Hello internet friends,

did you ever wonder why your work life is so much harder than everyone else’s?
(I mean, seriously, did you? I have no numbers, but I’m pretty sure almost all of you have a nice-ish office job. We have it a lot easier than many, many people. But anyway, besides the silly headline, it is an interesting article.)

At the next roundabout, take the second exit

One can’t really argue that driving is a lot easier these days, thanks to navigation apps. And yet the The Perfect Selfishness of Mapping Apps is a problem for city and traffic planners. (I tend to tell myself that that is the reason why I rather follow traffic signs than turn-by-turn navigation, but usually it is because I’m an old (more so in my head than in actual years, but that’s a whole different topic) and actually do research on a map where I want to drive and how to get there before I do.)

Cases for Raspberry Pis and… Bugattis?

Almost everybody I know who has a 3D printer or went to a makerspace with one of those machines doesn’t really know what to answer when asked: “So, after a little toy figurine and a case for the Raspberry Pi that you’re not using, what will you print next?”
Turns out people are actually using the technology for useful stuff: Porsche and Bugatti turn to 3D printing for complex or rare parts

Konbanwa

(Sorry.)

Netflix’s Terrace House: Opening New Doors is a major return to form and it is now on Netflix outside of Japan, too. You don’t need to find ways to watch it.
(Except if you’re as annoyed with the music for the international release as I am.)

The revolution will be YouTube-ized

The related videos on YouTube are almost always trash. But worse than trash, they’re also dangerous: YouTube, the Great Radicalizer
I’m mostly using YouTube to watch streams of obscure car racing series around the world, so I should be safe for now…

Toodles!

Hello internet friends,

are you all feeling well? No? Hmm. Yeah… I don’t know what I can do about that, either. I’m trying to think of something. Maybe we can all make fun of these predictions what the jobs of the future will be? Let’s especially enjoy the buoy.
Ah. Much better.

Meetup

WeWork, which is a VC-funded company from the Silicon Valley (read into that what you want. But we are in 2018) bought Meetup, which isn’t any of those and immediately everything went wrong: The Mess at Meetup

Snapchat

Meanwhile, at another VC-funded company: In One Tweet, Kylie Jenner Wiped Out $1.3 Billion of Snap’s Market Value
I don’t really have anything to add to that.

Bunny

This is… ehm. You still need to watch this: Waking up a bunny with an air horn
You might want to turn down the volume.

Be good.
Toodles!

Hello internet friends,

did you watch the new Star Wars trailer? Oh boy, I sure hope this one doesn’t suck.

Workaholic

If you watch movies you probably noticed Eric Roberts at some point, because oh boy, this man works a lot: How Eric Roberts Went Big, Crashed Hard, and Became the Hardest-Working Man in Hollywood

Oh, ’Stralia

This is actually pretty amazing: There were trailers for a Crocodile Dundee reboot movie. High-profile actors were attached and teased the movie on their social media profiles. And then turns out: Australia’s national tourism arm subverted the Super Bowl with an ad for a fake movie

The Root of All Evil

Hyperbole? Not really. Tackling the Internet’s Central Villain: The Advertising Business (I mean… the real root is obviously capitalism, but you know. Eh.) Well, thank god they’re coming for a new medium, now: Podcast Listeners Really Are the Holy Grail Advertisers Hoped They’d Be

Hack Hack

Talking about capitalism, this is pretty great: Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech’s Repair Monopoly (Warning: video. If you prefer text, here we go: Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware)

Have a good week, folks. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Toodles

Hello internet friends,

the good thing about this newsletter is that I know for sure that all 69 of you are nice but not bought. Not something everyone can say about their readers: The Follower Factory

OpSec 🤡

For some people it seems to be fun to run. Many of these people use an exercise tracking app called Strava – and some of these people are soldier. Who might be somewhere where they’re not too happy about their location being shared with the world. Weeeell:
Fitness tracking app Strava gives away location of secret US army bases

Camel News

I don’t even know what to add to this article:
12 camels disqualified from Saudi beauty contest in ‘Botox’ row

Skill Hubs

You’d think that the camel story is the height of absurdity for this week’s email? Well, it gets a lot worse: Facebook Wants to Open Special ‘Community Skills Hubs’ in Europe and Train a Million People

I can’t even anymore. Community Skills Hubs.
Good god.

Toodles.

Hello internet friends,

have you seen the latest internet outrage? No? Well, this is usually how it goes: The 29 Stages Of A Twitterstorm In 2018

🚨🚨Danger Danger🚨🚨

I’ve been saying this for years: Productivity is dangerous.

If you’re waking up at 4 a.m. to write 1,000 words about how you write 1,000 words every day, what are you actually getting done? Just stay in bed.

But you know – this will probably not be an issue anymore soon. So how will we handle it? Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs Probably we’ll all be writing 1,000 word Medium dot com essays about productivity.

Freedom and Fun

I sort of stopped reading The Awl after they jumped back and forth between Medium and their own WordPress installation, each time messing up their feed. And I might not have been the only one, because now Awl Ends.
The End of the Awl and the Vanishing of Freedom and Fun from the Internet – from what I can gather it is mostly the vanishing of getting paid for freedom and fun, right?

Sad Robot

This is kinda sad: Fabio the robot sacked from supermarket after alarming customers
I’d be delighted to have a little robot to show me where to find the toothpaste and stuff.

Hug your robot!
Toodles!

Hello internet friends,

why not have a tea and read an interesting slice of internet?
For example – how the word tea and the word cha traveled the world.

Instagram

No, we’re not bitching about their image sorting algorithm today. We’re talking brands. And especially Instagram brands: The Strange Brands in Your Instagram Feed. Lovely, isn’t it? And it seems to work rather well: Instagram Ads Are Basically Infomercials for Millennials

Viral

These days we’re very used to stuff turning into (usually very short-lived) memes and “go viral” – but back when we were all young and the internet was fun, this was a new thing: The Strange History of One of the Internet’s First Viral Videos

Space News

These stories don’t have anything in common except “space,” but here we go:

• 5,000-year old rock art found in India is likely the oldest depiction of a supernova – the article says that the supernova was just a bit less bright than the moon. I don’t know about you, but that’s plenty of bright for me. I think I’d rather enjoy seeing a phenomenon like this.
• Incredible ‘Hypatia’ Stone Contains Compounds Not Found in the Solar System – omg, space stones! If you really think about it, all stones are space stones. Wooooaaaaah.
• It’s Never Aliens—until It Is – I’m still undecided if I’d like it if we found aliens. I’m pretty sure I’d not like it how humanity would react to it, though.

Bird News

Is there anything more badass than hawks starting bush fires to feast on the small animals that run from the flames? Why These Birds Carry Flames In Their Beaks

That’s all, enjoy your tea!
Toodles

Hello internet friends,

remember roughly a year ago we were all wondering about an alien megastructure? Turns out it might be just dust.

Hack

I’m harvesting credit card numbers and passwords from your site. Here’s how. Between this rather realistic scenario and the whole chip architecture vulnerability it might be time to just end this whole digital experiment. (Before we do, send me your addresses, so I can send you these letters by post.)

Plastic Fantastic Redux

Remember last week we had eco-plastics? Now someone found caterpillars that eat plastic: Plastic-eating caterpillars could save the planet
I’m not too sure how well that would work – they’re probably not breaking down the plastic polymers small enough to make their feces not be plastic anymore?

Self-Improvement

This speaks to me on so many levels: ‘Most of us are too busy to be better’: the lazy person’s guide to self-improvement

That’s all for this week.
Toodles!