All fall down!
The toppling of Edward Colston – DC’s Improbable Science
To those who say that removal of the statue erases history, there is a simple response. There are no statues to Hitler. And he most certainly hasn’t been forgotten.
Once you can fake that you can…
Monday 22 March, 2021 – Memex 1.1
Much of the Orwellian language that’s endemic in the tech business reminds me of Heidegger’s definition of ‘technology’ as “The art of arranging the world so that you don’t have to experience it.” Just think how Facebook has perverted the word ‘friend’, or how nearly every company has perverted ‘share’. As Sam Goldwyn might have said, in Silicon Valley if you can fake empathy you’ve got it made.
(John Naughton)
Which side of the isle are you on?
Pluralistic: 24 Mar 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
By definition, you can’t shop your way out of a monopoly. If you don’t believe me, hit your local grocery aisle, where two companies – Unilever and Procter and Gamble – are responsible for nearly every product on sale.
The “cruelty free” brand is made by the same company as the “maximum cruelty” brand. The “organic” brand is made by the same company as the “Oops! All Additives” brand. The “low packaging” brand is made by the same company as the “padded with spotted owl feathers” brand.
Management consultants as seagulls
Outgrowing software — Benedict Evans
There’s an old joke that consultants are like seagulls – they fly in, make lots of noise, mess everything up and then fly out. That’s pretty much what tech has done to media industries – it changes everything and then it leaves.
Are they worse than the pigeons who hang about?
We have no God-given right to be here for ever.
Ebola virus may lurk in survivors for many years | Science
Virus that lay dormant in a survivor of the devastating Ebola epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 apparently triggered a new outbreak in Guinea in January, genomic analyses show. Sequencing the virus from the Guinea outbreak, which has so far sickened at least 18 people and killed nine, found it was virtually identical to the strain that ravaged Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia more than 5 years ago.
Researchers knew the Ebola virus can linger in the human body and ignite fresh outbreaks for well over a year—but not 5 years. “This is pretty shocking,” says virologist Angela Rasmussen of Georgetown University. The finding raises tricky questions about how to prevent such outbreaks without further stigmatizing Ebola survivors.
Why bother, indeed!
Apple Failure Modes. by Jean-Louis Gassée | by Jean-Louis Gassée | Mar, 2021 | Monday Note
We know the old organization joke: When upper layer people look down, they see brains; when brains in the lower layers look up, they see #$$holes. For an organization, the beginning of the end comes when the brains realize the upper layers are colonized by incompetents and get into Why Bother Mode.