Monarch
“Not once at school was I told any of this stuff. I’d heard of the Raj before, although the British always spoke of it as if it was something to be proud of.” +1. And it is nothing to be proud of. #Society [Link]
Ben Werdmuller
Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Smartly pointed satire loosely disguised as a thriller. Witty and dark as hell. I loved it. #Fiction [Link]
Coding
GitHub Copilot investigation
“Copilot’s whizzy code-retrieval methods are a smokescreen intended to conceal a grubby truth: Copilot is merely a convenient alternative interface to a large corpus of open-source code. Therefore, Copilot users may incur licensing obliga
The 19th annual community survey
At The 19th, we’re running our annual community survey. If you’ve read a story on The 19th, or if you’re a woman or LGBTQ+ person, or are interested in policy and democracy news that affects women and LGBTQ+ people, we’d love to hear from you. Complete
How the web reads fiction
Last week, I asked you about your fiction-reading habits as part of my research for a personal project I’m working on. I also ran a separate survey on Google Surveys - getting in just before that service shuts down next month - to get a sense of what the
Coding
The Proprietary Syndication Formats
“Guess which format is going to outlast all these proprietary syndication formats. I’d say RSS, which I believe to be true, but really, it’s HTML.” #Coding [Link]
Kanye West plans to acquire conservative social media site Parler
“Parler was created in September 2018 as a free speech alternative to apps like Twitter and Facebook. The app was de-platformed from Google and Apple's app stores in January 2021, following the January Capitol siege.” #Technology [Link]
How a Secret Rent Algorithm Pushes Rents Higher
“For tenants, the system upends the practice of negotiating with apartment building staff. RealPage discourages bargaining with renters and has even recommended that landlords in some cases accept a lower occupancy rate in order to raise rents and make more money.” #Business [Link]
Bakery Creates ‘Pan Solo,’ a 6-Foot Replica of ‘Star Wars’ Hero Made of Bread
“Finally, after a month of work, he was ready: a lovingly wrought 6-foot recreation of Han Solo frozen in carbonite, made entirely of bread. The duo behind the creation, Hannalee Pervan and her mother, Catherine Pervan, called him “Pan Solo.”” #Culture [Link]
Coding
Using the Free Pascal IDE for a week
“I'm not sure what the rationale is for maintaining the text mode FP IDE. It seems kinda quaint in 2022 to maintain a recreation of the old Turbo Pascal editor, but I'm so glad that it's there.” #Coding [Link]
Voter ID laws are creating barriers for transgender people, women and others
“More than 200,000 voting-eligible transgender Americans may find it difficult to cast a ballot in the upcoming midterm elections because of voter ID laws.” #Democracy [Link]
Regulating DAOs
“It’s a mistake to defend DAOs on the grounds that code is free speech. Some code is speech, but not all code is speech. And code can also directly affect the world.” #Crypto [Link]