Commonplace Reading - Issue #14
Blah blah…sorry it's been so long…blah blah.
Yeah, been busy (and tired). Since the middle of the summer, my feet have barely touched the ground (pretty literally - I've spent over 48 hours in flight over the last four months), and so any time for anything beyond my family and my paying work has been scarce,
But I like doing this, and want to do this - but I can't promise weekly any more. It'll arrive when it arrives.
Enjoy.
The Long Read
Trans-Siberian Railway 100th anniversary: Tales from Moscow to Vladivostok
Beautiful interactive feature. Love it.
Digital Dilemmas
What Its Like To Date Instagram Star, Instagram Husband
Part relationship, part business partner. How would you feel about getting a salary from your social media star other half?
How the Web Became Unreadable
Nice piece from Kevin Marks about how a certain view of design is eroding the usability of the web. We need to walk back from this.
Politics (Petrifying)
Politics is pretty horrifying right now. It feels as if the fundamentals of democracy are pretty shaky on both sides of the channel. And that's all the more reason to engage with thoughtful writing on the subject.
Inside The Strange, Paranoid World Of Julian Assange
James's account is one of the first to match up with what I've heard from others who were within Assange's circle during the early days of Wikileaks. It goes a long way to explaining how we ended up where we are now.
Milo Yiannopoulos Is the Pretty, Monstrous Face of the Alt-Right
A horrifying look into the poster child of the alt right. I remember the days when he was just trying to be a tech and politics guy for The Telegraph. I kinda wish he'd stayed there.
Dilbert creator Scott Adams gets Trump like no one else.
WARNING: this article may destroy your enjoyment of Dilbert forever.
This is the End. (But maybe in a good way.)
A compelling case that the real heart of Brexit is a collapse in the British public's trust in our democracy. And, if that's the case, the only solutions available are drastic ones.
Media Matters
Here’s What Happened When I Gave Up Following The News For A Week
Basically, life got better. Are we over-informing ourselves? It's a pretty challenging idea as we create ever-greater volumes of content.
Russell Davies: Amateurs and experts
A short - very short read - that accidentally captures the problem with journalism in the digital age.
You're only a journalist if Twitter and Facebook say so.
Hugely popular piece I wrote about the way that Facebook and Twitter have found themselves - partially through their own actions - as the arbitrators of who is and isn't a journalist.
15 Not Out
15 years as a blogger
This week, I hit my 15 years as a blogger. I did the maths, and worked out that many of my students were in primary school when I started. Frightening.
An Email History of the 2001 iPod Launch
Talking of 15th anniversaries, the iPod is a little over 15 years old. This trail through old e-mails reveals a very different Apple and tech world to the one we know today. I enjoyed the Bill Gates cameo in particular.
Photographic Life
The iPhone 7 Plus vs. the original iPhone: a camera showdown
It's really, really easy to forget just how bad the original iPhone's camera was - and how far we've come in less than a decade.
Fisherman Catches Dead GoPro, Finds Final Moments on SD Card
I'm such a sucker for this stuff. The advent of the action cam means we're getting to see all sorts of things we never would have without them - often by accident.
