Remote Robotic Surgeon

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!

Føck

Hëllö ïntërnët frïënds,

(whät? Wëll: Ä Brïëf Hïstöry Öf Mëtäl Umläüts)


Fuck

Fuuuuuck. Fuck.
An Oral History of The Wire’s Unforgettable 5-Minute ‘Fuck’ Scene

Or not

They did the math and it doesn’t look good for single people: Tinder is not actually for meeting anyone
(It is probably worse for women, let’s be honest there. So far everyone I met through Tinder has been a total delight.)

What’s In a Name

If you ever used Facebook you probably saw an add for a shirt with your name on it. Turns out I’m not the only one who thinks these are sad, sad things: Those Name T-Shirts on Facebook Fill Me With Despair

Apocalypse

Maybe we can put some SAMs in between? Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand


Toodles!
Go watch Black Panther, if you haven’t already.

Spooling

Hello internet friends,

did you ever wonder Why Do We Need to Sleep? Turns out – nobody knows. (Of all the things we need to do, it is one of the best ones, though. Ah, sleep. That’s where I’m a viking!)


Hard

This post by Frank Chimero has been making the rounds and for a good reason: Everything Easy Is Hard Again Web development is constantly moving forward and evolving, which gets us to the weird point where people with twenty years of experience and people who just start at the profession have to learn the same new things.

Downhill

Probably seemed like a good idea at some point: Racing Wood-Carved Scooters at Breakneck Speed in the Philippines – pretty fascinating and given the complete lack of breaks on these things and the fact that the race course goes through villages with a big group of spectators, I’m not too sure about their safety record.

Electric Bogaloo

As much as everybody tries to have a paperless office – well, everybody but let’s not go there – there’s a printer somewhere tucked into a corner and for sure it jammed at least once before. Turns out – the reason why paper jams persist is quite a complicated one that a lot of very smart people keep trying to solve.

Office Space

Talking about offices – these are just wonderful: Your Favorite TV Shows Brought To Life With Amazing 3D Floor Plans (Even though I do have an opinion of calling your own work “amazing.” Oh well.)

Free Stuff!

Amazon is “trying” to clean up their review section – by showing which reviewer actually bought the item. Which leads to a weird phenomenon: people actually buy the stuff and have it sent to random people, just to have that flag on their fake review account: Fake reviews on Amazon means you get free stuff


That’s all I have for you this week, see you next time!
Toodles!

Mirror In The Bathroom

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

Follow Me

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.

##REDACTED##

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!

Firebird

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:

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

Plastic Poop

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!

Community

Hello internet friends,

and a happy new year and such. Just remember that starting from today, there are people who are adults by law (Your mileage might vary, but at least in countries where 18 is that age) were born in the 2000s.
Good god.


Airport

This link is in German, so… maybe skip clicking it if that’s a problem for you? You could also Google Translate it, which works pretty well these days.

This interview with one of the preeminent airport construction experts on his views on the still unopened new Berlin airport is very fascinating: BER: Dieter Faulenbach da Costa im Interview
Maybe it is time to teach the people the concept of the sunk cost fallacy and actually blow the whole thing up and start from scratch. Maybe have some people handle it who have done this kind of thing before.

Monorail

Don’t tell me that! We Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting a Monorail
From what I see in this article the problem isn’t with the concept of monorails but with poor city planning. Maybe if people built monorails where there is actual demand and sell tickets at a reasonable price, these things would actually be useful? But then I’m probably biased, because: Monorail! 🤩

Plastic Fantastic

Now this sounds pretty rad: The Creators Of This Algae Plastic Want To Start A Maker Revolution
I’m not super sure if the whole maker angle is really the thing to look at, but bioplastic from algae sounds awesome and like one of the few good cyberpunk-sounding things we should actually add to our lives.

Tiny Homes

No, not these ones. But the internet ones: The year we wanted the internet to be smaller – Why tiny, weird online communities made a comeback in 2017


Here’s to a 2018 that’s better than last year.
Toodles!

This One Needs Some Good Editing

Hello internet friends,

let’s start with an uplifting new entry in the long list of articles of the “The dream of the web is dead” genre: My Internet Mea Culpa. While he’s probably right on most things I always find it amusing to watch Americans try so hard to not realize that rampant capitalism and the culture of VC-funded ~start-ups~ might the real problem here.


Code!

While we’re not so sure if the internet has been such a good idea, the tools to push it forward are changing faster and faster: A recap of front-end development in 2017
And if you’re as confused as I am, here we go: Modern JavaScript Explained For Dinosaurs


Edit

I know – more Star Wars content. Sorry. But it’s out there and it is pretty interesting: How Star Wars was saved in the edit

Presence

I’ve been working remotely for a couple of weeks now and this mostly means Slack 24/7 (or at least 12/7 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) including a pretty serious usage of the status text. (Remember IM? Back then it was fun to use status texts…) So obviously I’m super interested in how this works (or not) for other people: The presence prison

Fyre Fyre

One of the best things of 2017 was probably the Fyre Festival. Here’s a fun little article about it: I paid $4,000 to go. It’s fair game to make fun of me


Toodles!