Clubhouse Harassment, and Tech’s Move from Enthusiast to Industrial Press | Where’s Your Ed At

A16Z has benefitted immensely from the positive press in its investments – in Lyft, Facebook, Zynga, Slack, Asana, and others – and watched as the press has changed from a relatively frictionless marketing channel for their investment rounds into something that requires a lot more effort, and isn’t simply an uncritical flume of people saying… Continue reading Clubhouse Harassment, and Tech’s Move from Enthusiast to Industrial Press | Where’s Your Ed At

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A Tale Of Two Ecosystems: On Bandcamp, Spotify And The Wide-Open Future | NPR

As Ek makes clear, even the COVID pandemic can be put to use by Spotify’s strategy, as can the death of an existing medium for music, “linear radio” (more commonly known as “radio”). The business model of the Internet is interesting. There is no rule, for instance, that tech companies “move fast and break things.”… Continue reading A Tale Of Two Ecosystems: On Bandcamp, Spotify And The Wide-Open Future | NPR

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A New Conservatism | Foreign Affairs

In the wake of Trump’s defeat, analysts have pondered whether his brand of populism might represent the conservative future. But this misunderstands his role. There is no discernible Trumpism independent of Trump himself. Writing in Foreign Affairs, former Romney advisor Oren Cass offers an alternative view on the future of conservatism, one that I don’t… Continue reading A New Conservatism | Foreign Affairs

Quotes about the Web

It occurs to me that I come across quotes about the web a lot, so I think I’m going to keep track of them and then publish them from time to time. There’s this tweet from Vincent Bevins: I tweet this every few weeks but the internet absolutely does not work any more. You are… Continue reading Quotes about the Web

The internet didn’t kill counterculture—you just won’t find it on Instagram | Document

And maybe here, we do have an aesthetic counter to the wallflower non-style of Big Tech: a raging messy semiotic meltdown of radicalizing (if absurdist) meme culture where the only ideological no-go zone is the liberal center. Caroline Busta A really fascinating look at the counterculture of now and the future, whereby the youth (those… Continue reading The internet didn’t kill counterculture—you just won’t find it on Instagram | Document

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California Is Making Liberals Squirm | The New York Times

Ezra Klein at his new editorial home in the New York Times on the contradiction of a conservative, progressive California: There is an old finding in political science that Americans are “symbolically conservative” but “operationally liberal.” Americans talk like conservatives but want to be governed like liberals. In California, the same split political personality exists,… Continue reading California Is Making Liberals Squirm | The New York Times

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Show Don’t Sell

Take credit for what CSS has done. Don’t say: “Web standards did this” Do say: “We’ve set up a system that will automatically format the page whenever you update it.” Let the client think you’re smart and give you more business… Show don’t sell – Jeffrey Zeldman I was doing a bit of research on… Continue reading Show Don’t Sell

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Bringing Back the Personal Site

There have been quite a few articles recently about the importance of the personal site, and the blogging community. It’s a sentiment I’m super excited about. Rian Van Der Merwe has probably the simplest point. Blogs are the front page of the internet, and it’s their freedom that gives them their strength. All this to say that… Continue reading Bringing Back the Personal Site

The Magpie Developer

Jeff Atwood wrote this article seven years ago but it holds true:

These so-called thought leaders have left a virtual ghost town before anyone else had a chance to arrive.

I became a programmer because I love computers, and to love computers, you must love change. And I do. But I think the magpie developer sometimes loves change to the detriment of his own craft.

This seems as relevant as ever. As a developer in the Javascript world, it’s hard to keep up. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve done more “Hello World’s” then real projects. Small side projects help, but I’ve found the trick is to learn the basics of something, then log it in the back of your head (or write it down somewhere) for future use.

Side note, it’s disturbing how many links in this article are 404’ed these days. We need to all do something about that.