Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Me, scrolling back through seven and a half years of Kotaku articles. I guess everyone eventually writes one of these posts, and today it’s my turn. At the end of December, I’m leaving Kotaku. I’ll continue co-hosting the Splitscreen podcast, but that’s gonna be it. Starting next year, I’m getting back to my first great…
Three months ago, four ad tech vendors flagged that they had identified fake consent strings. Consent strings are generated by a publisher’s consent management platform and passed back to all that publisher’s digital ad partners to show which impressions have user consent for personalized advertising, and which don’t. It seems the issue hasn’t gone away. For…
Executive Summary Advertising technology has built a massive technical infrastructure. The technology and motivations of advertising undergird the economy of the internet. News sites are no exception. The information we seek about our world is underpinned with, and shaped by, advertising and its needs. Journalists need to know more about these technologies, how they work,…
Sudan was at the front of my mind for much of my life. He had a different character from other rhinos – he was so very gentle – and he was like a member of my family. Sudan was born in the wild in Sudan in 1973, captured when he was two and taken to…
Three years ago, on the way to my apartment in Brooklyn to cook dinner for myself and a friend, we stopped into a grocery store that offered build-your-own six-packs of beer. The store had dozens of options of craft beers and ciders in weird flavors, from obscure breweries we had never heard of. We idly…
Google has scrambled to remove third-party apps that led users to child porn sharing groups on WhatsApp in the wake of TechCrunch’s report about the problem last week. We contacted Google with the name of one these apps and evidence that it and others offered links to WhatsApp groups for sharing child exploitation imagery. Following publication of our…
Photo: Columbia Pictures F Holmes & Watson Cast Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Rebecca Hall, Lauren Lapkus, Kelly Macdonald, Rob Brydon, Ralph Fiennes, Pam Ferris Availability Theaters everywhere December 25 We’ve been telling jokes about Sherlock Holmes since the beginning. The earliest send-ups of the world’s greatest detective appeared not long after Arthur Conan Doyle…
Photo: AP With the government shutdown, Donald Trump has been looking for ways to distract the public from his failure to BUILD THE WALL, and a trip to Iraq seemed like a publicity slam dunk for his image at a critical time. Surely he couldn’t fuck this up, right? Unfortunately for the administration, any goodwill…
Year In ReviewThe year. In review. It’s here! It’s finally here! Every year it seems like the big day will never come, but it’s here. It’s the day to gather with your family and friends ‘round the hearth, warm beverages and sweet treats at the ready, and have a hearty chortle over the things…
Photo: Artwork by Ayatgali Tuleubek In late November, the Justice Department unsealed indictments against eight people accused of fleecing advertisers of $36 million in two of the largest digital ad-fraud operations ever uncovered. Digital advertisers tend to want two things: people to look at their ads and “premium” websites — i.e., established and legitimate publications…