The Ad Contrarian · BOB HOFFMAN
Links
Articles, ideas, and references I want to find again.
The Ad Contrarian · BOB HOFFMAN
Adidas And Television
Lefsetz Letter · bob
Truth
This is an individual project. I just finished reading “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century,” by Timothy Snyder. Be afraid, be very afraid. Because sooner if not later there’s going to be a terrorist event and you’re gonna lose all your personal rights. That’s how they do it, especially Putin. Under…
Lefsetz Letter · bob
Where Songs Come From
“‘It was an emergency,’ he wrote,’ and when dealing with emergent behavior there is nothing to do but respond. I was in the moment. And it was not the fire I imagined or dreamed of. It was the fire I got.'” This should not have been good. I never read the “T” magazine, the “New […]
Stratechery by Ben Thompson · Ben Thompson
Snap’s Apple Strategy
Snap plans to win on innovation; we've known for 30 years, though, that that is not always enough.
The Ad Contrarian · [email protected] (BOB HOFFMAN)
Facebook Bullshit Keeps Exploding
As agencies and marketers continue to throw good money after bad on online ad fantasies, the depth of their gullibility continues to amaze.Yesterday the leading Australian advertising publication, Mumbrella, published a shocking article about Nielsen's re-calibration of Facebook video streaming numbers in…
Daring Fireball · John Gruber
Merriam-Webster’s Deft Social Media Strategy in the Age of Trump
MORNING, COMPUTER · Warren Ellis
The Indestructible Stars
And on winter days in Giza, it is often possible to see the sun breaking through the clouds and shining down at the same angle as the pyramids: a stairway to heaven, formed by the rays of the sun on which the king, ‘nimble and wise, could ascend to the indestructible stars.’ From In Search […]
Photosynth Blog · Photosynth Team
Microsoft Photosynth has been shut down
It's a sad day, but we knew it was coming. We closed the Photosynth service and Web site today. Key parts of the Photosynth code live on in other Microsoft products, and we're proud of the influence Photosynth had on photo technology across the industry during its nine-year life. We hope that everyone who wanted...
prosthetic knowledge
PaintsChainerOnline app from @tai2an can colourize line drawings...
PaintsChainerOnline app from @tai2an can colourize line drawings using neural network training. Upload an image and place some points of colour and away your go: Paints Chainer is line drawing colorizer using chainer. Using CNN, you can colorize your scketch automatically / semi-automatically . The #PaintsChainer…
Stratechery by Ben Thompson · Ben Thompson
Inspired Media
The key for products and politicians used to be maximizing paid and earned media. What matters on the Internet, though, is inspired media.
Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing · Jason Decker
4 steps to make your organic listings more effective
Fresh & New(er) · Seb Chan
Hello 2017. Recapping 2016.
As has been the tradition, welcoming in 2017 began with a playing gig at Kooky’s (almost nearly) annual New Years’ Day party. There’s nothing more bacchanalian or comforting than sweating it out in one of Sydney’s longest running safe spaces. And, sadly, it looks likely that over the coming years those safe spaces…
MORNING, COMPUTER · Warren Ellis
Sensible Requirements For Future Office Equipment
I need this so much. Mine. I mean, the updated, 2017 version, of course. “…a typewriter, television screens, video recorder and a photocopier from an 1969 exhibition in Hanover, Germany.” I’m vaguely reminded of the setup that the game writer had in Neal Stephenson’s REAMDE. There’s a fascination with the fictional…
Pixel Envy · Nick Heer
Google’s Communication Breakdown
Let me tell you a brief story, in excerpts, of the evolution of Google’s communications apps, starting with a quote from Google employee Nikhyl Singhal in May 2013: Hangouts is designed to be the future of Google Voice, and making/receiving phone calls is just the beginning. Future versions of Hangouts will integrate…
An Entirely Other Day: Full Feed · Greg Knauss
Romantics Hate This One Weird Trick!
Today is the third anniversary of Romantimatic, a silly little app that caused a silly little ruckus. The app is intended to remind the forgetful or the distracted to text nice things to their sweethearts. This profound assault on true...
