Reads, Listens

Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
Read Downing My Public Domain Stance with a Swig of Castor Oil (CogDogBlog)
Beyond movies and perhaps MAD magazine references I have no direct experience with being forced castor oil as a cold remedy. But there is an old advertisement in an image that is in the public doma…
This also reminds me a bit of the small print in newspaper circulars for stores like Macy’s announcing huge 40% off sales where they indicate that the original list prices of the items is not an indication that they ever sold for that price. Which means their advertisements are really just stating the starting price and make it seem like there’s a big discount applied.

By analogy, I have to wonder if the listings on Almay actually result in any significant sales? I suspect that the uploader probably spent more time handling upload, curation, and management than they’d likely ever earn back unless they were doing it at scale? 

Perhaps it may be worth it for a professional photographer to supplement their income, or it may affect someone with hundreds of thousands of photos, but I’d have to agree with Alan’s take that I’d rather have the credit and the kind emails too.

Read Host of 'The Daily' Clouds 'N.Y. Times' Effort To Restore Trust After 'Caliphate' (NPR.org)
The New York Times issued a big mea culpa, and returned a Peabody award and a citation as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize after retracting the core of its hit podcast series Caliphate.
Sounds like the definitely could have handled this better. 

I do remember taking their reporting with a massive grain of salt as there were caveats in the story which indicated there was some sketchiness on the part of their subject and whether or not he was there or not or did the things he claimed. I took the whole thing more as a narrative with some entertainment rather than hard-hitting journalism.

Read Google to Migrate Structured Data Testing Tool to New Domain after Backlash from Deprecation Announcement (WordPress Tavern)
Google’s Rich Results Test came out of beta in July with support for all Google Search rich result features like carousels, images, or other non-textual elements. At that time, Google announc…
The tool is only as good as the support it has for consuming applications. What are those consuming applications? (Read: What are the consuming applications for this outside of Google?) 

If Google isn’t going to support the consumption of the pieces in search (and history indicates this will be true sooner than later), then the tool doesn’t mean much either way.

Read Snowflakes in SoCal! A High School Musical (ceruleansounds.com)
A small-town activist thinks he’ll be better off fighting climate change with the other queer influencers on the West Coast! But Southern California ain’t all sunshine & rainbows…
ᔥ w4rner in @c ha love it! I explore similar themes of sentimental West Coast environmentalists in my satirical musical “Snowflakes in SoCal!” ()
Read He may have found the key to the origins of life. So why have so few heard of him? by Michael MarshallMichael Marshall (Science)
Hungarian biologist Tibor Gánti is an obscure figure. Now, more than a decade after his death, his ideas about how life began are finally coming to fruition.
Good to see Tibor Gánti finally getting some credit. This is a great little article with a nice overview of the Origin of Life problem (and references). The author Michael Marshall has a new book out on the topic.

ᔥ Peter Molnar in IndieWeb Chat ()

Read Eiffel Tower time lapse and Twitter account by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
This is one of my favorite things on the internet. The past 24 hours of the Eiffel Tower in a one-minute time lapse animation. This one-minute video file is constantly updated throughout the day to reflect the past 24 hours of the Eiffel Tower. The source of these images comes from a live webcam. See … Eiffel Tower time lapse and Twitter account Read More »
Read The awesome Christmas ninja toys from Oriental Trading by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
A great Christmas surprise this year? Christmas ninjas! With these fun little guys around the house, you’ll find everyone asking, “Hey, what happened to the Christmas cookies?” Ninjas. These little guys bearing peppermint weapons will surely bring a fresh breath of air to your Christmas. They could cause all sorts of mischief around your house. … The awesome Christmas ninja toys from Oriental Trading Read More »
Read How the School Reopening Debate Is Tearing One of America’s Most Elite Suburbs Apart (Slate Magazine)
In a district where parents are epidemiologists and health policy experts, the meltdown happened one Zoom meeting at a time.
Fascinating to see how the school reopening question is playing out in a wealthy school district with some serious resources most school systems don’t have.
Read Saving local TiddlyWiki files using WebDAV by Jack BatyJack Baty (baty.net)
TiddlyWiki is an amazing, powerful, flexible, fun bit of software. I use it for various project notes and logs, but mostly I use it for my wiki at rudimentarylathe.wiki. I like pretty much everything about TiddlyWiki except the fact that saving the files can be a challenge. A TiddlyWiki is just a simple HTML file. That’s it. It’s permanent, portable, and about as future-proof as anything. But, making edits in a browser and then saving those changes presents a problem.
Read “Write a Sentence as Clean as a Bone” And Other Advice from James Baldwin (Literary Hub)
Ninety-four years after his birth (and more than thirty since his death) James Baldwin remains an intellectual, moral, and creative touchstone for many Americans—whether writers, critics, or simply…
ᔥ Tantek Çelik in post – IndieWeb ()