RSS Readers are Due for a Comeback

It does seem we've all forgotten that you can curate your OWN news/social feeds.

This article in Wired hits the nail on the head.

“THE MODERN WEB contains no shortage of horrors, from ubiquitous ad trackers to all-consuming platforms to YouTube comments, generally. Unfortunately, there’s no panacea for what ails this internet we’ve built. But anyone weary of black-box algorithms controlling what you see online at least has a respite, one that’s been there all along but has often gone ignored. Tired of Twitter? Facebook fatigued? It’s time to head back to RSS.”

Swan Songs

NPR's All Songs Considered have compiled a list of songs that their listeners would like at their funerals and, knowing that, listening to it is really quite touching. You can do that on this Spotify Playlist. Or read about it here.

Rainbow Connection... I mean... You can't go wrong!

Bad Lipreading does Zuckerberg

This is tremendous.

Waitrose and GDPR

The irony of receiving an email from Waitrose advising me of their GDPR Privacy Notice despite me repeatedly asking to be removed from their mailing list has not gone unnoticed.

Chroma Keying Fun

Nothing especially interesting to show for it yet... But I'm having fun working out green-screen/chroma-keying...!

Tiny Desk Concerts

NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts are the best and most fertile part of the web for music you may not have heard of and will probably be glad you discovered. This is a playlist that I'm adding my favourites to.

Another rescue

Our cat is horrible.

Deaf profile in cinema

The Shape of Water is great. I watched it last night and despite (because of?) being a cross between Amelie and Bioshock, it's utterly glorious. Off the back of that though I found this article in the LA Review of Books that does a good job of discussing Deaf Gain and cultural appropriation.

“While it is exciting to see these films, among others, trying to show us Deafness as a part of diversity and as something that is a “gain” rather than a loss, we won’t fully get the Deaf experience on screen until writers, directors, and actors are actually Deaf people themselves. Right now we have movies about Deafness for hearing people. We can hope for a future with many Deaf and disabled stars, but till that time, we must remain content to be “people of the eye” on rare occasions and get our gains when and where we can.”

Tinkering With Democracy

“Facebook has meddled in the democratic elections of a foreign country, and no one outside of the company seems to know anything about it.”

— Guardian 15/04/18

This could be one of the most important, and perhaps most readily understandable, pieces on Facebook's reach, power, and intention. Read the whole article.

Post-industrial Plymouth was broke. So it took business into its own hands.

There is an excellent article about social enterprises - and Plymouth - in today's Guardian. 

“How do we grow our economy and grow ourselves a future? By finding companies who will do more than corporate social responsibility.”

‘Ker Street, Devonport’ by John Foulston © Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)

Holly and Rosie

I have dumped Facebook

Well, I've gone and done it. I've deleted Facebook. Now... I've done this four times before and returned eventually each time. This is embarrassing and I'm trying not to do it again. It is a black hole to vitality after all.

I'm weaning from WhatsApp too. The problem there is it's quite good. I'm using Signal to see how it goes. It seems like an excellent alternative... If only... If only everyone else thought the same.

Hello...? Hello...?!

Is this on?

Smarty Plants

This episode of Radiolab is just great. Really elegant explorations into... well listen and see. These are always well presented and produced, but this one is additionally fascinating and deeply satisfying. Science! But with real style.

Listen to it while you're cooking dinner. There's no excuse not to.

Here is the link to the Artful Amoeba that they mention.

Obligatory

The snow is better this time. 

Peripheral Brain Spruced Up

I've been through my Peripheral Brain blog and fixed all the links* and formatting errors from the import. There's some stuff in there I'm quite proud of, frankly!

*Well, links that still exist. So much stuff has fallen off the back of the internet...

Daft

I'm just going to put this here. I was trying to parse a crossword clue that was tricky and drew myself looking suspiciously at it. But when cropped it looked like a ridiculous attempt to appear sophisticated so I've adopted it as an avatar.

She's no slouch.

I'm very proud of my lovely wife. Even if she thinks it is a naked ploy to flog magazines.

Well the snow is here then...