Pew Pew Pew

December 21, 2015

Hello internet friends,
last weekend I went to watch a star war. Maybe even twice.
Apparently it is still not okay to talk about it publicly – but come on, that movie has been out for more than 48 hours.
That being said, here is my short review:
It’s a Star Wars movie. If you like Star Wars movies, you will like this Star Wars movie. It is not a toy commercial like the prequel trilogy was,[1] so that’s something. And I really enjoyed the two new lead actors, they seem to know what they’re doing.
If you’re kind of on the “meh” side when it comes to Star Wars, this might be the review for you.
And if you really don’t care, just shrug and move on. You’ll see the logo and the toys until your death, so that’s really all you can do.
~
More media consumption think pieces! Streaming TV is different from regular TV!
This is something I’ll think about while watching Frasier on Netflix.
~
The Washington Post used to ask “What was fake on the Internet this week?” since 2004. These days the answer seems to be “Basically everything, ugh.”

Frankly, this column wasn’t designed to address the current environment. This format doesn’t make sense. I’ve spoken to several researchers and academics about this lately, because it’s started to feel a little pointless. […] institutional distrust is so high right now, and cognitive bias so strong always, that the people who fall for hoax news stories are frequently only interested in consuming information that conforms with their views — even when it’s demonstrably fake.

Yay.
~
Likely also fake: hipster chocolate.
~
Apparently some people think it is a good idea to ban children from the internet. While I certainly agree when it comes to my parts of the internet – haha, the joke here is that children are irritating – I really think that is a rather stupid idea.
~
Do you need some more articles to instapaper and never read? Okay, I’m here to deliver…
Are you into the whole idea of self-driving cars? Here, have the happy scrappy Ubuntu-powered one out of a hardware hacker’s garage.
Or maybe you’re more interested What the Führer means for Germans today.
~
Ending on that high note, have a good holiday if one is happening in your area.

  1. I mean… it is. But it doesn’t feel like one.  ↩

#swag

December 14, 2015

Hey guys 👋 this is Dominik and today we’ll learn about YouTube Voice.
We’ll probably also learn about emoji in newsletters.
Talking about emoji – apparently they are not longer cool in Japan.
But who knows these days what actually cool is? Apparently the dude who decided to offer a #swag course at an university.
His “introduction to cool” begins with setting up Medium and Slack accounts, so that’s, well, “cool.” After all, I have both of these and I’m the definition of cool.
What I sometimes have, before I frustration-uninstall it again, is Snapchat. It is completely not made for my mental model of how ~the internet~ is supposed to work. But maybe this might help?
It still doesn’t, really.
Today in fun facts: It is quite likely that Stonehenge is a second hand henge. It’s quite nice that the Welsh didn’t just throw it away but sold it to a bunch of Brits.
Hey, everybody, let’s try this at the office today!

Look No Further

December 7, 2015

Hello internet friends,

a couple of weeks back we all had a light chuckle when we saw this pullquote regarding avocados.
Which we then forgot again, because internet lols are in endless supply. When I saw it again, I tried to find the whole article and I have to say, it really delivers:

I mean, no offence to Stephen Hawking, I’m sure black holes are also a big deal in their own way but, if you really want to get to grips with the meaning of modern life, look no further than the avocado.

Chapeau. And onwards.
If you work on the internet, it might be interesting to know What Web Can Do Today.

We are at a crossroads of purpose and pain. Our conversations with other travellers have led to an awakening of ultra-intergalatic consciousness. Humankind has nothing to lose.

I enjoy this New-Age Bullshit Generator just a tiny little bit too much. It’s from those people who decided that studying these “profound” statements was a good way to spend their time. And well, they were not wrong.
Sometimes I watch SNL stuff, when it appears somewhere online. This sketch is probably the funniest lately. They were really respectful about it.
Take care and maybe have a laugh or two.

Shipping

November 30, 2015

Hello internet friends,

the end is nigh!
At least the end of this year, if you happen to follow the Gregorian calendar.

I didn’t see one of these “hoverboards” in real life, yet – but it is still hugely interesting to see how these things are built and sold.

