Grass Snakes
Last year, we learned that there is a sizable population of grass snakes in our area. Today the circumstances were perfect (sunny, high temperatures) to go out and search for them. And we found them! 🐍😃
We often have a choice: speak up or leave. In commerce, if we don't like a brand, we leave. (..) Sometimes, instead of leaving, people speak up.
He touches upon an important distinction:
For most of my life, the biggest separation between government and economics was this distinction. In many cases, government has generally taken the idea of exit off the table.
Joel Spolsky in The Stack Overflow Age:
But we just wanted to fix the internet.
Jason Fried on Signal v. Noise: Where group chat works, and where it doesn’t.
Harold Jarche on an important aspect of the automation of work:
Much of the current analysis of the automation of work looks at replacing what people do with equal work done by machines. But the machines do not even have to be as good as a person, due to our bookkeeping systems that treat labour and capital differently. Labour is a cost while capital is an investment.
I did not know that…
The difference between the social internet, social media, and why we gradually move to smaller networks.
Bringing back Web Authoring and Ownership
Anil Dash’s article on The Missing Building Blocks of the Web made me think. If web culture reverts back just a little from consuming content to creating, it could have a profound effect. #wishfulthinking While that would be an improvement, it would mainly cover public one-to-many sharing. And that is the opposite of what billions of people across the world were trained to do by friends and family: using private one-to-one and (small) group channels in their favorite messenger app.
Dark Patterns
Kottke.org recently highlighted an interesting video about how we are tricked online by deliberately confusing user experiences a.k.a. dark patterns. What are dark patterns? UI design that tricks users into doing things they might not want to do. For instance, as he shows in the video, the hoops you need to jump through to delete your Amazon account are astounding; it’s buried levels deep in a place no one would ever think to look.
Generation Z is Phone Bored. Maybe we have reached Peak App?
Habits are hard to break. Why Trying New Things Is So Hard to Do - The New York Times
The Smartphone Effect
Research shows that having your smartphone nearby takes a toll on your thinking: Our research suggests that, in a way, the mere presence of our smartphones is like the sound of our names — they are constantly calling to us, exerting a gravitational pull on our attention. If you have ever felt a “phantom buzz” you inherently know this. Attempts to block or resist this pull takes a toll by impairing our cognitive abilities.
The Position of Phone Photography
Terry Burnes on Phone Photography I think we should be open to all forms of photography and whatever any photographer uses to make good photographs, from wet plate to the phone. Later in the article, he describes his phone photography kit. Which currently includes 4 (!) lenses. So where the regular compact camera carrying public switched to phone photography, maybe amateur photographers will switch to advanced phone photography (with Moment lenses and other accessories)?
Gary Hustwit, director of Helvetica and Objectified, is making a documentary about Rams called Rams.
That’s something I definitely want to watch. Based just on the teasers.
I totally agree: Halide, Darkroom and Rekindling Photography as a Hobby - the candler blog
Firefox's trying to contain Facebook
As a decade long Firefox user, I will be watching this with interest: Mozilla: “We made a new add-on for Firefox called Facebook Container in response to the growing demand we see for tools that help manage privacy and security." The source code is available on Github.
I have to look into this: Here’s a Long List of Data Broker Sites and How to Opt-Out of Them
Frozen Warriors
Really impressed by the Frozen Warriors short film created by wildlife photographer Chris Schmid. Beautiful and at the same time depressing:
“A camera can serve as a passport to other lives and cultures but it also paradoxically stands between the photographer and the world. ‘We’re not participating, we’re observing,’ Miller says. ‘We’re trying to be inconspicuous; we’re trying to be “not there,” but there. So it’s a pretty lonely life.’” - Kerry Tremain
Zwart-wit smartphone fotografie
Zwart-wit foto’s maken is een kunst. Eerst moet je iets fotowaardigs ‘zien’. Vervolgens moet je ‘door de kleuren heen’ kunnen kijken om in te schatten of het beeld in zwart-wit ook de moeite waard is. Uit mijn telefoon haal ik de laatste tijd steeds aardiger resultaten. De recente smartphone sensoren zijn er erg geschikt voor. En de fotobewerkingsapps halen steeds betere resultaten uit wat de sensoren vastleggen. Wordt vervolgd dus!