Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
In years to come, conversations will breathe new life into software — particularly the boring enterprise tools millions of knowledge workers begrudgingly use every day. Conversational user interfaces (CUIs) work because of our familiarity with messaging. Even the most technically complex interactions can look as simple as getting an SMS text when presented as a conversation. There…
Hipsters were today hailed as capitalists boosting Britain’s culture and economy as it reshapes its position on the world stage. In his first keynote speech, culture and digital minister Matthew Hancock said London’s art and tech sectors are key to the UK “paying her way” after Brexit. He highlighted how innovative parts of London…
“Can I give you a call?” It’s the worst possible reply to an email, but one I receive all too often in the course of reporting. Phone calls are journalistically indispensable when you want to conduct an extended interview, but for a routine query or point of clarification, email is much, much better. Besides which,…
Harassment is rife on social media. Users are allegedly targeted for no reason other than their gender or the color of their skin and the only response by these platforms is to ban users who violate their code of conduct. More often than not, users simply engage in online arguments with each other based on…
Kotaku, alongside Polygon and a handful of other similar sites, has developed a bad reputation with gamers because of efforts by a few of its writers to inject “social justice” politics into the culture and discussion surrounding video games. What gamers want to do is simply play video games and visit websites to discuss the…
Hedge fund manager Todd Newman’s successful career was upended when he was prosecuted for insider trading. After his conviction was thrown out on appeal, the case became a landmark in Wall Street regulation. An inside look at what it’s like to be stalked by the feds—and not back down. The phone call that changed…
In October of last year, Twitter made the hard decision to remove the tweet count data the way it was presented at the time, without replacing it. I would say they simply removed the API access, but that’s not strictly true, because there was no real API for that data. They announced the news in…
Facebook can’t win the war it started on ad blockers last week. So say Princeton assistant professor Arvind Narayanan and undergraduate Grant Storey, who have created an experimental ad “highlighter” for the Chrome browser to prove it. When you have Facebook Ad Highlighter installed, ads in the News Feed are grayed out and written…
Oh well, looks like Facebook just got all anti-user · 2016-08-09 17:52 by Ben Williams Earlier today Facebook announced that it would start trying to circumvent users with ad-blocking software and show them ads. This is an unfortunate move, because it takes a dark path against user choice. But it’s also no reason to overreact:…
Where have America’s young men gone? According to Erik Hurst, an economist from the University of Chicago, they haven’t gone anywhere—they’re just plugged in. In a recent interview, Hurst says that his research indicates that young men with less than a four-year degree (according to virtually all data, that’s an increasing number) are spending their…