2020
Podfasting: I Tried Listening to Podcasts at 3x and Broke My Brain [Steve Rousseau/OneZero]
Most of us are familiar with binge watching and speed reading, but there’s a relatively new mode of conspicuous consumption that’s emerged in recent years: podfasting. First profiled in 2017, podfasters love listening to podcasts so much that they’re speeding them up — 1.25x, 1.5x, and even 2x speed — in order to fit more into their day.
I listen to about 15 hours of podcast weekly, and normally do it at 2x-2.5x speed when listening through AirPods, which is what I do most of the time.
In case you’re not familiar with how this works: Podcasting software like Overcast, the app I use, adjust the tone of voices when you speed up the play, so it doesn’t sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. In the case of Overcast in particular, the software also normalizes speaking volume and chops out little bits of silence.
In my experience, different apps use different algorithms to speed up play. I’ve tried Overcast and Castro, and they are both terrific, but I prefer Overcast’s audio quality, and better ability to “podfast.”
Brave, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla gather together to talk web privacy… and why we all shouldn’t get too much of it [Thomas Claburn/The Register]
You know the President is able to shut down all US comms, yeah? An FCC commish wants to stop him from doing that [Kevin McCarthy/The Register]
Does Donald Trump have the legal authority to demand that mobile phone networks be shut down? Yes. That Twitter and Facebook stopped sending updates? Yes. That the internet itself be suspended? Yes. Does he has the same authority to push his own messages? Yes, it is literally written into US law…
Which leads to the question: would Trump do it? And the answer: yes, of course, he would at least try to float the idea if he thought it would benefit him. The President has yet to accept a single instance, theoretical or otherwise, of where his authority is limited. He has literally argued that he is not capable of committing a crime while President.
If the polls swing against Donald Trump, if he feels his presidency is under threat, does anyone seriously imagine that he wouldn’t do anything and everything within his power to retain his position?
Ex-principal in Holocaust furor defends his right not to say the genocide is a fact [The Palm Beach Post]
Former Spanish River High Principal William Latson defended his refusal to call the Holocaust a historical fact, saying opinions on whether the genocide occurred are a “personal ideology” and that it was his job to be tolerant of people who didn’t believe.
While acknowledging the Holocaust was a real event, the ousted principal said Monday that some parents at his school did not agree, and that state law required him to show “tolerance” in dealing with them.
That tolerance, he said, was a main reason for his decision to tell a school parent in April 2018 that as an educator he had “the role to be politically neutral” and that he “can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event.”
The school is, of course, in Florida. Slogan: “The WTF? State.”
I think I need to read “Atomic Habits." All four of these tips excerpted from the book seem like great advice.
Column: San Diego author Laura Preble turns a germaphobe into a heroine you’ll want to hug [San Diego Union-Tribune]
It’s the usual love story. Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl drives a borrowed Cadillac Eldorado from Southern California to Colorado to break up boy’s wedding. And by the way, the boy is the girl’s therapist, which is perfectly fine because she loves him and she is sure that he loves her. Pretty sure, anyway.
OK, so Laura Preble’s new novel, “Anna Icognito,” is not your usual love story. Which is perfectly fine, because Anna is not your usual heroine.
Anna is a germaphobe who rarely leaves the house for fear of what horrors she might touch, inhale or inadvertently ingest.
Seems like a good book. Reminds me of the Bill Murray/Richard Dreyfus movie “What About Bob,” which I loved.
But hugging a germaphobe seems like a bad idea because germs.
'People were breaking down crying': Iowa vote-counters tell of caucus debacle [Tom Cullen/The Guardian]
The drawbacks of electronic voting have been well known for more than 20 years. Republicans want a voting system that’s easily hacked, because Republicans can’t win honest elections. Democrats should know better.
My crystal ball says Iowa’s importance in the primary/caucus process is done. It’ll continue first chronologically but its position will be ceremonial. Maybe Bloomberg is right and the real action starts Super Tuesday. As I recall, in previous primaries the action pretty much ended then too.
IBM, Marriott and Mickey Mouse Take On Tech’s Favorite Law [David McCabe/NYTimes]
Section 230 protects Google, Facebook and other platforms from legal liability from content users post to them. The law has been a shield for abuse and harassment. But IBM, Marriott and Disney aren’t heroes here. Likely they just want to change the laws to protect themselves and other big business interests.
If You’re Over 50, Chances Are the Decision to Leave a Job Won’t be Yours [Peter Gosselin/ProPublica]
My prospects are looking good but that’s far from true for everyone. Most workers over 50 will be laid off, and for most it’s a financial blow they won’t recover from. It will take them a long time to find work and when they do it will be a fraction of their former pay.
Socially conservative mom says racy halftime entertainment drove distraught 13-year-old son to his bedroom [Mark Frauenfelder/Boing Boing]
At that age sometime I became distraught five times a day.
Corruption in America: How the US became the center of global kleptocracy - Casey Michel - Vox
When it comes to the US’s role as a massive laundromat for dirty money, the Trump administration is simply continuing a trend years in the making.
The US money laundering business has been decades in the making; the Obama administration gave it a big push forward.
Remarkably, this is six years to the day after I started at LR. I opened my journaling app to make a note of the event, flipped through the “on this day” timeline and found my “first day at Light Reading” entry for Feb. 3 2014.
Big news: I’ve left Light Reading after six years. It’s been a great ride but it’s time to move on. I’m looking into other options now and excited for the future.
