This week’s best blog posts:
Susie Trexler went to visit one of my favorite historic sites, the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace, and came back with lovely photographs. Read Views of Lincoln’s Kentucky
In my line of work (software development) I’ve learned that small teams work better. If you have a lot of people, break them into teams of 4-6, and give each team its own backlog of work. Seth Godin says this is broadly true. Read Big crew/little crew
Mike Johnston considers the slow death of newspapers. It’s not the newspapers themselves that we’ll miss, but the ethical norms and methodologies they solidified in reporting. Read Open Mike: The Death of Newspapers
Camera reviews and experience reports:
- Konica C35 (Olli Thompson)
See my review of this camera here - Nikon F2 (Mike Connealy)
See my reviews of this camera here and here - Fujica Drive (Mike Eckman)
- Yashica Electro 35 GTN (Film Beginnings)
- Lomography Pop 9 (Peggy Anne)
- Halina 35x (Nicholas Middleton)
- Olympus O-Product (James Tocchio)
Wasn’t Susie’s piece a real gem? Like a lot of your own posts, it made me want to hop in my car on the spot and go see for myself. As always, Seth Godin’s post was full of interesting insights (reassuring to see my company seems to be doing it right). But Mike Johnston’s essay hit me between the eyes. I’m lucky to live in a town that still has two newspapers, and that one of them is owned by a local who does seem to believe in the historical mission of newspapers. It’s scary to consider that most Americans no longer have that luxury, though. I worry about what will happen when there are no longer almost-universally-trusted sources of information and when people freely discard anything they don’t agree with as “fake news.”
Our newspaper has been owned by Gannett for a while now, and it’s a shadow of its former self. It’s a shame.