The crapfest that was Age of Ultron soured me on the MCU – and yet, mostly because Krysten Ritter has been great in everything I have seen her so far, I watched Jessica Jones last week.
And what can I say – I really liked it a lot. Mostly because it moved all the silly superhero antics way to the background in favour of a really dark detective story. If you happen to have Netflix around, give it a go. Maybe watch something fun in between the episodes, though.

Back in the day I used to play a fair share of StarCraft II. Some people (hi!) really want me to get the new and last version of it, too. Probably mostly so that they can kick my ass in it.
If you are so inclined, it might be interesting to read about the last big tournament finale of the version before the update.

Boarding airplanes is only fun if you have a very interesting definition of “fun” – usually it involves a lot of standing around and being shuffled from one queue to the next one.
Given that airlines have decided that humans are just cargo anyway, how about we build containers for them and plug them into planes as needed? It’s an interesting concept – a modular airplane, what could possibly go wrong?

Have a good first week of December, everybody.

Wayward

November 23, 2015

Hello internet friends,

when was the last time you thought about Enya? Precisely.
Now she has a new album and because it’s 2015 the long portrait doesn’t appear in Vanity Fair but over on Buzzfeed.

If you are more into engines than Enya[1] you might want to watch the top three of the current supercars driven around a race track in Portugal.

If you’re not interested in either of those, maybe you like (long think pieces about) selfies? Bring some time for that one, the reading time algorithm clocks this one at a whopping 57 minute read.
Just imagine how many selfies you could have taken during that time.

Apparently there are Millennial life coaches and I honestly don’t know how to process that information.

I celebrate everything! Even if you got on the call and said, ‘I didn’t do shit,’ I’d be like, ‘Wooo!’

Wooo. Well, I’m in.
(This is also a great article for the people with the snake people browser plugin. Chrome/Firefox)

If we still didn’t know that podcasting is getting big – just like in 2004 blogging got big – here is the Vogue podcast.

Have a good week, people.

  1. Those of you who know me in person can probably picture my smug smile over this lovely pun-ny segue.  ↩

Quality Content

November 16, 2015

Hello internet friends,

somehow my paragraph on the current event in Paris and everybody’s reaction to it got a bit longer. Since I understand that many people want or need to avoid articles about the more traumatic news, I put it out as an addendum. You can find it here: Capital-O Opinion.

For everybody else, let’s try to keep this one a bit lighter for now, okay?

Apparently English is a pretty weird language. But obviously not as much as the author claims, notes the always helpful geek choir called MetaFilter.

The Internet Will Always Suck – and because we’re trying it with a lighter mood, this one is about the technical infrastructure and not the people.
In case technical infrastructure made you roll your eyes and think: “ugh, nerd!” – enjoy this helpful guide on how to handle electricity.

Apparently a bunch of hotels are worth 12.2 Instagrams. That’s pretty amazing.

I’ve been playing the new Tomb Raider game all weekend (in case you wonder if I have a life…) and it is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

15 Things That May Or May Not Be Amaze – BuzzFeed delivers quality content once again.

Take care, everybody. Breathe. Hug a tree or a fellow person, if you’re so inclined.

Capital-O Opinion

Usually I read through my instapaper on Sunday evening to prepare this email, copy a couple of links and thoughts about them into my text editor and try to turn it into something entertaining and/or interesting for you on Monday mornings.
This time it is a little bit more difficult because my main coping mechanism for news like what happened in Paris on Friday is to instapaper – yes, that’s a verb now – every news article and think piece I come across. And because everybody has capital-O Opinions these days and because every news organisation is pretty eager to capture more of the heightened attention that tragedies like this bring to the news, there are a lot of these articles. I am sure you have seen your fair share, even if you tried to avoid them.
Of course I don’t read all of these articles. They are often repetitive or even stale information by the time I start to look through my Instapaper. But putting them in there works as a displacement activity for me.

And that’s the thing: even for us, who don’t have any direct connection to what happened, news like this are a something big and unusual and not ordinary at all and everybody has different ways of handling that.
For many people it seems to be changing their Facebook profile image. It’s not for me, personally – I find it to be a bit silly – but it seems to help people and I rather have people doing silly Facebook things than people who turn to “It’s us vs them!” rhetoric.
Or people who decide that it’s the immigrants’ or all Muslims’ fault or those who pretend it is, even though they know better, because it is politically advantageous for them. Fuck those people.

