “Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don’t collect or retain any data at all ever period.”
Pluralistic.net is both a blog and a newsletter. Subscribe here.
Newsletters are making a comeback.
I have a newsletter too. I have had it for six years. It’s a daily digest of everything I post here. Subscribe here:
“Flarn” is a great domain name.
Everybody agrees that social media needs to suppress harmful content while promoting good content, but nobody can agree on what falls into which category. Many people are not acting in good faith, and will knowingly claim that bad content which should be suppressed is actually good.
None of this seems particularly insightful to me, but public policy discussions about social media tend to assume that there is some good faith arbiter somewhere who can absolutely separate good from evil.
That’s one of the reasons why the big social media platforms need to be broken up to eliminate their monopoly powers. Because that kind of power should not be centralized. This is a very old, solved problem; it’s why we have free speech.
What Happened to the Company That Raised Minimum Wage to $70k/yr?
Business is better than ever.
But will the carriers just look at this as a slap on the wrist?
Yesterday I did my 3+-mile walk with the dog through a residential neighborhood up at the end of Lake Murray Blvd. No access to bathrooms. After I’d gone about 1/10 of a mile, I thought, “I think I may need to pee now.”
Later, I grew more certain. It was like the end of the Titanic by the time I got home. You may have even heard me exclaim “AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”
We did pass a port-a-potty somebody had out at the curb while they were remodeling. I got in. Minnie refused to get in with me. And the port-a-potty was wobbling. “This will not end well,” I said to myself, so I did not use it.
Also, it started to rain heavily when we were about halfway out. I did not bring my raingear because rain was not predicted for several hours after that.
Radio station ad via
California Legislature’s Battle Over ‘Gig Economy’ Shows No Sign of Ending
AB5 was intended to stop companies like Uber and Lyft from misclassifying employees as contract workers, depriving them of legally mandated benefits. Instead, it’s misclassifying legitimate contractors as employees, and depriving large numbers of people of their livelihood.
The unions and the author of the bill, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat, gave exemptions to a few categories of work. But it’s drawn criticism from artists, photographers, dancers, musicians, journalists and many other freelance workers who say it has damaged their incomes because employers shied away from giving them non-payroll work.
It’s also created great uncertainty on how it might be applied to whole industries. Could, for example, owners of fast-food restaurant franchises be considered employees of the parent franchising corporations?
The Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford: Mark Twain’s Marginalia: Most of Mark Twain’s books have handwritten notes in the margins.
The Oxford English Dictionary is adding Nigerian words, which is proving controversial with some scholars. Interestingly, opponents include Nigerians.
The BBC’s Nduka Orjinmo writes from Lagos.