Read - Want to Read: Design for Cognitive Bias (A Book Apart, #33) by David Dylan Thomas (A Book Apart)
We humans are messy, illogical creatures who like to imagine we’re in control—but we blithely let our biases lead us astray. In Design for Cognitive Bias, David Dylan Thomas lays bare the irrational forces that shape our everyday decisions and, inevitably, inform the experiences we craft. Once we grasp the logic powering these forces, we stand a fighting chance of confronting them, tempering them, and even harnessing them for good. Come along on a whirlwind tour of the cognitive biases that encroach on our lives and our work, and learn to start designing more consciously.
Read WordPress Auto-Updates: What do you have to lose? (Wordfence)
A new feature that will allow automatic updating of plugins and themes will be available in WordPress version 5.5, which is scheduled to be released on August 11, 2020. In this core release of the world’s most popular content management system, site owners will have the option to turn auto-updates on for individual plugins and ...Read More
This should be an interesting update because of this. I’m probably going to generally ignore the functionality since I prefer closer control over my site and spend so much time in it on a daily basis.
Replied to Should: The Wrong Foundation for Work (and Life) by Tracy DurnellTracy Durnell (Cascadia Inspired)
I’m a “should”-er. I “should” myself about my career, my relationships, my diet, my priorities. “Should” is insidious. It disrupts my hard-thought-through priorities to tell me I’m focused on the wrong goals. “Should” makes it hard to distinguish what I … Continue reading →
I’ve totally got this problem too. When it applies to my want to read book list I simply use the framing of an antilibrary.
 
I like the way you’ve framed it with the “should” idea. Another framing I’ve seen for this sort of philosophy is a more extreme “No ‘yes.’ Either ‘HELL YEAH!’ or ‘no’.” 
Replied to What I'm Excited About with Joining the Indie Web by Tracy DurnellTracy Durnell (Cascadia Inspired)
I've always been about having my own site instead of relying on companies, but the IndieWeb represents a new philosophy and approach to using the internet.
This just tickles me pink.

And now we’re going to have to nerd out on digital gardens and commonplace books too…

Read The Truth Behind A Viral Picture Of A Reopening School Is Worse Than It Looked (BuzzFeed News)
An alarming photo of a hallway crowded by mostly maskless students in a Georgia high school raises issues with reopening schools all around the country.
This depresses me to read. It’s even worse when I think that this high school is just 36 miles South of the high school I attended. The local schools’ and government’s lack of care for the students under their supervision is appalling. It’s even worse when I think of the people who were sent home or punished for what I would consider minor dress code “violations” when I attended and yet now they’re saying they can’t manage to make mask wearing mandatory. 
Read - Reading: The Mad Scientists' Club by Bertrand R. Brinley (Scholastic)
A strange sea monster appears on the lake ...a fortune is unearthed from an old cannon ...a valuable dinosaur egg is stolen. Watch out as the Mad Scientists turn Mammoth Falls upside down!
20% done

Read two chapters: The Strange Sea Monster of Strawberry Lake and The Unidentified Flying Man of Mammoth Falls

Read Improve Your Remote Collaboration With P2 by Miguel LezamaMiguel Lezama (The WordPress.com Blog)
P2 powers internal collaboration at WordPress.com — and now it’s free for everyone. As more collaboration is happening remotely and online — work yes, but increasingly also school and persona…
It looks like Automattic is dusting off their old p2 / o2 theme projects for a new remote working platform? Here’s hoping that they consider Webmention support for true distributed cross-site @​mentions.
Read How would I improve RSS? Three ideas by Matt Webb (interconnected.org)
My sense is that RSS is having a mini resurgence. People are getting wary of the social media platforms and their rapacious appetite for data. We’re getting fatigued from notifications; our inboxes are overflowing. And people are saying that maybe, just maybe, RSS can help. So I’m seeing RSS being discussed more in 2020 than I have done for years. There are signs of life in the ecosystem.
Matt has got a good overview and some useful ideas and I like the direction he’s moving. There has been more work on not only RSS but other feeds and specs like Microsub in the past few years. The IndieWeb has moved the needle a bit on this topic as well as related work on things like OPML. Even then, we still have a way to go on making the UI as easy as social media sites do.
Replied to Why I Started Microblogging by Bryan Bryan (Bryan Sebesta)
So, I’ve started to microblog. I was inspired by Alan Jacobs’ recent article, getting back to the open web via micro.blog. One of the big reasons he supports starting a microblog this way is is because he owns the content; it’s part of his own domain, his turf. And that’s appealing to me. Ad...
Welcome to the game Bryan! Curious why you’re hosting your microblog separate from your main site instead of running them both from WordPress (not that you need to/have to)?

I’ve enjoyed linkblogging. When I read something, I can share the link along with a quote or reflection on how it affected me. It’s a great space to think out loud. 

Annotated on August 05, 2020 at 01:51PM

As Austin Kleon notes, blogging is a great way to discover what you have to say. My microblog has given me a chance to have thoughts, and this longer blog has given me a space to figure out what it means–to discover what it is I have to say. In other words, my microblog is where I collect the raw materials; my blog is where I assemble them into questions and, perhaps, answers. It’s a place where I figure out what I really think. 

Annotated on August 05, 2020 at 01:54PM

Read You gotta build by Ben WerdmüllerBen Werdmüller (Ben Werdmüller)
Here's a lesson I learned a long time ago, the hard way. In a startup, everyone has to bring something important to the table that meaningfully pushes the organization forward. The people who want to tell everyone else what to do, or who are there because having a startup is cool, are dead weight. T...
I see this far too often as well…