📺 “North & South” Episode #1.1 | Netflix

Watched "North & South" Episode #1.1 from Netflix
Directed by Brian Percival. With Daniela Denby-Ashe, Tim Pigott-Smith, Emma Ferguson, Travis Oliver. Margaret Hale, a 19-year-old lively young girl, and her parents leave the south, when her father Richard resigns as the clergy in Helstone on a matter of conscience. The family moves to Milton in the north of England where Mr. Hale starts working as a private tutor. Margaret and her mother find it difficult to adapt to the North. While Margaret tries to deal with her new home and thereby ...
Took ten minutes to get into this and discover the direction, but a well done time period piece. It didn’t take long to realize the morality of the leads and where we would be going though.

📺 “North & South” Episode #1.2 | Netflix

Watched "North & South" Episode #1.2 from Netflix
Directed by Brian Percival. With Sinéad Cusack, Simon Cassidy, Elianne Byrne, Emma Ashton. Maria Hale's health ceases and her daughter Margaret decides to contact her brother Frederick - who had to leave England years earlier due to a wrongful court decision. The mill workers in Milton go on strike. In order to get his orders done in time, Thornton hires Irish workers. The angry strikers hear of this and in an attempt to threaten Thornton they hurt Margaret. Overwhelmed by Margaret's ...
This looks to be a quick and easy binge.

📺 “North & South” Episode #1.3 | Netflix

Watched "North & South" Episode #1.3 from Netflix
Directed by Brian Percival. With Richard Armitage, Daniela Denby-Ashe, William Houston, Brian Protheroe. Deeply hurt at the refusal of his marriage proposal, Thornton and Margaret's relationship becomes more tense and difficult. Just in time, Frederick comes home to visit his dying mother. Thornton mistakes him for Margaret's lover. As Margaret realizes that she might have been mistaken in her harsh and hasty criticism of Thornton, she has to sadly observe his opinion of her altering. Shortly after ...
I know where we’re going, but there is certainly a lot of deus ex machina to get us there. Fun to watch though…

📺 “North & South” Episode #1.4 | Netflix

Watched "North & South" Episode #1.4 from Netflix
Directed by Brian Percival. With Brendan Coyle, Tom Charnock, Richard Armitage, Daniela Denby-Ashe. Frederick safely reaches Spain. After her father's death, Margaret leaves Milton to live with her aunt in London. Thornton learns that Frederick is Margaret's brother. With the money that she inherited from Mr. Bell, her godfather, she decides to help Mr. Thornton's mill from closing.
There sure was a lot of deus ex machina in this short series which I’d best describe as a morality play set for the industrial revolution, but overall interesting and binge-able. Some excellent characters and development, but given that this was a book adaptation done over almost 4 hours it was well executed. A four part series was certainly a better way to go with this instead of a feature film. There are some interesting potential extensions to part of the plot here with relation to our currently changing culture with respect to economics and even social media that would be an interesting plot remake.

Brendan Coyle was excellent here and it’s relatively obvious that the prototype of this character was likely a solid reason to have cast him in as Bates in Downton Abbey later on. Sinéad Cusack was spectacular in a great but limited role–we’ll have to watch more of her earlier work. Daniela Denby-Ashe was well cast and spot on for the careful threading of this progressive, strong, and direct role. The true standout to me was Richard Armitage who does dark and brooding as well as anyone; I’d love to see more of his work.

👓 Trump expected to declassify Carter Page and Bruce Ohr documents | Axios

Read Trump expected to declassify Carter Page and Bruce Ohr documents (Axios)
Republicans believe the move will permanently taint the Trump-Russia investigation.

👓 As Leslie Moonves Negotiates His Exit from CBS, Women Raise New Assault and Harassment Claims | The New Yorker

Read Leslie Moonves Steps Down from CBS, After Six Women Raise New Assault and Harassment Claims by Ronan Farrow (The New Yorker)
Members of the board of the CBS Corporation are negotiating with the company’s chairman and C.E.O., Leslie Moonves, about his departure. Sources familiar with the board’s activities said the discussions about Moonves stepping down began several weeks ago, after an article published in the The New Yorker detailed allegations by six women that the media executive had sexually harassed them, and revealed complaints by dozens of others that the culture in some parts of the company tolerated sexual misconduct. Since then, the board has selected outside counsel to lead an investigation into the claims.

👓 The way out | Manton Reece

Read The way out by Manton ReeceManton Reece (manton.org)
There have been many articles written in the last month about the role of social networks. Some even reach the obvious conclusion: that the top social networks are too big. This interview on Slate was fairly representative, covering monopolies and centralized power. But these articles always stop sh...

🔖 WPCampus 2018 Videos Are Now Available to Watch | WordPress Tavern

Bookmarked WPCampus 2018 Videos Are Now Available to Watch (WordPress Tavern)
WPCampus 2018 was held July 12-14, 2018, at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Educators, staff, and those in higher-education gathered to learn how WordPress can be and is used in highe…

👓 ClassicPress: Gutenberg Not Included | WordPress Tavern

Read ClassicPress: Gutenberg Not Included (WordPress Tavern)
Depending on how far and deep you look, there is not a lot of positive sentiment surrounding Gutenberg. For Scott Bowler, the notion of merging Gutenberg into WordPress 5.0 represents a shift so de…

👓 The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995 | Motherboard | Vice

Read The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995 (Motherboard)
This really gives a new meaning to the “paper of record."

🎧 This Week in Google 471 Twitch Slap | TWiT.TV

Listened to This Week in Google 471 Twitch Slap by Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Stacey Higginbotham from TWiT.tv
Trump vs Google, Au Revoir G+
  • Trump says Google is unfair, warns that tech companies "better be careful"
  • FCC can legally redefine competitive broadband markets to include services you can't actually get
  • Google France Surrenders its Google+ Page
  • Want to Buy a Black Market Ukranian Pixel 3 XL?
  • Fortnite Creator Angry that Google Blabbed About Security Flaw
  • IGTV Struggles to Grow
  • CHANGELOG: Doodle 4 Google winner, helping vets find jobs, Google Go can read text out loud, Mini stickers for Gboard
Picks of the Week
  • Stacey's Thing: Smart Olive Bottle
  • Leo's Tool: Dumb Squeeze Bottles
  • Jeff's Number: LTE for Pixelbook 2

👓 How to Follow Instagram Hashtag and User Feeds Using RSS | Make Use Of

Read How to Follow Instagram Hashtag and User Feeds Using RSS (MakeUseOf)
Instagram itself doesn't provide a way to get RSS feeds for hashtags or users, but you can use a third-party service!
I really wish social sites would re-enable RSS or other feeds. This would be a great boon towards making much better and richer feed readers and related experiences. As it is some readers really just don’t know what to do with some of these feeds the way they’re generated.

👓 Snackronyms | Kicks Condor

Read Snackronyms (Kicks Condor)
A snackronym is simply my term for a ‘word acronym’: a prounceable initialism of a term. These variations on a phrase are much more appealing to the author. (In a way, they recall the mood of cryptic crosswords, where skills and disciplines collide, not willy-nilly, but with blissful meaning and grammar punning.)