Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Image: Alex Cranz/Gizmodo Yesterday, Apple finally revealed a new MacBook Pro, a full 527 days after the last refresh. The Touch Bar was fancy and bright; the gorgeous display wowed eye sockets; and the price made my wallet pucker. But there was also a conundrum. It took Apple a year and a half to update…
Rogue One is a great addition to the Star Wars universe because it takes a glaringly stupid plot mechanism—the exhaust port vulnerability in the Death Star—and attributes it to an architect’s sabotage. One of the dumbest things about the Star Wars franchise then becomes something sad, poignant, and believable. But Rogue One also raises…
I deactivated my Twitter account today. It was more of a spontaneous impulse than a New Year resolution, although it does feel like a juice cleanse, a moulting, a polar-bear plunge, a clean slate (except the opposite – like throwing your slate into a volcano and running). One moment I was brains-deep in the usual…
The solution for Post-it Notes lost under the desk and phone alerts silenced in meetings may be at hand. People who have tried and given up countless online calendars and list-making apps are making the Bullet Journal—a way of organizing and writing lists in a plain old notebook—a hit. The journal helps organize everything from…
About a year ago, 18-year-old college student Lauren Batchelder stood up at a political forum in New Hampshire and told Donald Trump that she didn’t think he was “a friend to women.” The next morning, Trump fired back on Twitter — calling Batchelder an “arrogant young woman” and accusing her of being a “plant” from…
My resolutions for 2017 are pretty straightforward. I want to listen more. I want to live more in a state of action than reaction. I definitely want to limit my tunneling into Twitter rabbit holes of outrage. And based on how this week’s been going, I’m not going to wait till January 1 to get started….
Over the past few months, I’ve been making a handful of “honeybots”– bots that act as a honeypot for Twitter troll. There are a lot of people on Twitter who search for specific terms and then yell at people who mention them; they go on about topics that range from chemtrails and the flat earth to various…
Story highlights Serena Williams is engaged to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian The tennis champ announced the news on Reddit The couple have been dating since 2015 A spokesperson for Ohanian confirmed that he popped the question while the two were vacationing in Rome. Williams first announced the news herself in a Reddit post on its…
Photo: Twitter Many people would say that computers have been a boon to both science and society, facilitating calculations and communications unfathomable in the pre-digital age. President-elect Donald Trump, however, is not one of those people. Asked about possible sanctions against Russia for electoral interference on Wednesday, Trump suggested we all “get on…
The internet has become a powerful tool in igniting new movements from generations-long conversations and political activity. Online hashtags and teach-ins, tweets, blog posts and inventive use of new media have forced attention on interpersonal violence issues including campus sexual assault, untested rape-kits, street harassment, and domestic violence. But these discussions, educational efforts, and organizing…