Month: January 2020

Followed Henrique Dias (hacdias.com)

I'm a B.Sc. student in Information Systems and Computer Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico, in Lisbon. Currently working at Protocol Labs on decentralizing the web.

I believe in the transparency and openness of the web and when creating software so you can probably say I'm an Open Source advocate. You can check out my GitHub profile if you want to know more about what I'm doing right now.

Bookmarked Permanent Record by Edward Snowden (Metropolitan Books)

In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it.

Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online―a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic.

Hat tip: Strong recommendation by Vicki Boykis (#)
Bookmarked The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John R. Zaller (Cambridge University Press)
In this book John Zaller develops a comprehensive theory to explain how people acquire political information from the mass media and convert it into political preferences. Using numerous specific examples, Zaller applies this theory in order to explain the dynamics of public opinion on a broad range of subjects, including both domestic and foreign policy, trust in government, racial equality, and presidential approval, as well as voting behavior in U.S. House, Senate and Presidential elections. Particularly perplexing characteristics of public opinion are also examined, such as the high degree of random fluctuations in political attitudes observed in opinion surveys and the changes in attitudes due to minor changes in the wording of survey questions.
Hat tip: Strong recommendation by Vicki Boykis (#)
Read Open is Cancelled by A bee with a blog (Medium)
Before you read this, I want you to go and take a peek here. Stay with it until the end.
A dramatic reframing, and apparently a very much needed one. This (and the referenced article within it) are a must read.

I’ll have to think about this and revisit the broader idea a couple of times to really digest it.

Bookmarked The Federalist with Letters of "Brutus" by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Terence Ball (Cambridge University Press)

The Federalist represents one side of one of the most momentous political debates ever conducted: whether to ratify, or to reject, the newly drafted American constitution. This authoritative new edition presents complete texts for all of the eighty-five Federalist papers, along with the sixteen letters of "Brutus", the unknown New York Antifederalist. Each paper is systematically cross-referenced to the other, and both to the appended Articles of Confederation and U.S. Constitution. Terence Ball's editing skills enhance the accessibility of a classic of political thought in action.

More and more I find myself wanting to go back and read all of these.
I’ve just noticed that in addition to my relatively obvious user RSS feed on Goodreads, there’s a separate hidden feed of just my reading status updates. It’s of the form https://www.goodreads.com/user_status/list/#######-user-name?format=rss where #######-user-name is the typical user number and name combination at one’s profile page.
Read Folding a round paper plate into square box by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
Most origami starts with a square sheet of paper. The corners of the square are integral to shapes and folding lines. Would it be possible to fold a ROUND sheet of paper into a SQUARE box? And not just any ordinary round sheet of paper, but a PAPER PLATE. Maybe your blueberries are rolling off …
And of course he’s got some Xerox art in here as well! 😉
Read If I had a mannequin foot... by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
I almost xeroxed my socks yesterday, but then I thought that was going too far putting my foot on the copier. Perhaps I need a mannequin foot. If i had a mannequin foot… I would walk around with three feet. I’d make up new games of soccer where I can play sitting on the ground. …
That’s what I miss about working in a larger office: carefully watching out for colleagues when I’m trying to Xerox my foot. 😉