👓 I went on a date with Aziz Ansari. It turned into the worst night of my life | Babe.net

Read I went on a date with Aziz Ansari. It turned into the worst night of my life by Katie Way (babe)
Exclusive -- A young photographer told the comedian: ‘I want to make sure you're aware so maybe the next girl doesn't have to cry on the ride home’
Reading as follow up to the provocative article I read in The Atlantic yesterday. I’m a bit more interested in the cultural differences brought up by The Atlantic author and the millennial viewpoint in this article.

I’m often struck with people’s seeming lack of ability to communicate verbally, and this seems even more apparent with the millennial generations. Also striking is “Grace’s” even more dramatic reaction to the encounter after she’d had time to discuss it more with friends. It almost reads as if she didn’t know what to think of things by herself without the filter of her friends’ comments and thoughts. I’m curious if this phenomenon is generational and what role the texting/sharing/social media environment of the past decade has or hasn’t done to impact this viewpoint.

Some thoughts about the journalistic perspective

I spent a few minutes looking into babe as a source and I’m even more curious how to take the story given the photo I found at the bottom of their article and the text from their “about page” which is given the permalink path “/manifesto”. Their top menu rail includes the topics: “news, lust, fads, looks, IRL, pop” which makes me even more suspicious.

Given these and their apparent size and exuberant youth and lack of experience, I have to wonder about their journalistic integrity a bit. While they did seemingly go to some lengths to verify Grace’s story with friends and back it up with apparent photos and texts, it almost plays as journalistic theater copying work and stories they’ve likely recently read out of The Washington Post and The New York Times. How does such a small publication get a story and choose to push it right after the Golden Globes in such a way? Are the editors or writer friends with the subject or even the subject herself? If so this should be mentioned for full disclosure in the article. Especially in the case where they may be trying to press such an article into the mainstream and thereby have some significant exposure and financial upside for themselves.

Page header on babe’s “manifesto” and found at the bottom of the story.

We publish our own voices, uncensored and unfiltered
babe started in May 2016 as an experiment by a group of editors in our early twenties. We now reach more than 3 million readers a month, and a million girls follow us on Facebook. And because we aren’t owned by a magazine empire which needs cover stars, we can say what we like.

We know our readers like we know our friends. On babe we put out the kind of media we want to read – stories and videos and memes that are as spontaneous and savage as what goes down our group chats. And then on Fridays we get drunk together.

babe is into good news reporting, trash trends, personal stories, industry-leading analysis of fuckboys and the pettiest celebrity drama.

And we’re cool with admitting that we are full of contradictions, because all girls are. We care about safe sex and access to birth control, but know sometimes you just need to pop some Plan B. Find us in the gap between our image of ourselves and how we actually behave.

Hang with us here, read our top stories here, tell us where we’ve fucked up here.

👓 The Humiliation of Aziz Ansari | The Atlantic

Read The Humiliation of Aziz Ansari by Caitlin Flanagan (The Atlantic)
Allegations against the comedian are proof that women are angry, temporarily powerful—and very, very dangerous.
I love that the author discusses her personal background and cultural viewpoint here. It’s certainly an interesting perspective on the movement in the past six months. I’m quite curious to read the underlying source article. Until now I’ve not heard of babe as a source at all.

👓 Lana Del Rey says Radiohead suing over song’s similarity to Creep | Music | The Guardian

Read Lana Del Rey says Radiohead suing over song's similarity to Creep by Ben Beaumont-Thomas (the Guardian)
The singer-songwriter tweeted ‘it’s true about the lawsuit’, saying Radiohead are asking for 100% of the publishing royalties to her track Get Free

👓 Limits and Colimits, Part 1 (Introduction) | Math3ma

Read Limits and Colimits, Part 1 (Introduction) by Tai-Danae BradleyTai-Danae Bradley (Math3ma)
I'd like to embark on yet another mini-series here on the blog. The topic this time? Limits and colimits in category theory! But even if you're not familiar with category theory, I do hope you'll keep reading. Today's post is just an informal, non-technical introduction. And regardless of your categorical background, you've certainly come across many examples of limits and colimits, perhaps without knowing it! They appear everywhere - in topology, set theory, group theory, ring theory, linear algebra, differential geometry, number theory, algebraic geometry. The list goes on. But before diving in, I'd like to start off by answering a few basic questions.
A great little introduction to category theory! Can’t wait to see what the future installments bring.

Interestingly I came across this on Instagram. It may be one of the first times I’ve seen math at this level explained in pictorial form via Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdd8vmfBQvG/

👓 Crohn’s disease patient in fact had Heinz sauce sachet perforating intestine | The Guardian

Read Crohn's disease patient in fact had Heinz sauce sachet perforating intestine (the Guardian)
After six years of failing to respond to standard treatment, woman underwent surgery which found cause of symptoms

👓 The #2018Liberation List | Cate Huston – Medium

Read The #2018Liberation List by Cate Huston (Medium)
I hate New Year’s resolutions. Not because I don’t believe in goals, or working on myself, or the new year as a time to reflect and adjust… but because I’m tired of focusing on the ways that I am inadequate and need to do better. I hate seeing my friends worry about what they need to do better — especially right now, when the world is selling so many of us short. So for 2018 I made a different list, and I asked a bunch of friends to do the same. This is the list of things I’m freeing myself from in 2018. My #2018Liberation list. Join us? I want to read yours, too.
The originating post for this concept.

