Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
The FBI was given access to unreleased technology to access the phone of the man identified as the shooter of former President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the investigation. As the FBI struggled to gain access on Sunday morning to the phone, they appealed directly to Cellebrite, a digital intelligence company founded in Israel that…
If you still hold any notion that Google Chrome’s “Incognito mode” is a good way to protect your privacy online, now’s a good time to stop. Google has agreed to delete “billions of data records” the company collected while users browsed the web using Incognito mode, according to documents filed in federal court in San…
Former hedge-fund manager Jeff Bezos bet on a hunch two years ago and ended up with online bookstore Amazon.com, the poster-child of savvy Net commerce, even though it hasn’t earned a cent of profit yet. After a semi-successful IPO and in the midst of a legal scuffle with Barnes & Noble, Bezos says he isn’t…
Jeff Bezos loves being on the move. He sits in the back of a white van, beaming as usual, surrounded by an entourage of lanky young lieutenants from Amazon.com the Web’s biggest retail store and, someday, if Bezos gets it right, Earth’s Biggest Store. The early-morning landscape of southeast Kansas hustles by: wood-frame houses, trailers,…
Former UM privacy chief Arielle Garcia knows the $700bn global digital ad industry is founded on trading “useless, garbage data” because a) she spent a decade in media ops and compliance and b) she’s accessed her own profile from adtech vendors. The result? 500 laughably contradictory audience segments where she is simultaneously woman and man,…
It’s probably not the one I wrote. It would be weird if my book were your favorite book. It’s a geeky book about music-streaming and music and algorithms and technology and curiosity and morality and where we are right now, and your favorite book should probably be an immortal novel about how we always are,…
Many people dream of becoming social-media stars like YouTube’s MrBeast or TikTok’s Charli D’Amelio. But for most who pursue careers as content creators, just making ends meet is a lofty goal. Clint Brantley has been a full-time creator for three years, posting videos on TikTok, YouTube and Twitch where he comments on news and trends related to…
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/12/how-to-build-a-small-solar-power-system/ Image: a solar panel with charge controller and lead-acid battery. Photo by Marie Verdeil. View original image View dithered image Readers have told me they like to build small-scale photovoltaic installations like those that power Low-tech Magazine’s website and office. However, they don’t know where to start and what components to buy. This guide…
“Uncovering Earth’s Secrets: A Journey Into Its Deepest Hole” That’s the title of a made-for-arbitrage (MFA) article about a failed Soviet-era scientific expedition to drill a hole tens of thousands of feet into the Earth’s crust. But it could easily double as a headline for the latest ad tech exposé. The story referenced above appears…
Sales are way up and ROAS is through the roof across search, social and ecommerce. At least, that’s what the ad platforms claim. But dig into the CRM, a brand’s primary source of actual sales data, and site traffic and engagement coming from search and social aren’t jumping. This is a relatively normal occurrence for…