Reads, Listens

Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled

👓 Talk: “Designing away the cookie disclaimer” by Sebastian Greger

Read Talk: “Designing away the cookie disclaimer” (sebastiangreger.net)
This is the transcript of my lightning talk from the beyond tellerrand Berlin pre-conference warm-up on 6 November 2017. It was a condensed version of my longer, work-in-progress and upcoming talk on privacy as a core pillar of ethical UX design. If you are interested in the final talk or know about a conference or event that might be, I’d be thrilled to hear from you.
It’s sad the amount of not caring that both laws and apathy on the internet can make your life just dreadful in ways that it shouldn’t.

I love the fact that people are working on solving these seemingly mundane issues. This is a great little presentation Sebastian!

👓 To Save Net Neutrality, We Must Build Our Own Internet | Motherboard

Read To Save Net Neutrality, We Must Build Our Own Internet (Motherboard)
We must end our reliance​ on big telecom monopolies and build decentralized, affordable, locally owned internet infrastructure.
This could make an interesting small project. Reminds me of stories about Claude Shannon making his own telephone set up by electrifying barbed wire fences in his youth.

🎧 This Week in Google: #431 Mordor, She Wrote | TWiT.TV

Listened to This Week in Google: #431 Mordor, She Wrote from TWiT.TV
Pixel Buds are getting bad reviews. Blasting Facebook and Google. Amazon pays $250 Million for Lord of the Rings TV rights. Alibaba's $25 billion Singles' Day. Self-driving trucks and flying cars. Hacking the Boeing 757. Xerox Alto turns 40.

https://youtu.be/cq4QqGy1sGE

🎧 The Story Of Fats Domino’s ‘Ain’t That A Shame’ | NPR

Listened to The Story Of Fats Domino's 'Ain't That A Shame' from NPR.org | All Things Considered
This enduring hit showcases Domino's individual talents, and the early power of New Orleans music.

Somehow I was expecting a lot more from this series. Just as it seemed to be getting going, it was cut short. Half of the episode is the song itself, so prepare yourself when it kicks in.

I did appreciate the tidbit about how A&R executives sped up the track to make it difficult for white singers to imitate and appropriate the content which was very common at the time.

h/t to Kevin Smokler and Jeremy Cherfas for uncovering this for me on Huffduffer.com

🎧 This Week in Tech: #640 Stand Clear of the Closing Doors | TWiT.TV

Listened to This Week in Tech: #640 Stand Clear of the Closing Doors from TWiT.tv
DOJ suggests that phone encryption kills people. Facebook wants to see you naked. Apple gets ready for its best holiday ever. Twitter gets 50 character names to go with its 280 character tweets. XBox One X is the best game system out there. Bill Gates will build his own city. Car ownership will be a thing of the past in 5 years. Intel and AMD team up. Alibaba sells $25 billion worth of stuff in one day while America's retail sector is tanking.

https://youtu.be/vhktZ8zh3hg

👓 21st Century Fox in $90 million settlement tied to sexual harassment scandal | Reuters

Read 21st Century Fox in $90 million settlement tied to sexual harassment scandal (Reuters)
Twenty-First Century Fox Inc has reached a $90 million settlement of shareholder claims arising from the sexual harassment scandal at its Fox News Channel, which cost the jobs of longtime news chief Roger Ailes and anchor Bill O'Reilly.

👓 Eight women say Charlie Rose sexually harassed them — with nudity, groping and lewd calls | Washington Post

Read Eight women say Charlie Rose sexually harassed them — with nudity, groping and lewd calls by Irin Carmon and Amy Brittain (Washington Post)
The alleged incidents took place with employees, interns and job applicants at the “Charlie Rose” show.
This is just painfully sad because his interviews (and particularly the policy ones) were wonderfully enriching. I hope someone can pick up the mantle because this is sure to decimate his career post haste.

👓 When Unpaid Student Loan Bills Mean You Can No Longer Work | New York Times

Read When Unpaid Student Loan Bills Mean You Can No Longer Work by Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Stacy Cowley and Natalie Kitroeff (New York Times)
Twenty states suspend people’s professional or driver’s licenses if they fall behind on loan payments, according to records obtained by The New York Times.
This has to be one of the most un-ethical and painfully stupid laws out there. Far better would be for them to focus their efforts at shutting down the predatory for-profit schools which are causing students to have some of these unpayable loans in the first place.

