Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
It’s a harrowing time. First, we were hit with the COVID pandemic, and in recent weeks, protests and discussions about racial inequities in America have taken the main stage. Businesses are questioning their operating practices (or sometimes being called out for them and canceled) and uncovering how unconscious biases might play a role in everything…
The scope of the privacy changes coming to the digital landscape is so vast, with dominant corporations skirmishing not just with each other but with foreign governments, it may seem like local news publishers have no way to be proactive. But a few of them are hoping to find strength in numbers, using a product…
On journalism, ideas, “ideas”, free speech, and tech. A while ago, I did a Q&A with a venture capitalist who had formerly worked in media. The conversation took place on Clubhouse, the explosively growing audio-driven social network. The topic was the tech industry and journalism, and the discussion had been precipitated by a few weeks…
This weekend, the New York Times published a piece by Cade Metz about Scott Siskind, the brilliant blogging psychiatrist formerly known as Scott Alexander, and the so-called “rationalist” community that grew up around his former blog, Slate Star Codex (SSC), which Siskind sunk to the bottom of the sea this summer because Metz was working…
How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against the New York Times. Illustration by Ben Wiseman On June 22nd, visitors to Slate Star Codex, a long-standing blog of considerable influence, discovered that the site’s cerulean banner and graying WordPress design scheme had been superseded by a barren white…
Android screenshots of the app Honey Quest, which uses technology that keeps tabs on the viewing habits of its users. At first glance, the gaming apps — with names like “Pool 3D,” “Beer Pong: Trickshot” and “Real Bowling Strike 10 Pin” — seem innocuous. One called “Honey Quest” features Jumbo, an animated bear. Yet these…
One day in March of this year, a Google engineer named Justine Tunney created a strange and ultimately doomed petition at the White House website. The petition proposed a three-point national referendum, as follows: 1. Retire all government employees with full pensions. 2. Transfer administrative authority to the tech industry. 3. Appoint [Google executive chairman]…
The media companies of tomorrow should look something like the record labels of today. In the record industry, talent is the driving force behind the business. Talent is the source of the reputation and the end of the line when it comes to driving financial returns. Without great, world-class talent, it doesn’t matter how well…
When theologian Martin Luther debuted his Ninety-five Theses in 16th-century Germany, he triggered a religious Reformation — and also a media revolution. 1630 map of the Maluku Archipelago (Moluccas, or Spice Islands) The printing press, invented approximately 50 years before the 95 Theses, extended Luther’s reach from the door of the cathedral to the entirety…
data-module-name=”article.app/lib/module/wsj/breadcrumbs” The sports website Deadspin lost all of its editorial staff this week in an exodus that complicates its new owner’s effort to turn around the former Gawker Media properties acquired a little over six months ago. The new parent company, G/O Media Inc., which comprises about a dozen sites including Gizmodo and the Onion,…