Remember that song “99 bottles of beer on the wall?” Singing down the numbers helped children endure long car journeys before tablets, even if it drove their parents to distraction. We…
Reads
Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
👓 The Sex Life of Samuel Pepys | Royal Museums Greenwich
This Valentine's Day our curator, Kristian Martin, looks at the notorious sex life of the famous diarist Samuel Pepys.
Odd that he didn’t try to hide this better. It’s also more interesting to read this in the year of #MeToo.
👓 Diet of the Ancient Mariner | Hakai Magazine
An unprecedented archaeology experiment is putting historical shipboard food and drink to the test.
👓 The ship’s biscuit | Royal Museums Greenwich
The ship’s biscuit was an important part of the sailor's sea diet before the introduction of canned foods.
👓 Why Mueller Has to Expose Trump’s Crooked Business Empire | Daily Intelligencer | New York Magazine
If Trump is laundering money, and he probably is, the Russians know about it. So do Michael Cohen’s gangster friends.
I read the story about Trump’s empire the other day and remarked about how screwwy the situation seemed and wondered where the investigation into his businesses and taxes was and why we hadn’t heard much about it. Well it seems to be coming out in more force.
In this article, Chait indicates what is only incredibly obliquely implied in that Washington Post article: Trump is likely laundering money for Russian concerns for he can’t honestly have the native cash flow from honest dealings to be spending the way he has. This is a much more stark take on this recent financial reporting.
👓 Theory: Playboy Model Who Got $1.6 Million Had Affair With Trump, Not Broidy | Daily Intelligencer | New York Magazine
Michael Cohen arranged a $1.6 million payout to a model allegedly impregnated by GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy. But was Broidy covering for Trump?
Ho-ly Shiiitttt!! This is a major bomb of a theory!!
It’s well reasoned and incredibly well laid out. Having read it, I can’t help but think that the logic is solid and the probabilities are far more in favor of the theory than they are of the previously reported stories holding water.
I literally can’t wait to see how this plays out…
👓 Save Barnes & Noble! | New York Times
David Leonhardt (nytimes.com)It’s in trouble. And Washington’s flawed antitrust policy is a big reason.
There are some squirrel-ly things that Amazon is managing to get away with, and they’re not all necessarily good.
👓 One space between each sentence, they said. Science just proved them wrong. | Washington Post
“Professionals and amateurs in a variety of fields have passionately argued for either one or two spaces following this punctuation mark,” they wrote in a paper published last week in the journal Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.
They cite dozens of theories and previous research, arguing for one space or two. A 2005 study that found two spaces reduced lateral interference in the eye and helped reading. A 2015 study that found the opposite. A 1998 experiment that suggested it didn't matter.
“However,” they wrote, “to date, there has been no direct empirical evidence in support of these claims, nor in favor of the one-space convention.”
I love that the permalink for this article has a trailing 2, which indicates to me that it took the editors a second attempt to add the additional space into the headline for their CMS. And if nothing else, this article is interesting for its layout and typesetting.
I’ll circle back to read the full journal article shortly.1
References
1.
Johnson RL, Bui B, Schmitt LL. Are two spaces better than one? The effect of spacing following periods and commas during reading. Atten Percept Psychophys. April 2018. doi:10.3758/s13414-018-1527-6
👓 Privacy | David Shanske
David Shanske (David Shanske)I admit to a certain amount of frustration on the subject of privacy lately. It seems, in all aspects of my life, both personal and professional, the new data privacy regulations that the EU rolls out May 25th are a theme in every discussion.
Some interesting thoughts on personal data and privacy. I can’t wait to talk to David about some of this in greater depth in our next podcast episode.
👓 MailChimp RSS to Email Newsletter – A Complete Guide | WPism
A Complete Guide to set up email Newsletter using MailChimp RSS to Email feature. Learn how to use MailChimp RSS Campaign to send an automated Newsletter.
Nothing stupendous here that I couldn’t figure out by just moving my way through Mail Chimp’s online workflow. Of course this probably speaks reasonably well of Mail Chimp’s user interface.
Hopefully tomorrow we’ll have a weekly newsletter up and running.
