That last post nearly had “kinky goodness” instead of “linky goodness” and now I want to launch a second newsletter TBH.
Prepping the latest issue of my sporadic interesting reading newsletter Commonplace Reading. Sign up for linky goodness in your inbox.
A page that makes me say “thank God for ebook pricing”: The Routledge Handbook of Developments in Digital Journalism Studies (Hardback) - Routledge
I was podding about on Twitter last night and was about to do a comment retweet on something when I realised that doing so wouldn’t really benefit anyone, would increase polarisation, and wasn’t something I really wanted to be doing. Deleted it. Be the change you want to see.
Nothing makes a self-employed person’s morning happier than the words “remittance advice” in his e-mail first thing in the morning.
Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before It Breaks Democracy?
I found Zuckerberg straining, not always coherently, to grasp problems for which he was plainly unprepared. These are not technical puzzles to be cracked in the middle of the night but some of the subtlest aspects of human affairs, including the meaning of truth, the limits of free speech, and the origins of violence.
I suspect his absolute control of the company is part of the problem.
The internet is basically a stroppy teenager, getting in trouble with the authorities, and making us all wish it would just hurry up and grow up: Deleting the internet’s innocence
I love blogging. I really do. But it does feel like getting traffic to OM&HB is harder then ever. I can’t recall a time in past 15 years that attracting readers was so very hard.
Part of that is my own fault - I’ve been very inconsistent as a blogger in recent years. And I’d hate to abandon it after all these years of labour.
But my goodness, does it feel like harder work getting the audience than it is getting the content written. And I’m sure that shouldn’t be the case.
Just for my microblog chums, this is the piece I was referring to: Don’t be an influencer, by a grumpy old blogger.
Just spent a couple of hours writing a blog post, which pretty much guarantees nobody will ever read it.
Why is traffic so often inversely proportional to effort?
Gah. Just spend a while constructing a post around a new feature of the CMS I use for One Man & His Blog - and realised that I have to wait for my theme provider to update their theme to support it.
A little thinking on the serious violence and murders in India that follow WhatsApp-spread misinformation. Is our knee-jerk reaction of blaming the technology the most useful approach?
This is a fascinating read: UK’s worst-selling map: The empty landscape charted by OS440
Perfect day for a walk on Shoreham Beach
I spent ages earlier looking for my green screen cleaning cloth.
I just found it.
Villiers Street, London - 1994
I’ve been scanning some old negatives in a pretty random way - just grab a packet and scan whatever’s in there.
This particular film was shot in late 1994, or early 1995, when I was working on The Publican, a now-gone magazine for the pub trade. I think the last 10 or 12 photos are why the film exists. They’re of a cellarman course I went on as part of my job. I appear to have “burned off” the rest of the film by shooting a load of random images around Charing Cross.
And they’re fascinating. On one level, you realise how little structure of these streets has changed in a little under 25 years. But the clothes, vehicles and branding on the shops is what gives away just how long ago this was.
Gone to seed.
Testing a new mobile working set-up, with the iPad Pro 12.9 and the new Mark II Brydge keyboard…
Could the way we read online be contributing to the polarisation of politics? Quite possibly.
My goodness. An update to Flickr!: All new Flickr galleries
Homework time. #backtoschool
Amazon is losing out to Google in the in-house spy…I mean “smart speaker”… market. This is probably Google’s game now
On the psychological impact of social media: ‘I had trained my mind to flit like a nervous sparrow’
While Mastadon is interesting - the fact it so closely replicated the Twitter experience means it’s just as likely to become toxic in the long term. It’s hard to commit time to it until tehre’s evidence that the community is thinking about that in how they develop the tech.