It’s almost as a nation like we’re systematically trying to destroy ourselves and our competitive stance within the world just for spite.

🎧 Episode 79: IndieWebCamp venue | Timetable

Listened to Episode 79: IndieWebCamp venue | Timetable by Manton Reese from Timetable
Manton discusses hosting (and attending) his first ever IndieWebCamp.

I’m excited to hear there will be at least one more IndieWebCamp before the end of the year.

Manton, I too once hosted an IndieWebCamp without ever having attended one myself. My advice is don’t sweat it too much. If you’ve got a location, some reasonable wifi, and even a bit of food, you’ll be okay. The interesting people/community that gather around it and their enthusiasm will be what really make it an unforgettable experience.

Incidentally it was also simultaneously the first ever Bar Camp I had attended and one of the originators of the concept attended! I remember thinking “No pressure here.” It was a blast for me, and I’m sure will be great for you as well.

🎧 This Week in Google 430 Uber’s Lyft-Off | TWiT.TV

Listened to This Week in Google 430 Uber's Lyft-Off by Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Stacey Higginbotham from TWiT.tv
A wave of technopanic is sweeping the world. Or is it intelligent concern over the power wielded by internet giants like Facebook and Google? Plus,Uber's flying cars, Trump's DOJ tells Time-Warner to sell CNN, Marissa Mayer apologizes to Congress, and Facebook wants your nude pictures (for security's sake).

https://youtu.be/-I49Sv0jAtA

👓 The Case for RSS | MacSparky

Read The Case for RSS by David Sparks (MacSparky)
If you are thinking about using RSS, I have a little advice. Be wary feed inflation. RSS is so easy to implement that it's a slippery slope between having RSS feeds for just a few websites and instead of having RSS feeds for hundreds of websites. If you’re not careful, every time you open your RSS reader, there will be 1,000 unread articles waiting for you, which completely defeats the purpose of using RSS. The trick to using RSS is to be brutal with your subscriptions. I think the key is looking for websites with high signal and low noise. Sites that publish one or two articles a day (or even one to two articles a week) but make them good articles are much more valuable and RSS feed than sites that published 30 articles a day.

👓 Building Digital Workflows by Aaron Davis

Read Building Digital Workflows by Aaron Davis (Read Write Respond)
Whether it is how we write or stay organised, technology is always adapting and evolving. Here are a few of the recent changes to my digital workflows.
An interesting philosophy of regularly changing workflows. I’ve done this for a long time, but never really given it a name.

There’s a nice tip about the Listen functionality in Pocket which I hadn’t yet heard about. I’m also curious how they’ve implemented highlighting and what I might do with it.

I suspect that if Aaron hasn’t come across Huffduffer as a tool yet (with a bookmarklet), he’ll appreciate it for both discovery as well as having his own audio feed to push to his mobile player.

👓 ‘How dare they’: Nutella changes recipe, sending its fans to the edge | Washington Post

Read ‘How dare they’: Nutella changes recipe, sending its fans to the edge by Travis M. Andrews (Washington Post)
A legion of snackers live for the hazelnut spread. And they're not happy.
Some interesting food history here that I didn’t know about.

🎧 It’s 2017. Why does medicine still run on fax machines? | Vox

Listened to It’s 2017. Why does medicine still run on fax machines? from Vox
How a plan to kill the fax machine with policy went awry.

This is a painfully sad and frustrating story. It also seems like something that business/capitalism isn’t going to solve on its own, but something which is crying out for an open spec to help things along. (And after that, if a business can come up with a better/faster solution, then more power to them.)

I can only think of the painful inefficiencies that are lurking in our healthcare system. And we wonder why things are so stupidly expensive?

This is a great example where applying César A. Hidalgo’s theory from Why Information Grows to decrease the friction for creating links can eliminate inefficiencies and create larger value. I still want to refine his statement into something simple and usable for both business and governmental use as well as to come up with some reasonably understandable math to provide a “proof” of the value.