👓 New WordPress Plugin Shows Users Where a Plugin’s Settings Link Is Upon Activation

Read New WordPress Plugin Shows Users Where a Plugin’s Settings Link Is Upon Activation (WordPress Tavern)
A common frustration I’ve experienced in WordPress after installing a plugin is figuring out where the settings link is located. It can be a top-level menu item or tucked away in a sub-menu. …

👓 How ‘Qi’ And ‘Za’ Changed Scrabble | FiveThirtyEight

Read How ‘Qi’ And ‘Za’ Changed Scrabble by Oliver Roeder (FiveThirtyEight)
The biggest change happened that same year, in March, when a new dictionary, the second edition of the Official Tournament and Club Word List, took effect. This edition christened QI and ZA as valid Scrabble words in North American play, along with FE, KI, OI and an additional 11,000-odd longer words. Two-letter words are the building blocks of Scrabble’s DNA, and the Q and Z are juicy high-point tiles — so the game evolved instantly.1 You can see that in the data set I created by scraping over 1.5 million tournament games covering the years 1973 to 2017 from cross-tables.com, an online clearinghouse for Scrabble tournament results. After the new dictionary hit the scene, the average score grew by about 10 points per player per game overnight. (The average score in the data set is about 374.)2

👓 Easier POSSE with Micropub Edits? | Marty McGuire

Read Easier POSSE with Micropub Edits? by Marty McGuireMarty McGuire (martymcgui.re)
In keeping with the IndieWeb concept of POSSE (Publishing on my Own Site, Syndicating Elsewhere), I try to make social media posts on my own site first and then make similar (not always identical!) posts to my accounts on silos like Twitter and Facebook. I then add links to the posts on my site indicating that you can find the "syndicated copies" of that post on those silos.

👓 What Does “Woke” Mean? There’s More To The Slang Term Than You Think | Bustle

Read There's More To "Woke" Than You Think (Bustle)
Unless you've been living under a rock (or just very much removed from social media, in which case, I applaud you for going to a place I never will), then the concept of "woke" being used as an adjective is not a particularly new thing for you. As…

👓 Cookie Monster on the Dole | New Yorker

Read Cookie Monster on the Dole by Henry Alford (The New Yorker)

170417_r29744 CreditIllustration by Yann Kebbi

Hard times for Muppets! Sad! Me think unemployment not easy for puppet with addiction issues. Me find unemployment very triggering. Me want to ask government, “Who is real monster here?”

Colleagues bad now, too. Elmo spiral into depression and eat his goldfish, Dorothy. Pepé the King Prawn worry about deportation. Miss Piggy now glorified geisha, forced to be active listener. Only good thing is most of us newly politicized. Me is totally woke. Use new free time to rally colleagues and to dialogue. Camaraderie good! Camaraderie powerful! During long hours together in unemployment line, you can really get deep, you can really go beyond the felt.

What strange to Muppet community is Muppets always like Donald Trump. Donald Trump always somehow seem like kindred spirit. Donald Trump seem like slightly more organized Fraggle. Yes, in nineteen-eighties, on “Sesame Street,” Ronald Grump character built tower of trash cans on Oscar’s turf. Yes, other time, on special, Joe Pesci play Ronald Grump and spit on Elmo. But mocking was gentle. Mocking gentle, and plus we give lots airtime. Donald Trump like airtime. Airtime is hair time. The letter “H”!

Me trying to transition into this new life chapter with grace. Me trying to find bright side: no more pledge drives, no more feeling old when realize all favorite TV shows are sponsored by river cruises. But sometimes cloud come over me in afternoon. Cloud of realization. Cloud of sad. More reflective now. Time makes puppets of us all. Bad!

Me talk to agent about possible second career as recording artist, because me often mistaken for gravel-voiced singer Tom Waits. Me think me has everything Tom Waits has, plus me is blue. Sad songs from blue person, very good, very meta. Agent laugh. Agent say more realistic direction is recovery memoir and TED talk. Agent say more realistic direction is therapy pet who visit hospitals—“Make-A-Wish but the meter is running, hon.” Agent also say that he get call about Cookie working as kind of Swiffer—some company want Cookie as a “electrostatic stanching shammy.” Now me laugh. Me think contemporary consumerism like virus that eat brain. Me unclear about meaning of “electrostatic stanching shammy,” but me pretty sure it mean rag.