Bitsplitting.org · Daniel Jalkut
Progressive Disclosure In Swift
In his excellent interview with the Accidental Tech Podcast, Chris Lattner defended the goal of Swift being suitable to both beginner and advanced programmers. He cites progressive disclosure, a design philosophy that is often employed in GUI applications, to make otherwise intimidating interfaces appear…
Yoast • SEO for everyone · Joost de Valk
Ask Yoast: AMP for small business owners
You may have heard the term “AMP” very often lately. In 2015, Google pushed out this new concept called Accelerated Mobile Pages, in short AMP. AMP aims to make pages load instantly on mobile and, thereby, drastically improve the performance of the mobile web. You might wonder if you should get started with it too.…
danah boyd | apophenia · zephoria
Did Media Literacy Backfire?
Anxious about the widespread consumption and spread of propaganda and fake news during this year’s election cycle, many progressives are calling for an increased commitment to media literacy programs. Others are clamoring for solutions that focus on expert fact-checking and labeling. Both of these approaches are…
Signal v. Noise - Medium · DHH
Venture capital is going to murder Medium
Lefsetz Letter · bob
The Russian Hacking Scandal
The job of an artist is to speak truth to power. Where have all the artists gone? They’re hiding. Afraid of losing their living, just like the rest of America, especially those who voted for Trump. America is a nation of ideas. A country where everybody is created equal, where everybody gets a fair chance, […] The…
Lefsetz Letter · bob
Debbie Reynolds Dies
The thing about life is it can always get worse. We like to believe God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, but do we even believe in God? We believe there’s a master plan, that it all makes sense… But it doesn’t. This is what they don’t tell you growing up, after they […] The post Debbie Reynolds Dies appeared…
Tom MacWright · Tom MacWright
A mental model of what d3-queue does
prosthetic knowledge
Motion Mural – Rogue OneGerman company Chromatics applies...
Motion Mural – Rogue OneGerman company Chromatics applies projection mapping animation onto large handpainted public mural for latest Star Wars film:[Google Translation:] The film is about rebellion. With us around revolution. With the new development of the Motion Mural © move comes in rigid graffiti murals. The…
Howdy - Medium · Peter Swimm
Talkabot Talks: What we built
As developers build out the understanding of what a bot is and what it can do, the war stories of how we bring bots to life will to…Continue reading on Howdy »
Stratechery by Ben Thompson · Ben Thompson
The 2016 Stratechery Year in Review
The top posts on Stratechery in 2016
Pixel Envy · Nick Heer
When Trump Tweets
Jenna Johnson, Washington Post: About a year ago, 18-year-old college student Lauren Batchelder stood up at a political forum in New Hampshire and told Donald Trump that she didn’t think he was “a friend to women.” The next morning, Trump fired back on Twitter — calling Batchelder an “arrogant young woman” and…
Joel on Software · Joel Spolsky
Introducing HyperDev
One more thing… It’s been awhile since we launched a whole new product at Fog Creek Software (the last one was Trello, and that’s doing pretty well).… Read more "Introducing HyperDev"
dullneon.com - random notes, links and pixels · Jaffry Jalal
Font Awesome 5 on Kickstarter.
Seems Dave Gandy went to Kickstarter with an intent to raise US$30,000 to help him make the next version of Font Awesome. Today, with 4 days to go before the fund raising ends, the campaign’s pulled in US$$783,998. If it hits a million bucks, Font Awesome 5 becomes open source.
MORNING, COMPUTER · Warren Ellis
Good Morning Britain
Dear America, thank you for not giving me diseases. You are in a strange way, America, and returning here to the dull grumbling anger of Britain puts it in even sharper relief. All we’re dealing with is the left-over xenophobia and poison of 80s conservatism. You face something that is at once ancient and […]
Neil Gaiman's Journal · [email protected] (Neil Gaiman)
Where do you run?
