Towards a quieter, friendlier web • Cory Dransfeldt »

This is a great list of some principles that would make the internet more pleasant for everyone. This one, in particular, stood out as one I think about a lot:

You aren’t obligated to reply or participate in any discussion. Don’t feel bad about not engaging if it doesn’t serve you. Arguing on the internet is rarely healthy, dialogue and discussion certainly can be.

Don’t speak unless you can improve the silence. 100%.

Nimona - How Are You I'm Fine Thanks »

TIL Nimona (one of my daughter’s favourite movies from last year) started life as a sketch on Tumblr.

The Scratch - Pull Your Jocks Up - YouTube

This is currently on hard rotation in my house.

Pluralistic: How I got scammed (05 Feb 2024) »

If Cory Doctorow can fall victim to a phishing scam, what hope do the rest of us have?

Coincidentally, someone on the Irish Tech Community slack reported that they were the victim of an attempt where their “bank” read out the first 8 digits of their virtual card and was asking them to read out the last 8. Turns out that you can basically construct the first 8 digits of any card if you know the card type, the issuer and the issuing country.

Let’s be careful out there.

Zed Industries - Zed is now open source »

I’m a reluctant Visual Studio Code user. It’s got a lot of great design ideas but it’s so slowwwwww and I miss the speed of something like Sublime Text. Zed (from the makers of Atom) is an editor that prioritises speed but copies a lot from vscode. It’s just missing vscode’s massive extensibility, but now it’s been open sourced maybe that will change? One worth keeping an eye on.

Why Platformer is leaving Substack - by Casey Newton »

This is pretty huge - Casey Newton’s is taking his newsletter off of Substack because of its ridiculous policies on hate speech.

In 2023, we added more than 70,000 free subscribers. While I would love to credit that growth exclusively to our journalism and analysis, I believe we have seen firsthand how quickly and aggressively tools like <substack’s newsletter promotion features> can grow a publication.

And if Substack can grow a publication like ours that quickly, it can grow other kinds of publications, too.

All the Types of Science Fiction - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency »

I think I’ve read most of these books. My favourites are:

  1. Basically Mein Kampf

  2. Bomb Cock 2: Mutually Assured Destruction

and

  1. The Turing Test, but sexy

Galerie »

Wes Anderson has started a movie club/streaming site, where each month’s films are curated by different people like Mike Mills and Ari Wegner. So kind of like Mubi used to be? But it’s $10/month and the films are only streaming in the US. Cute idea but kind of a shit deal for non-US people.

 The Internet Is About to Get Weird Again »

Across today’s internet, the stores that deliver all the apps on our phones are cracking open, the walls between social media platforms are coming down as the old networks fail, the headlong rush towards AI is making our search engines and work apps weirder (and often worse!). But amidst it all, the human web, the one made by regular people, is resurgent. We are about to see the biggest reshuffling of power on the internet in 25 years, in a way that most of the internet’s current users have never seen before.

It’s happening dot gif

The 50 best albums of 2023 | The Guardian »

Bookmarking because I’m trying to collect as many recommendations for new music as I can. As I write this (21st December) they haven’t revealed their #1 slot, but if I was a betting man, I’d say it’s going to be Lankum’s False Lankum.

Update (24th December): I was right!