QWERTY and flirty

Have you ever noticed how many digital interfaces are blue? Seriously, once you realize it, the color starts to haunt you. I first noticed it yesterday, when writing about an analysis that found blue's the top color on the world's largest websites. (There's a quiz and everything! Look, fun, you should try.) From there, I suddenly realized most of my apps have blue icons. And my desktop has blue taskbars. And the Post has blue buttons to "load" and "subscribe." Even my work phone, which I never use, has a blue LCD screen with the date and time. (Also "21 missed calls," but I'm sure that's fine!)

How did the Internet get so blue? And not, you know -- purple or red? Dully enough, it seems to have sprung from a need to be inoffensive. Everyone likes blue -- certainly no one HATES blue -- and that makes it a good, safe bet. But why does everyone like blue? Well, how much time do you have...

mad dad skills (link)

1. How can algorithms know what we like, when we ourselves do not? I mean, a lot of our tastes are based on quirk and chance and history -- not, you know, deliberative thought. But algorithms can't account for quirks; they don't know you like that movie 'cause your mom watched it growing up. And that leads to, among other things, p. lousy recommendations.

2. This is freedom of information like you've never seen it. Carl Malamud has spent 25 years trying to get patents, building codes and regulatory standards on the Internet. This stuff is arcane (and to most of us, irrelevant!) but Malamud's driven by principle: If it's the law, it should be public and online -- always. Plain and simple.

3. No single person wrote the Slenderman legend, but Troy Wagner might've come closest. He's the guy who, as a college student, directed the web horror series "Marble Hornets." Hornets is done now, but it remains a classic -- a vision of what low-budget web series could be. Also, it is -- as Dan Oberhaus writes! -- very, very creepy.

4. Ding-dong, the troll is dead. (Not quite literally.) But there's no doubt that cleverness, nuance and restraint are gone from the art of trolling. Where provocateurs once trolled for political cause, the alt-right just wants to offend. And good luck figuring out if it's "irony," or if they're actually bigoted.

5. Speaking of trolls, their king (or is it "daddy"?) is profiled in Businessweek. I know typing this only makes him stronger, but man: Milo sure is fascinating.

Where's the ebook?! Er, well -- the website I use to make them is down. But you can access the collection of 10 stories from my Pocket Sharedli.st for now.

karma (link)
Postscripts: Gawken.com. The cult of kek. The bored user's guide to the Internet. The real problem with algorithms is that they can't be critiqued. (Also, uh, potentially they could "rewrite history".) Apps to tell you where to live and where to sit at lunch. What happens when we always have our wireless earbuds? How conspiracists convinced the world Clinton is sick and how violent stuff news is messing you up. Good on Airbnb for trying, but its anti-discrimination push does not go far enough. QWERTY and flirty; borderless and kooky; entirely too real. Speaking of, that cute animal you just "hearted" is probs already someone's meal!

Harambe's amphibian precursor. Gawker's messy resurrection. The unfortunate, inevitable side effects of "too much information." Pepe's creator, on what he hath wrought: "I think it's just a phase." Tech ads from the '80s are studies in naivete. Why did they kill the pink-shirt-girl emoji?! And why did they make the survivors massive? (The only good news in emoji-land lately is this hijab-emoji kid!) How Facebook moral-polices the world and how organizers crafted Black Lives Matter, the brand. Last but not least: the case against banning bad words from Instagram.

Until next week!
@caitlindewey

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