Given that we’re at a point where I put my capital-O Opinions, here we go…
Of course it is slightly fucked up that these Facebook functions to broadcast one’s well-being have been opened up after the Paris attacks and not the Beirut ones. And that there is no button to temporarily change one’s profile picture to the Lebanese flag.
I understand people who point that out and I think it’s good that this happens. It will reach someone at Facebook and some time, sooner or later, something will change – even just because someone cynical decided that he middle eastern market is too valuable for Facebook to ignore, now that they’re done growing in their home market.

Fetch

November 9, 2015

Hello internet friends,

here we go again. (♬ Here we go go go to the temple of consumption. ♫)

So far coffee is my only drug but this sounds pretty good, too.

What is actually pretty good is the new Netflix series Master of None by and with Aziz Ansari. I watched it all in one go, which might have been excessive – but also doable, as the first season is just ten short episodes.
Highly recommended – not only by me, the whole internet seems to agree. (Almost. There are always grumps.)

I’m not what one might call a ~millennial~ – but I’d honestly would consider living in something like those new living situations here. Just add a balcony and I’m there.
As long as Elwood doesn’t forget to bring me my cheese whiz.

Apparently the whole Apple car thing is happening – or not. Maybe there really is a company called Faraday Future that suddenly has a lot of money from nowhere and very soon we have forgotten about it while Apple is still trying to make the Apple TV happen.

Last week I got the feedback that this newsletter is not very democratic and/or a discussion mailing list. That’s right and by design.
If you do have something to share – comments, thoughts, links, etc. – I am happy to get replies to these emails and share interesting feedback, too. If email is not your medium – hah – you could blog your thoughts and link to the newsletter on the archive page. If you don’t have your own blog, it might be easiest to sign up for Medium dot com and reply directly to the newsletter on my archive over there. If you’re more of a tumblr person, there is this.
There are all the options – I do try to accommodate your ways of saying hi.

Now, be safe. And don’t forget about those shark selfies – I’m still waiting for a real shark.

Faster Pussycar! Kill! Kill!

November 2, 2015

Hello internet friends old and new,
how nice to see you all.

The IMDb is 25 years old. That’s a lot of internet years.
One of the items on that bucket list that I still need to write is getting an IMDb entry – who can arrange that for me?

I was on a flight yesterday – which was delayed and there was huge chaos at the airport and with the boarding process. And while the sky was clear on my route, heavy fog over the UK messed up the whole heavily interconnected European route network.
In case you wonder: Why is my flight delayed in foggy weather?

Talking about both bucket lists and traveling – that whole container ship traveling thing looks pretty amazing.

Pretty soon the ocean might be the only place where humans are half-way safe: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill.

Somehow the future was better in the past. If there is one person who is responsible for that, it is Syd Mead. Here he is, giving a pretty interesting interview, interlaced with some of his drawings.

Take care, folks.

Machete Order

October 26, 2015

Hello internet friends,

bad news! The Robot Sex conference in Malaysia (remember?) has been cancelled.
What I did learn from that article – besides that it is apparently not in the Malaysian culture to mate with machines – is that one of the guys behind that specific field of research is Adrian David Cheok, who those of you, who have been reading my newsletter for a while now, know from his very important work on Poultry Internet Touching.
(This here is now the moment where you tell me you’re proud of me for not making one of the very obvious puns involving the different meanings of the word “cock.”)

Something that I have actually never even considered: Does being self-deprecating help or harm you socially?
Given my very “active” “social life” I think I can answer that one without even having to read the article. (Which I did. I have so many turns outs to process.)

If you ever feel like you need to write a tech think piece but need some inspiration, why not look here. Your article should do well on Medium!

Based on last week’s alien megastructure, which is now being investigated more thoroughly – and will probably be soon forgotten outside of space nerd circles – there were a whole bunch of articles around the Fermi paradox. For me it was always pretty simple – many people assume there might be old, ancient space-travelling races out there – but maybe we’re just the first planet where life has gotten advanced enough to invent selfie-sticks look out into space? Given that most earth-like worlds are still in their infancy or don’t even exist, yet, this might be an explanation.
So I guess we better get out there.

Thanks again to the three people who read this ema… wait. Self-deprecating humour. Let me start again…
Thanks again to the three people who sent me a nice reply to last week’s email. Turns out you really liked that subject line. Well, so did I.