💻 Do you think the (insert one: liberals/conservatives) are idiots, out of touch with reality, wanting to destroy our nation? Then you’ve othered them, painted them black, I’m sad to say. N. S. Palmer warns us all against othering groups of people — it erodes the fabric of society. Read Don’t “Other” Other People
💻 You probably know that Twitter banned Donald Trump recently. I was in favor of it. I rather thought they should have done it long ago. Fred Wilson sort of agrees. But he points out that platforms like Twitter have ended up having an enormous amount of power just through who they do and don’t let on. It would be better, he think, if services like Twitter were instead protocols to which many apps can connect. Fred explains better than I can from here. Interesting take. Read Twitter and Trump
💻 I’m still figuring out my place in the church as a Christian. There are all kinds of churches with all kinds of approaches. I haven’t felt like any of them have been quite right. David Schell writes about his experience with evangelicalism, and how it wasn’t quite right either. Leaving evangelicalism left him wandering in the wilderness — and thinking maybe that this is where God wants him. Maybe it’s where God wants us all, because he can truly meet us there. Read The Cucumbers, the Melons, and the Leeks
📷 Dan Cuny shows us the Petal camera — it’s thin and round, and only 1.25 inches wide! It’s also more sophisticated than you might guess at first glance. Read Petal Camera
📷 I’ve always wanted an Agfa Optima 1035 Sensor, and now that Connor Brustofski has reviewed his — I want one all the more. Read Agfa Optima 1035 Sensor Review
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Wow. Some thought provoking material this morning. Nice selection!
Sometimes the blogosphere is just hot!
It’s a good day!!
Good stuff this week Jim, thanks!
You’re welcome as always!
I remember wanting a Petal camera in my youth, but they were too expensive even then. One of the few designs that was an ‘instant collectible’.
Oh if only …
I hate that kind of thing, a very desirable object produced that instantly becomes collectible. That puts so many things out of my reach.
Yes, very thought-provoking links there, Jim! Relating to one of them, another possible benefit from “app-ing” Google, Twitter, and so on might relate to an unscientific test that I conducted around 5 years ago.
I wanted to see if Google alone could literally magnify/warp my own “mental perception of reality,” and it only took two weeks for it to do so. In my test, I did just one Google search each day about a just one subject that I absolutely do NOT believe in: “the flat earth theory.” And in only two weeks, I started to receive emails, Amazon and eBay ads, pop-up ads on other web pages, and even Yahoo News items about “the flat earth theory.”
Google alone had worked to reinforce an absolute absurdity in my mind back then. And I’m sure it similarly magnifies false beliefs and warps peoples’ “realities” across the entire internet today. But as we all know, if I tried the same experiment now, it would take mere seconds to produce similar results.
Dave
That’s my big beef with Google’s (and Facebook’s) algorithms: they do zero filtering. Whatever you search for, you get pushed on you for a long time after. Even if it’s bad for you.
Ah yes. I have not used Google for many years. Duckduckgo is a very competent search engine that does not track or profile me, and provides unfiltered results. Whenever FB serves up ads, I always take the time to hide the ads and click see no more from this advertiser. It is a bit of a pain, but after doing this for a one or two days the ads completely disappear. Generally my feed is ad free for two weeks to a month, which makes it a much more pleasant experience. I link no apps or logins to FB and use Ghostery to block trackers on my browser, so my internet experience is relatively neutral.
I’m incredibly disappointed with Google. In the late 90s and early 2000s they were a giant gift to the Internet. Now their behavior is part of the overall societal problems of the Internet. I’ve switched from Chrome to Firefox. I am stuck on Gmail — just in too deep. I’ve tried DuckDuckGo and didn’t like it so I’m still using Google search.
Yeah gmail is a worry, they happily read your stuff. Firefox user from way back. Try Duckduckgo again, it has improved hugely the last few years ;)