So. Me trying to be big. Me trying to reap benefits of talk therapy. Therapist point out that Cookie strong because Cookie weathered changing attitudes about eating. Therapist talk about time, in 2005, when show had Hoots the Owl sing “A Cookie Is a Sometime Food.” Stupid song. Stupid song suggesting me had no jurisdiction or agency over throbbing id. That song the beginning of the end. That the singing on the wall. Me not like that song! That song just another unseen hand reaching up the Cookie ying-yang.

Now this new government hand. It not nice like Frank Oz hand. Frank Oz smell good, have light touch. Government hand rough, like that of teen-age boy. So now me take only route available: me wage cookie hunger strike. Me get Hoots the Owl to do duet of new song, “Bye-Bye, Biscotti.” Me get outside consulting firm to create slogan: “Nom, Nom NO.” Me tell world that “C” is not for cookie, “C” is for cauterize the wound that is direct result of rapacious governing. Me get sympathetic People cover in manner of survivor of rare disease.

Meanwhile, me send message to Washington via quiet assertion of strength. Me remind government that Cookie Monster have no eyelids. Me remind government that Cookie Monster always watching. 

👓 From Witches to Dolphins, These Are the Communities That Make Mastodon Great | Motherboard

Read From Witches to Dolphins, These Are the Communities That Make Mastodon Great (Motherboard)
The top five Mastodon instances as judged by meaningless criteria that we refuse to disclose.

👓 Closing Communities: FFFFOUND! vs MLKSHK | Waxy.org

Read Closing Communities: FFFFOUND! vs MLKSHK by Andy Baio (waxy.org)
Next month, two seminal image-sharing communities, FFFFOUND! and MLKSHK, will close their doors within a week of each other. Launched in June 2007 as a side-project by a Japanese design agency, FFFFOUND borrowed the visual bookmarklets of Wists, a social shopping service launched a year earlier, to...

Photo of all the Dr. Pepper knockoffs

Read Photo of all the Dr. Pepper knockoffs (Boing Boing)
Spotted doing the viral rounds and unattributed (though watermarked with a URL that redirects to Elbe Spurling's website) this wall of Dr. Pepper knockoffs is a magnificent lesson in branding magic and semiotics and all that fancy jazz.
Continue reading Photo of all the Dr. Pepper knockoffs

Burger King’s new ad forces Google Home to advertise the Whopper | The Verge

Read Burger King’s new ad forces Google Home to advertise the Whopper by Jacob Kastrenakes (The Verge)
Burger King is unveiling a horrible, genius, infuriating, hilarious, and maybe very poorly thought-out ad today that’s designed to intentionally set off Google Homes and Android phones.
Continue reading Burger King’s new ad forces Google Home to advertise the Whopper | The Verge

The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism | Tow Center for Digital Journalism

Read The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism by Emily Bell and Taylor Owen (Tow Center for Digital Journalism)

The influence of social media platforms and technology companies is having a greater effect on American journalism than even the shift from print to digital. There is a rapid takeover of traditional publishers’ roles by companies including Facebook, Snapchat, Google, and Twitter that shows no sign of slowing, and which raises serious questions over how the costs of journalism will be supported. These companies have evolved beyond their role as distribution channels, and now control what audiences see and who gets paid for their attention, and even what format and type of journalism flourishes.

Publishers are continuing to push more of their journalism to third-party platforms despite no guarantee of consistent return on investment. Publishing is no longer the core activity of certain journalism organizations. This trend will continue as news companies give up more of the traditional functions of publishers.

This report, part of an ongoing study by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, charts the convergence between journalism and platform companies. In the span of 20 years, journalism has experienced three significant changes in business and distribution models: the switch from analog to digital, the rise of the social web, and now the dominance of mobile. This last phase has seen large technology companies dominate the markets for attention and advertising and has forced news organizations to rethink their processes and structures.