Reads, Listens

Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
Read A tool for keeping up with local news and events (Richmond Matters)
The short version of this post is that if you’re someone like me who enjoys keeping up with Richmond and Wayne County local news and events (and maybe you’re a little tired of the way social media filters what you are and aren’t seeing), you can: visit 47374.info to see the latest info coming in …

One thing that using this tool has highlighted for me is that there are a lot of things happening in our community every day, between news, announcements, events and other stuff. If you only rely on what your social media service of choice has decided is worth knowing because it’s generating clicks or discussion, you’re likely to miss something important. Also, do you really want to get your news crammed in between cat videos and political rants from distant acquaintances? ❧

Annotated on January 17, 2020 at 01:20PM

Read Lemon socialism (Wikipedia)

Lemon socialism is a pejorative term for a form of government intervention in which government subsidies go to weak or failing firms (lemons; see Lemon law), with the effective result that the government (and thus the taxpayer) absorbs part or all of the recipient's losses. The term derives from the conception that in socialism the government may nationalize a company's profits while leaving the company to pay its own losses, while in lemon socialism the company is allowed to keep its profits but its losses are shifted to the taxpayer.

Mark J. Green coined the exact phrase in a 1974 article discussing the utility company Con Ed.

Read Privatizing profits and socializing losses (Investopedia)
Privatizing profits and socializing losses refers to the practice of treating company earnings as the rightful property of shareholders, while losses are treated as a responsibility that society must shoulder. In other words, the profitability of corporations are strictly for the benefit of their shareholders. But when the companies fail, the fallout—the losses and recovery—are the responsibility of the general public. Popular examples of this include taxpayer-funded subsidies or bailouts.
Read Restorative justice and resolving online conflict by Chris HardieChris Hardie (Chris Hardie)
"Hey, @ConflictBot, can you help us out here?"
I heard that same episode both times they’ve aired it. We could definitely use some more user-facing tools for things like this in our caustic online spaces.
Read Income Inequality Is Reflected in Local School Districts by Jennifer Hall Lee (ColoradoBoulevard.net)

I have written before about my volunteerism as chair of the annual fund in my local public junior high school. That experience gives a unique perspective on the income inequality issues we face today.

Let’s look at a few of the current annual fund goals for schools in the Pasadena area.

  • $75,000 is the annual fund goal for Eliot Arts Magnet Academy (a PUSD school).
  • $500,000 is the annual fund goal for an Altadena charter school.
  • $4.3 million is the annual fund goal for a Pasadena private school.

These annual fund numbers reflect the income levels of parents because when you set a goal for an annual fund you must reasonably expect that the goal can be reached. Annual funds in public schools derive monies primarily through parents and alumni.

Read The word 'digital' circles back around to original Latin meaning by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
The word “digital” seems to be everywhere: digital publishing, digital currency, digital art. Digital this, digital that. What does digital mean? Dictionary.com’s six definitions for digit: noun 1. a finger or toe. 2. the breadth of a finger used as a unit of linear measure, usually equal to 3/4 inch (2 cm). 3. any of …
Read What stops you from achieving your resolutions? by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
Maybe instead of making new year resolutions, we should make a list of the things that prevent us from getting things done. Remove the obstacles. Take your current resolutions, and transform them into a new list of “don’t do this, don’t do that.” I’ll take my 12 resolutions for 2020 and transform them using the …
Read 2020 new year resolutions - Spudart by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
Do you have any resolutions for this new year? I don’t really specifically set out to find new resolutions at the start of the year. I much rather just start new habits any time of the year. But in effort to capture some of the habits I’d like to be doing more, here’s my list …
Read The ligatures in Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
The Museum of Science and Industry is renaming the museum to be the “Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry” Sounds pretty silly right? Look at how long that name is. Plus, Chicagoans notoriously hate renaming buildings. The Chicago Tribune ran an article with selected Twitter reactions from Chicagoans. A typical Chicago response: Me? …
Read My natural eyesight is a kaleidoscope vision (seriously, it is) by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
Photographing with a kaleidoscope lens is so much fun. Recently I spent a work lunch shooting the feet of sculptures with a kaleidoscope lens. The whole time I spent focused on the kaleidoscope effect. My eyes and brain looked through this view so much, that on my walk back down Michigan Avenue, my brain felt …
Read Instagram-like app to track photographer websites by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
I’m thinking about what the domain would be for my photo website. And then an idea struck me. What if someone made an app that looked JUST like Instagram. But all the photos came from RSS feeds from individual photographer websites. You could subscribe to a whole list of photographer websites, and their photos will …
I could totally see this as an IndieWeb-based app! Perhaps there’s a way to modify or use one of the Microsub clients to filter for photos for focusing on and doing just this very thing?

My photos are far from the sort of artistic thing you’re looking for, but it would be nice if one could find a broader section of websites that provided photo-specific feeds like mine.

Micro.blog has a photo specific feed and Pixelfed is in this general wheelhouse, but possibly not quite what you’re talking about.