Commonplace Reading - Issue #5
Late again. A long drive back from a client's offices on Friday night prevented the newsletter going out Saturday morning, so this is now your virtual version of the Sunday Times, without the danger that dropping it will kill small mammals.
Journalism & Publishing
Creating space to experiment is key for transition from print to digital-only
Good piece rounding up some opinions on how the Indy can survive its online-only future. And I'm not just saying that because it quotes me…
With a quarter of its readers coming from abroad, Stat launches a daily Zika email update
Great example of getting ahead of the story - and then thinking about how to develop your service to the readers off the back of it.
Breaking news, not breaking people: News organisations need to cooperate on vicarious trauma
One unpleasant - and unexpected - side effect of the internet is the psychological toll being imposed on those journalists who's job it is to look at and verify disturbing media. This article proposes some solutions.
Top journalists sign up as Words By Women judges
I am both pleased and annoyed to link to this. Pleased, because it's a great initiative to celebrate female journalists. Annoyed that this trade is still run in such a way that awards like this are necessary.
Life on the Interwebs
Too many people have peed in the pool
Stephen Fry articulates what so many of us have been feeling - Twitter is a far more hostile and difficult place than it used to be.
Closing the doors
Anil Dash makes a worrying case that the internet is closing down - that the sort of freedom to organise and protest we use dot enjoy is being curtailed as big internet companies rise to central prominence.
Why is Leslie Nielsen STILL dead?
What are the reasons why some celebrities keep dying online again and again and again? Basically - people don't look at publication dates.
Yes, there's really a Hearthstone dating show debuting on Twitch tonight
A dating show for an online trading card game, loosely derived from an MMORPG. This, my friends, is the future of media.
Tech
The Most Important Apple Executive You’ve Never Heard Of
He makes the chips. And that makes him more important to Apple than you realise…
The Playboy Centerfold That Revolutionized Image-Processing Research
The story of a 1970s computer-science lab, a spare magazine, and one model’s unlikely technological legacy.
Life for good and ill
Academia's 'Baby Penalty'
Basically, it sucks to be a woman in academia - especially if you have children. My wife is more intelligent and harder-working than me, and knowing that she faces this sort of prejudice makes me despair of our society.
Will Wiles on the backlash against clutter and the consumer design market
We have too much stuff in our lives. And the design world has not yet got its head around this idea.
Blonde vs Brunette: Tinder experiment shows which one men prefer
A former student discovers that blondes get more dates - and more idiots. Are men really this simple?
Fin
Basically, I'm in marking hell right now. And as soon as I emerge, this will get back on schedule.
But I hope you enjoyed it anyway…