I just woke from a dream in which my film agent (the redoubtable Jon Levin) was upset because a movie company had bought the rights to the 1972 Steptoe and Son movie and were convinced that by redubbing it to change the plot and adding special effects, they would have a science fiction blockbuster on their hands, and…
Anil Dash · Anil
Forget “Why?”, it’s time to get to work.
There are going to be endless think-pieces and armchair analyses about why America elected Donald Trump as its next President. But you already know why....
Pixel Envy · Nick Heer
A History of the ‘Get a Mac’ Campaign
A wonderful two-part article and podcast about the “I’m a Mac; I’m a PC” ads that began airing ten years ago. Douglas Quenqua, writing for Campaign: Scott Trattner: I have a much younger sister, and I was seeing these really charming little theatrical things at her school, where like a kid plays a tree and […]◉
Schneier on Security · Bruce Schneier
Ransomware Meets Multi-level Marketing
A new ransomware, Popcorn Time, gives users the option of infecting others in lieu of paying the ransom. Related: a good general article on ransomware. EDITED TO ADD: Slashdot thread....
Schneier on Security · Bruce Schneier
My Priorities for the Next Four Years
Like many, I was surprised and shocked by the election of Donald Trump as president. I believe his ideas, temperament, and inexperience represent a grave threat to our country and world. Suddenly, all the things I had planned to work on seemed trivial in comparison. Although Internet security and privacy are not the…
Monday Note - Medium · Frederic Filloux
Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible With News
by Frederic FillouxContinue reading on Monday Note »
Pixel Envy · Nick Heer
Brookings: U.S. Manufacturing Sector Is More Productive Despite Fewer Jobs
Somewhat related to the earlier post about Uber’s economics and its autonomous future, I found this article today from Alison Burke of the Brookings Institution: Many are quick to blame trade for a loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector, yet [Foreign Policy Senior Fellow Mireya Solís] affirms that the predominant…
taint.org: Justin Mason's Weblog · dailylinks
Links for 2016-11-29
Trump’s lies have a purpose. They are an assault on democracy Donald Trump’s media strategy as a form of Surkovian control via post-truth ‘destabilised perception’, through deliberate flooding with fake news: By attacking the very notion of shared reality, the president-elect is making normal democratic politics…
We Make Money Not Art · Regine
The artist with a super-computing mind
Widener’s super computing mind leads him to use his own algorithms to elaborate numerical puzzles and games that only intelligent and independently-thinking machines of the Singularity age will be able to fully enjoy and understand
Dr. Jay Parkinson
How to Spend Your Money On Healthcare
Spending thousands of dollars a year on health insurance and healthcare needs a careful strategy. You wouldn’t buy a new car or a new house without doing your best to spend wisely. Also, having insurance doesn’t mean you have doctors when you need them. In efforts to save money, insurance companies are limiting the…
Rands in Repose · rands
Social Media Loves Echo Chambers
Quattrociocchi has published a series of papers (awaiting peer-review) that analyze the rigidity of “echo chambers.” His findings suggest that people, not social networks, have been their driving force. We commonly sort ourselves into rigidly like-minded groups—and stay there. (Via Quartz)#
Above Avalon · Neil Cybart
Skating to the Apple Car Puck
Recent reports have cast doubt on Apple's automobile ambitions. With Apple shifting its focus to auto software and autonomous driving, many have interpreted the move as Apple giving up on building its own car. I look at the situation very differently. Apple remains interested in transportation, and the case for an…
Pixel Envy · Nick Heer
More of Facebook’s Metrics Found to Be Exaggerated
I’ve written a fair amount this week about Facebook’s role in disseminating and promoting fake news sites and bullshit stories within their news feed, but it’s worth examining their repugnant behaviour towards real news sites as well. Back in 2013, Facebook announced that they had become the leading source of traffic…
Asymco · asymco-admin
The Genealogy of the MacBook Pro
I was an early user of the first MacBook Air. When that product was launched I saw in it something different: a dedication to a new measure of performance: thinness and conformability. The key image used to launch the Air was the laptop sliding neatly into an inter-office envelope. The implication was that the laptop…