👓 Daniel Goldsmith’s reply to Sebastian Greger
Sebastian, first of all, thank you for your detailed write up on this issue. I think much of your roadmap is worthwhile, and of great interest.
I cannot, however, say that I am convinced by your contentions regarding the effect of GDPR and indieweb sites. In particular, I think your definitions are excessively broad, and you elide much information from both the Regulation itself and the Recitals.
It’s certainly interesting to see some of the replies to Sebastian’s article. It’s definitely stirring up some interesting thought. Daniel’s reply here is primarily to the legal issues at stake more than the design related issues, which have some interesting merit aside from the legal ones.
I think I fall somewhere in the middle of the two and see some of the moral and ethical pieces which are more important from a people perspective. I’m not as concerned about the law portion of it for a large variety of reasons. It’s most interesting to me to see the divide between how those in the EU and particularly Germany view the issue and those in the United States which may be looking at regulations in the coming years, particularly after the recent Facebook debacle.
As I think of these, I’m reminded about some of the cultural differences between Europe and the United States which Jeff Jarvis has expounded upon over the past several years. Europeans are generally more leery of corporations and trust government a bit more while in America it’s the opposite.
👓 The Web We Need to Give Students | BRIGHT Magazine
“Giving students their own digital domain is a radical act. It gives them the ability to work on the Web and with the Web.”
Not sure how this surfaced into my feeds again today, but interesting to see it pop up. I’m also noticing that Audrey smartly posted a copy to her own site after it appeared in Bright.
In this article, she touches on some reasons why it’s important for students to have their own domain, but many of these ideas and arguments also work well for almost anyone. It’s interesting to see how similar the philosophy she describes here dovetails with that of the IndieWeb.
👓 How to manage older blog posts | Diverse Tech Geek
I take a look at some tips, plus an infographic, on how to handle older blog posts, as part of regular blog maintenance duties.
Nothing new or brilliant here for me. A lot of the focus is on anti-archival methods as well as improving SEO without necessarily mentioning SEO.
👓 Neanderthals produced symbolic art, research suggests | Cosmos Magazine
Grooves on an ancient piece of flint might have been made intentionally to encode information. Andrew Masterson reports.
An interesting synopsis though I suspect the paper is far more detailed.
h/t to @CosmosMagazine
Grooves on an ancient piece of flint might have been made by Neanderthals to intentionally to encode information. https://t.co/DkXzFjbegA
— Cosmos Magazine (@CosmosMagazine) May 4, 2018
bookmarked on May 03, 2018 at 09:03PM
👓 The Hobo Ethical Code of 1889: 15 Rules for Living a Self-Reliant, Honest & Compassionate Life | Open Culture
Who wants to be a billionaire? A few years ago, Forbes published author Roberta Chinsky Matuson’s sensible advice to businesspersons seeking to shoot up that golden ladder.
Interesting to see this code laid out in detail after having been a fan of John Sturges’ films. Also interesting to see some of the language of the time: “jungling” and “boil up”.
The Hobo Ethical Code
1. Decide your own life; don’t let another person run or rule you.
2. When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.
3. Don’t take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hobos.
4. Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but ensure employment should you return to that town again.
5. When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts.
6. Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals’ treatment of other hobos.
7. When jungling in town, respect handouts, do not wear them out, another hobo will be coming along who will need them as badly, if not worse than you.
8. Always respect nature, do not leave garbage where you are jungling.
9. If in a community jungle, always pitch in and help.
10. Try to stay clean, and boil up wherever possible.
11. When traveling, ride your train respectfully, take no personal chances, cause no problems with the operating crew or host railroad, act like an extra crew member.
12. Do not cause problems in a train yard, another hobo will be coming along who will need passage through that yard.
13. Do not allow other hobos to molest children; expose all molesters to authorities…they are the worst garbage to infest any society.
14. Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.
15. Help your fellow hobos whenever and wherever needed, you may need their help someday.
h/t to @codinghorror
The hobo ethical code of 1889 https://t.co/i6TbzJK7Ou
— Jeff Atwood (@codinghorror) May 4, 2018
Bookmarked on May 03, 2018 at 09:46PM