Light as a feather, stiff as a board
If I ever write a dystopian YA novel -- and this is my idea, ©, you cannot have it -- it will definitely take place in a bombed-out zombie future where Mark Zuckerberg presides over the Earth and all of humanity stares slack-jawed at their screens, unseeingly "liking" one Facebook post after another. Today, alas, we came one step closer to that fate: Facebook now has roughly as many users as the entire country of China has people. (Never fear, you guys, I'm sure a spunky J-Law type will save us.) Until that day, let's hit the links!
1. One way to fix Twitter? KILL IT. (Not really.) But Robert Wright's suggestion for making the network "less toxic" would radically change Twitter as we know it: Give the people more characters, he suggests, and maybe they wouldn't resort to nasty, expletive-filled soundbites.
2. Terms of service, ~the comic book.~ There is literally *no* subject on Earth more dense/boring than big data and the policy that regulates it, which is perhaps why some creative souls at Al Jazeera turned that snoozefest into a picture book. There are cartoons! There are villains! There are driverless cars! Thank you, AJ, you have done us a service.
3. How Wikipedia became a trusted source for Ebola information. You still can't quote it in college essays, but the Internet's encyclopedia really -- surprisingly! -- came through for public health.
It apparently took this dog 6 months to learn to bring his owner a beer, which means if I start now Dory might do it by next October.
Postscripts: The case for cases. The real magic of "Magic." A day in London on Instagram. What it's like to talk about gender on the mainstream Internet and what it's like to be a jihahi wannabe on Twitter. Today in drinks: a connected cocktail shaker, a slanderous attack on pumpkin cocktails, and the reason women on TV shows only ever drink red wine. Today in supernatural hijinx: emoji Ouija, Ouija reviews, and "light as a feather, stiff as a board."
Until tomorrow!
@caitlindewey
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