Friday Reading S02E04

Things I read this week. Which you could read too. If you wanted to. No pressure.

This man seems to have fundamentally misunderstood that people publish stuff on social networks because they enjoy sharing, not because they are concerned about his personal user experience. Read and then carry on posting exactly what pics you like where you like.

“Contributoria & the Guardian” – Rev Dan Catt

Some interesting thoughts about where Contributoria fits into the history of the Guardian Open API approach from former colleague Dan, whose writing about his work has been sorely missed. Read.

My friend Stuart Fullerton on being diagnosed with Myeloma and the days when he thinks “Wow I might not finish this bottle of shampoo” let alone see his kids grow up. Read.

Beautifully written and meaningful by Poorna Bell about the suicide of her husband.

“We’ll never know why the polls were wrong” – Daniel Finkelstein

“There are any number of plausible explanations for the failure of the voting intention measure to tally with the result. Yet many of these explanations are mutually exclusive and it is not obvious which is correct.”

Oh. Read it and weep [£].

Unsurprisingly, the data doesn’t support the Dan Hodges’ claim that pollsters “lied” and “herded” towards the same numbers at the end of the general Election campaign.

Sarah Hartley’s advice for what to put in an author profile online.

Useful starter guide to Sparks from Pitchfork if you don’t know how good Sparks are.

“Meet the Reporters Who Lost Their Jobs for Using Periscope” – Jack Smith IV

“Getting fired for Periscoping a video of a dog is ridiculous”. Yep.

Send any knobbo telling you that the U.S. Civil War wasn’t primarily about slavery over to here where they can read about it in the states’ own words.

“Fuck the Internet Shame Spiral” – Annalee Newitz

When you listen to the forces of counter-shame in this debate, or any other one, keep in mind what they are really saying. In the case of Tim Hunt, they think the scientist should be put back in his old job because it’s OK for him to declare publicly that he discriminates against an entire class of his colleagues, at a professional event being held in those colleagues’ honor. But none of those colleagues should be allowed to make fun of him on the internet, nor demand that he step down.

Read.

This weeks creepy tale: “Bring me young blood,” #TheWatcher told home buyers.