April 22, 2021
Aaron A. Reed on Judy Malloy’s Uncle Roger
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completely new to me, a pioneering work of interactive fiction on the WELL that predates games like Her Story by 30 years
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Join my birthday paste party
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last year, I wrote about why I love these and their long history online
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Ed Zitron on the misplaced wrath directed at social media managers
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"the average social media manager has very little power over any of the decisions but all of the consequences"
(via)
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Charlie Warzel on Facebook’s worrying embrace of the creator economy
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I expect these monetization tools will be a hit for Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro, and their other biggest pages
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IRS estimates tax cheats are costing the U.S. $1 trillion a year
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offshore tax evasion, cryptocurrency, and other methods allow the richest 1% to hide 20% of their income
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Crypto casino apps on iOS are masquerading as children’s games
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like backdoor speakeasies, they only appear if you're in certain countries or on a VPN
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The Guardian on India’s devastating virus surge
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they're nearly one-third of all new cases worldwide, with nearly 300k yesterday
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Derek Chauvin found guilty on all counts of George Floyd’s murder
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not justice, but a rare moment of accountability after a year of protests
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The war between McDonald’s and a startup trying to fix their unreliable ice-cream machines
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they sold a device to monitor and repair the notoriously finicky hardware and ended up in court
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Zoom Jeopardy!
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amazing TouchDesigner mod to play archival or custom Jeopardy! games with friends over Zoom, get it before it's C&Ded
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The Story of “A Thousand Miles”
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VICE interviewed virtually everyone involved with Vanessa Carlton's 2002 hit, including Terry Crews
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NYPD deploys Spot Mini to public housing complex
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creepy authoritarian surveillance just got more dystopian
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Discord will block NSFW servers on iOS
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did Apple require this change or is this Discord's attempt to get their 12+ rating back?
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Just One Day – 2winz²
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the only thing better than Brian David Gilbert is four Brian David Gilberts
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Visualizing the risk-reward of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine
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the risk is so absurdly small, it seems inevitable that many more people die as a result of halting distribution
(via)
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Charlie Warzel on Twitter and context collapse
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the first issue of his new Galaxy Brain newsletter on the attention economy
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Officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright resigns, as does Brooklyn Center police chief
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yet another racist killing of an unarmed black man, 15 miles from where George Floyd was killed
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Teaching a Spot Mini to pee beer
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Michael Reeves is like the edgelord version of Simone Giertz
(via)
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Patrick Klepek on Cruel World, a multiplayer game designed to degrade as people play it selfishly
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it originated as a commentary on NFTs, but evolved beyond the creator's expectations
(via)
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Guardian investigation finds Facebook ignored “Page abuse” loophole used for political manipulation by world leaders
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they prioritized enforcement for rich countries and their adversaries, while internal reports about abuse elsewhere languished for months
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Ben Smith on Substack
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big scoops in here including Daniel Lavery's deal, Charlie Warzel leaving the NYT, the Sidechannel Discord, and a Gawker revival?!
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What was the original URL for Yahoo before it was called Yahoo?
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a simple question from Joanne McNeil sent me on a rabbit hole through Usenet, listservs, and the Internet Archive
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Rocky Horror played to an empty theater for 54 weeks. Now, audiences return to Portland’s longest-running movie
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"I was in a position to keep a flame burning, to keep a torch lit."
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Pocari Sweat commercial’s astounding in-camera effects
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watch the behind-the-scenes video to see the rolling walkways in more detail
(via)
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Google blocks advertisers from using social/racial justice keywords for ad targeting on YouTube
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"Black Lives Matter" and "Black power" were blocked, but "white lives matter" and "white power" were allowed
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Fyre Fest attendee auctioning viral tweet for a new kidney on Ja Rule’s NFT platform
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this entire story is a sad sandwich
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Justin McElroy’s loving ode to Yahoo! Answers
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for over a decade, My Brother, My Brother and Me turned its silliest questions into comedy gold
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NYT analyzes restrictions in Georgia’s new voting law
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Republicans are working overtime to make sure fewer people can vote to regain control
(via)
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Leaked internal database of police departments using Clearview AI
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provided to Buzzfeed News from an anonymous source, as of February 2020
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The Hidden Game Within Microsoft Flight Simulator
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using the photo mode to turn it into a walking simulator, exploring the glitchy planet from ground level
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Lauren Goode on algorithms that won’t let her forget her canceled marriage
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six years ago, Eric Meyer wrote about inadvertent algorithmic cruelty
(via)
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New Yorker’s Rachel Aviv profiles memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus
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her controversial research on false memories made her a popular expert witness casting doubt on claims of sexual assault
(via)
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Yahoo Answers shutting down on May 4
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just like Yahoo to delete 16 years of community-contributed content with 30 days' notice
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NYT on the Trump campaign’s dark design patterns for fundraising
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they tricked donors into emptying their bank accounts with automatic weekly donations
(via)
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StyleCLIP, manipulating StyleGAN imagery with text
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don't miss the absurdly impressive demo video
(via)
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Anil Dash on inventing NFTs with artist Kevin McCoy in 2014
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their haha-just-serious Seven on Seven presentation is worth watching, if you've never seen it
(via)
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How QAnon Is Tearing Families Apart
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VICE interviewed three dozen people about their QAnon family members of widely-varying backgrounds
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Reddit’s Second
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try to guess the second-most voted picture, or wait to see vote counts for fewer points
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