Shame

March 29, 2015

Hello internet friends!

A day early and a very short one, I’m on the road tomorrow, but the email must go on!
Onwards.

TED is… well, what it is. But what it also is is the place where Monica Lewinsky held her talk on The price of shame:

“Public shaming as a blood sport has to stop,” says Monica Lewinsky. In 1998, she says, “I was Patient Zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously.” Today, the kind of online public shaming she went through has become constant — and can turn deadly. In a brave talk, she takes a hard look at our online culture of humiliation, and asks for a different way.

It is worth reading how the comments to her talk turned exactly into the point she was making – and how the community management at TED worked to turn the mood around.

What is wrong with people?

On the other hand, if you think that this is cyberbullying, you’re pretty silly.

Take care.

Tiny People

March 23, 2015

Hello internet friends!

Beware the owls of March!
Well, March is over soon, so we should be relatively safe. Onwards!

Ever since I learned about them on MetaFilter I have been fascinated with K-HOLE and their reports. (And I am sure by now you have heard of and have gotten sick of “Normcore” – which might just be the group’s “Funkytown”.)
So I was pretty excited when I found a talk they gave at the Walker Art Center. It’s rather long for the kind of attention span we have these days, but it easily beats watching a bunch of TED talks.

This one is pretty delightful: The Secret Lives of the Tiny People In Architectural Renderings.
Look at all those tiny people!

I am still pretty sad that Terry Pratchett passed away – it is a bit of a ray of sunshine that he apparently managed to finish one last novel last year. It’s a Tiffany Aching novel, called “The Shepherd’s Crown” and will be published later this year.

Have a good week, everyone!

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Some shameless self-promotion: I have mentioned my link blog in these emails before. If you’re into getting emails from me, you can now have them automated, too – once a day, my link blog will send out the links of the last 24 hours, so if you’d like to get those, here you go.

Nevertheless.

March 16, 2015

Hello internet friends!

Not only is Tinder more expensive for people over 30, you’ll probably also get hit on by advertising bots.
Onwards!

By now you probably know that Sir Terry Pratchett has passed away. He’s always been one of my favourite authors and I do own all of his books, having pre-ordered every book as soon as that was an option.
And then there is this delightful and very nerdy way to commemorate Mr Pratchett: sending a special HTTP header.

I am not a huge fan of ephemeral “social” live broadcasting – I was under the impression that the ability to time-shift media was one of the biggest achievement of the digital age. But even though I really don’t understand Meerkat, the fact that Twitter rained on their parade was a real dickmove.

Have a good week, everybody.

Buy! Buy! Buy!

March 9, 2015

Hello, internet friends!

If you aren’t yet, you might want to consider watching “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” – it is really, really good.

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Because we have allowed our attention to be monetized, if you want yours back you’re going to have to pay for it.

The Cost of Paying Attention

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And yes, I did just recommend a series on Netflix, where you basically have to pay for the privilege of not being advertised to. (At least not overly so.)
That’s how things are now.

~

If you had any doubt that we are living in the future, here is a woman flying a fighter jet simulator with her mind. That is pretty great – except, you know, maybe not do that with military hardware? But I guess that’s where the money is.

~

Have a good week, everybody.
We’ll get through this together.

Llama

March 2, 2015

Hello, internet friends.

I’m not too sure if it is genetics or an upbringing with a lot of moving around outside or maybe just the last remnants of youth, but I tend to be pretty robust when it comes to colds or becoming sick in general.
So of course when a light fever hit me last week, I decided immediately that these are probably my last few days on earth. Once I made peace with that fact – it took me a surprisingly short time – I did, what every sane person would do in my situation:

Binge-watch season three of House of Cards.

Now I’m alive and well, so:

Onwards.

By now everybody is so over that color-changing dress – it’s such old news that even Saturday Night Live made their jokes about it. Which probably means that I’ll get a picture of it through WhatsApp by my relatives in about two weeks.
I still did not manage to see it in blue and black, though, but then: who really cares anymore?

Brands

Brands care. For some reason, I still see white-and-gold-blue-and-black tweets from brands retweeted by people who I (held in higher esteem)used to?) hold in high esteem. I mean, I get it – haha, you’re some poor, tortured, over-paid Social Media Manager, who needs to entertain the masses and promote a brand – but why do grown-up, smart people retweet these things? Because virality.

Help?

Is anyone of your folks playing Alto’s Adventure? It’s very pretty and just slightly frustrating. Which is probably a sign that I am Doing It Wrong.

Oh well.

Take care, eat some fruit, stay healthy.