Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
The Seattle Police have hired the programmer who inundated the department with requests for footage from the city’s police body camera program last year, and then later, requested nearly every email Washington State government ever sent. If you can’t beat ‘em, hire ‘em. Yep, The Stranger reports that Seattle Police will hire 24-year-old programmer Tim…
In Jon Ronson’s interview with “Mercedes,” a 4chan activist, for his controversial nonfiction book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, she offhandedly explains why controversial site operates the way it does: “On the Internet, we have power in situations where we would otherwise be powerless.” Ronson’s book and many similar inquiries into the social media hive mind are interested…
Begin: WordPress Article Content Send an instant message asking for something, and they’ll do the grunt work of placing your order and getting it delivered to you. That’s the idea for Uber co-founder Garret Camp‘s new startup Operator that’s still in stealth, according to sources with direct knowledge of the app.You might have heard of…
Apple Watch and the induced demand of communication APR 08 2015 Some sort of embargo seems to have lifted because here come the Apple Watch reviews! As I’m unanointed by Apple, I haven’t experienced Apple Watch in the flesh, but I do have a few random thoughts and guesses. John Gruber notes that why Apple…
Students at Columbia University are fretting over the arrest of a fellow undergraduate accused of dealing drugs on campus. The alleged dealer was an active user of Venmo, a mobile app for sending money to people, and on Venmo, transactions are public by default. Yes, even drug transactions. Much of his activity has since been removed or…
As we increasingly outsource our memories to devices, we may be forgetting the pleasures of imperfect recall. What if Marcel Proust had kept an Instagram account? What if he’d used a smartphone to snap a photo of every evocative morsel he’d ever eaten? Would he still have written “In Search of Lost Time,” his multivolume…
At its F8 developers conference today, Facebook offered a first look at a solar-powered drone capable of beaming internet access to remote areas around the globe. Built by Ascenta, the solar-powered droner developer Facebook acquired last year for $20 million, the drone is huge. It has a wingspan larger than that of a Boeing 737…
An algorithm that just went up for auction in New York. (Chris Maury, “Progression: Triptych, 2011-2013.” Available on Artsy.net.) Until about three weeks ago, Pinterest was — hands down, no contest — my absolute favorite social network. Yeah, I know it lacks the cachet of Twitter or Snapchat. I understand its associations with the bored…
Tayser Abuhamdeh doesn’t have what most people would call an exciting job. He works behind the counter at a deli in Brooklyn, a small shop that does a brisk business in snacks, coffee, and cigarettes. In June of last year, on a whim and mostly out of boredom, Abuhamdeh mounted his phone next to the…
Tesla basically just ignited the driverless car era Elon Musk discusses the all-wheel drive Tesla D in October 2014. Image: Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated Press By Chris Taylor2015-03-20 01:22:19 UTC The computer-controlled driverless car is barreling down the road of the future towards us. We’ve known this for a long time, but the speed and the…