👓 The #2018Liberation List | Ellen K. Pao – Medium

Read The #2018Liberation List by Ellen K. Pao (Medium)
Yesterday morning I tweeted about letting go in 2018. Then Cate Huston and Jean Hsu told me about this project on 2018 liberation. And I agreed to join and wrote this post. It’s less well-formulated than I’d like, but it’s really how I’m feeling and thinking about all the things I want to let go of in 2018.
I’ve now read a few of these lists and it’s interesting how seemingly insecure so many people, many of which I look up to, are often in spite of their tremendous influence and success.

👓 2018 New Year’s Liberations | Jean Hsu – Medium

Read 2018 New Year’s Liberations by Jean Hsu (Medium)
Thanks to Cate Huston for starting us off with her New Year’s Liberations. We need to be explicit about what we say no to, to make time and room and mental energy for what it is we want.

👓 My #2018Liberations | Ben Werdmuller – Medium

Read My #2018Liberations by Ben Werdmuller (Medium)
In lieu of resolutions this year, Cate Huston wrote a set of liberations, starting a movement. My friend Jean Hsu also wrote a liberating, personal list, which is where I discovered it, and Ellen K. Pao has a characteristically thoughtful entry. I like the framing a lot: rather than creating a set of requirements for my new year, which is what a resolution does, I’m freeing myself from a set. So here’s my list of things I’m liberating myself from in 2018:
 

👓 Twitter’s weeds | Manton Reece

Read Twitter's weeds by Manton ReeceManton Reece (manton.micro.blog)
Mike Monteiro wrote on Medium this week about the daunting, insurmountable problems facing Twitter’s leadership team. He talked about meeting in person with Jack Dorsey: We discussed Twitter’s role in the world stage. And I admired his vision, but feared his approach. Jack, and to an extent Twit...

👓 Where exactly is all this content in Facebook, Twitter, et al. coming from? | Khürt Williams

Read Where exactly is all this content in Facebook, Twitter, et al. coming from? by Khürt WilliamsKhürt Williams (islandinthenet.com)
I wrote or linked to a number of articles in 2014 and 2016 about the downsides to social media and my attempts to free myself from Google and Facebook’s experiments. I no longer spend any significant time on either platform but I am quite excited to have found the tribe that understands the vulnerabilities these entities present to an open web.

👓 15 Things You Should Know About Michelangelo’s Pietà | Mental Floss

Read 15 Things You Should Know About Michelangelo's Pietà by Kristy Puchko (mentalfloss.com)
Since its creation in 1499, Michelangelo's Pietà has inspired emotion, faith, and imitation through its elegant depiction of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. Yet few know the secrets that are still being uncovered about this centuries-old statue.

👓 An Open Letter on Why We’re Removing Usernames, Addressed to the Worst Ones We’ve Ever Seen | OKCupid

Read An Open Letter on Why We’re Removing Usernames, Addressed to the Worst Ones We’ve Ever Seen by OkCupid (Medium)
Or best, depending on how you look at it—sorry, DoritoprincessXO What’s in a name? You see, DaddyzPrincess29*, we all have names. Good, noble names that took weeks, perhaps months to choose— from Hannah to Jordan to Lady Bird. And what we’ve discovered is that those names actually work best—better than usernames—when it comes connecting with people. So listen closely laidback___stu, because this applies to you — even if you are straight chilling right now on a basement futon. Ahead of the new year, we’re removing OkCupid usernames. It’s starting with a test group and will soon be rolled out to everyone on OkCupid, so all users will need to update their profiles with what they want their dates to call them. We know, this is tough to hear — especially for StayingPawwsitive, Dootdootledootd0 and Britney__Tears. It’s because, like the recent goodbye we said to AIM screen names, it’s time to keep up with the times. We want you, BigDaddyFlash916, to go by who you are, and not be hidden beneath another layer of mystique. Even if that mystique is crucial to you and your dating life, unicorn__jizz.
A somewhat funny, but very germane take on online identities and usernames.

👓 whitehouse.gov Redesign | inkdroid

Read whitehouse.gov Redesign (inkdroid.org)
TLDR; By “redesign” I actually mean clusterfuck. As of last Thursday 47% of the 315 whitehouse.gov URLs I’ve collected during 2017 are now 404 Not Found
Dollars to donuts this goes down to switching CMSes from Drupal to WordPress–probably because the tech team doesn’t know Drupal, but also doesn’t know how to remap the URLs or to port over any of the data. I’ll bet it’s down more to incompetence than it is being evil, though being evil may be part of it too.