Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Today is the 20th anniversary of the Nintendo 64, which is an excuse to play one of the console’s better games, Goldeneye. Which means I must remember the brilliant meme that game inspired: Geddan. Unfortunately, remembering is the best I can do. Geddan, my favorite meme, has been all but erased from the internet. Geddan…
Your Twitter handle may soon be part of the US visa process. Yesterday, US Customs and Border Patrol entered a new proposal into the federal register, suggesting a new field in which persons entering the country can declare their various social media accounts and screen names. The information wouldn’t be mandatory, but the proposed field would…
In Kuwait, the penalty for blasphemy can be as severe as death. That’s why a new campaign to dox young Kuwaiti women with independent minds is so dangerous. A band of Twitter trolls alleging to be from the Middle East spent Sunday and Monday repeatedly reporting “atheist” and pro-LGBT girls and women to the local…
PARIS, FRANCE – JUNE 21: Germany fans show their support prior to the UEFA EURO 2016 Group C match between Northern Ireland and Germany at Parc des Princes on June 21, 2016 in Paris, France.Shaun Botterill/Getty Images A German court on Friday handed publisher Axel Springer — the parent company of Business Insider, Bild, and…
image: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac Requiem for a Headphone Jack The latest bit of antiquated technology Apple is going to kill. Thank god. I can’t wait for how much this is going to piss some people off. But I say YES, please. I tweeted that last November in response to a rumor that Apple would…
One chilly afternoon in March, Michelle Malliett came home to her Mission district apartment to find a legal notice taped to her door. The notice gave her three days to move out of her two-bedroom apartment, an illegal in-law unit that she shares with her 17-year-old daughter. Her reaction? “I panicked,” she recalls. Malliett, 49,…
The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me… or Can we design sociotechnical systems that don’t suck I found Shane Snow’s essay on prison reform — “How Soylent and Oculus Could Fix the Prison System” — through hatelinking. Friends of mine hated the piece so much that normally articulate people were at a loss for…
Image: Sarah Jeong There’s a sit-in right now in the House of Representatives over gun control. Republicans blocked a vote over the “no fly, no buy” bill (preventing terror suspects on the no-fly list from buying guns) and Democrats are up in arms about it. This is a difficult topic. Forty-nine people were killed at…
All your favorite major label musicians—Taylor, Gaga, Katy, Jennifer Hudson, Yoko Ono, Amy Grant and Kacey Musgraves, among many more—have joined the music industry’s titans in asking for reform of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In a petition (see it here) running until Thursday in DC-based outlets such as Politico, The Hill and Roll…
Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg, a man who runs a service that collects the personal information of more than a billion people daily, seems to be worried about being spied on. There’s something very interesting in the photo Zuckerberg posted today to celebrate Instagram’s 500 million monthly active users, can you see it? Look closer. As…