White Mirror: How did Microsoft’s 2009 predictions for the world of 2019 hold up? / Boing Boing https://boingboing.net/2018/12/31/how-did-microsofts-2009-predic.html

Why conspiracy theories matter - Vox https://www.vox.com/2018/12/31/18144710/conspiracy-theories-trump-2018-qanon-soros-false-flags

Tedium Trends 2019: Copyright Law is Shifting https://tedium.co/2018/12/27/tedium-trends-2019/

The Great Recession inspired minimalism in clothes, homes, and branding - Vox https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/27/18156431/recession-fashion-design-minimalism

Economists calculate the true value of Facebook to its users in new study | Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/economists-calculate-the-true-value-of-facebook-to-its-users-in-new-study/

How Much of the Internet Is Fake? http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/how-much-of-the-internet-is-fake.html

Seat Belt History: The Patent That Was Given Away https://tedium.co/2018/12/25/seat-belt-history/

Interview: Bruce Sterling Answers Your Questions - Slashdot https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/13/12/23/157257/interview-bruce-sterling-answers-your-questions

A Survey of $RANDOM « null program https://nullprogram.com/blog/2018/12/25/

Take Script, Add Snow https://longreads.com/2018/12/24/take-script-add-snow/

The Internet of Unprofitable Things – The ongoing struggle http://strugglers.net/~andy/blog/2018/12/24/the-internet-of-unprofitable-things/

Towards the Future Book https://kottke.org/18/12/towards-the-future-book

The Wavefunction Collapse Algorithm explained very clearly | Robert Heaton https://robertheaton.com/2018/12/17/wavefunction-collapse-algorithm/

Against Peter Jackson’s “They Shall Not Grow Old” https://kottke.org/18/12/against-peter-jacksons-they-shall-not-grow-old

The year social networks were no longer social – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/23/the-year-social-networks-were-no-longer-social/

How BioWare’s ‘Baldur’s Gate’ Saved the Computer RPG - The Ringer https://www.theringer.com/2018/12/21/18150363/baldurs-gate-bioware-1998-video-games

The Truth About AI: A Secular Ghost Story https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/12/20/the-truth-about-ai-a-secular-ghost-story/

Every once in a while I’m reminded that Cory Doctorow is a brilliant & deep thinker. This interview is one of those times: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/15/first-days-better-nations.html

Playing with P2P protocols and Firefox http://andregarzia.com/2018/12/playing-with-p2p-protocols-and-firefox.html

I don’t buy this at all. All the political radicals I know have incredibly elaborate meta-cognition and constantly-shifting meta-justifications, because you don’t become radical without curiosity. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/radicals-dont-evaluate-their-mistakes-very-effectively/

Elon Musk is the first influencer CEO - The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18150813/elon-musk-influencer-ceo-social-media-tesla-spacex

I Used The Web For A Day Using A Screen Reader “ Smashing Magazine https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/12/voiceover-screen-reader-web-apps/

Facebook workers are the only people who can hold the company accountable. https://slate.com/technology/2018/12/facebook-workers-privacy-violation.html

Why Your iPhone Selfies Don’t Look Like Your Face - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/your-iphone-selfies-dont-look-like-your-face/578353/

Bowie Knives, Concealed Rifles, and Caning Charles Sumner https://longreads.com/2018/12/17/bowie-knives-concealed-rifles-and-caning-charles-sumner/

Star Wars is Really a Cautionary Tale About Devoting All Technological Advancements to Death | Tor.com https://www.tor.com/2018/12/17/star-wars-is-really-a-cautionary-tale-about-devoting-all-technological-advancements-to-death/

The Cost of Living in Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet Empire - The Ringer https://www.theringer.com/tech/2018/12/19/18148701/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-year-in-review

Mark Zuckerberg did everything in his power to avoid Facebook becoming the next MySpace “ but forgot one crucial detail… • The Register https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/20/facebook_disaster/

Dirty dealing in the $175 billion Amazon Marketplace - The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketplace-scams-seller-court-appeal-reinstatement

Smart Speakers and Thermostats Will Monetize Life at Home - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/12/smart-home-devices-data-privacy/578425/

Edward Gorey’s macabre tarot deck from 1966 / Boing Boing https://boingboing.net/2018/12/18/edward-goreys-macabre-tarot.html

A Professional Safecracker Reveals His Craft - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/professional-safecracker-reveals-his-craft/577897/

The Unlikely New Generation of Unabomber Acolytes http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/the-unabomber-ted-kaczynski-new-generation-of-acolytes.html

Google isn’t the company that we should have handed the Web over to | Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/the-web-now-belongs-to-google-and-that-should-worry-us-all/

Aquaman pays homage to H.P. Lovecraft. It’s his worst nightmare. https://slate.com/culture/2018/12/aquaman-movie-hp-lovecraft-racism-miscegenation.html

Political tribalism in Trump’s America: what Andrew Sullivan gets wrong - Vox https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/11/18131370/andrew-sullivan-religion-tribalism-christianity-trump

PewDiePie vs. T-Series and Rewind 2018: the battle for YouTube, explained - Vox https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/12/14/18138916/pewdiepie-vs-t-series-youtube-rewind-2018

Rewriting Pagenode
Today I released Pagenode – a project that I started 14 years ago. Pagenode began its life as a full-fledged Content Management System and now, after countless rewrites, became a simple library. Pagenode’s journey mimics my own as a developer. Its current iteration expresses my desire for simplicity.

In 2004, after dabbling a bit with PHP and finally grasping MySQL I set out to build my own CMS. I previously looked at a lot of different CMSes on the market and found all of them to … ⌘ Read more

The Enduring American Outrage of “Network” | The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/17/the-enduring-american-outrage-of-network

Rich People Are Getting Away With Not Paying Their Taxes - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/rich-people-are-getting-away-not-paying-their-taxes/577798/

Infomercial Dark Patterns: How the App Store Recreates TV Scams https://tedium.co/2018/12/11/infomercials-history-dark-patterns/

At the Very Least We Know the End of the World Will Have a Bright Side https://longreads.com/2018/12/12/solarpunk-review/

It’s the End of News As We Know It (and Facebook Is Feeling Fine) – Mother Jones https://www.motherjones.com/media/2018/12/facebook-propaganda-trump/

William Gibson | Part 1 | Jan. 12, 2012 | Appel Salon - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFewCiRaGiU

Reflections on DOOM’s Development — Rome.ro https://rome.ro/news/2018/12/10/reflections-on-dooms-development

Cragne Manor, an 84-room horror “exquisite corpse” text adventure that’s a tribute to the classic game Anchorhead / Boing Boing https://boingboing.net/2018/12/09/massively-multi-developer.html

JIRA is an antipattern – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/09/jira-is-an-antipattern/

Why You Should Never, Ever Use Quora – Waxy.org https://waxy.org/2018/12/why-you-should-never-ever-use-quora/

Internet Content Filter History: Filtering Out the Bad Stuff https://tedium.co/2018/12/06/internet-content-filters-history/

Teaching kids to code: I’m a developer and I think it doesn’t actually teach important skills. https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-kids-to-code-creativity-problem-solving.html