Engaged Reading Time - Issue #45

Adam Tinworth

Aug 11, 2019 — 4 min read

Hello, all.

Hope you’re enjoying some time off in August. Here’s a miscellany of links to keep you entertained this rainy weekend.

(If it *is* rainy where you are. It is where I am. But I hate to assume…)

A Circle of Words: emails to blogs to newsletters

How could I not start with this? An interesting short piece from Om Malik, pointing out that what became blogs started out as newsletters. And then came back to newsletters. And maybe will become blogs again when everything comes full circle…

Apple Transforms Central Park Into an Augmented Reality Gallery

Apple has been banging the augmented reality drum for years. This is the first experience that actually looks interesting.

Being open-minded literally changes the way you see the world

This is fascinating. Years ago, at TEDxBrighton, a speaker talked about the difference between young brains - open to learning - and “old” brains, which were closed to new ideas. Those categories had nothing to do with age. Those ideas resonate with this one.

REDEF ORIGINAL: The Absurdities of 'Franchise Fatigue' & 'Sequelitis' (Or, What Is Happening to the Box Office?!)

Beware of people predicting franchise movie doom - that’s won’t what the tickets reveal at all. The interesting changes are happening at the indie end. Follow the talent…

Buying Coffee Won’t Make You Poor

The author of this piece has clearly never analysed my buying patterns… (The piece is a takedown of the personal finance gurus and their obsession with coffees.)

Angry old internet man yells at digital clouds

The Internet that wasn’t

Short version: the internet was always full of lackwits, but the reasons why we see the early days as a golden age are interesting.

20 Years of Blogging: What I’ve Learned

Anil, whom I’ve met a couple of times, has just passed his 20th anniversary as a blogger. (For context, my 20th is 2 years away, but Dave Winer is closing in on 25…) Some interesting stuff here. And interesting to note that Anil has abandoned Movable Type, a platform he was the lead advocate for, and is now using Ghost instead.

What Was Instagram Like at the Start?

Well, it was originally called Burbn, for a start, and was a location-based game… But after that, the dynamics of the platform were very different from what we see now.

Good and bad

We’re told that too much screen time hurts our kids. Where’s the evidence?

My take: “screen time” is a useless metric - there’s just too much variety in what it can be.

Photographers, Instagrammers - Stop Being So Damn Selfish and Disrespectful

Narcissistic, rude, oblivious to others and disrespectful of the world we live in. How on earth have we got to this place, all in the name of social media?

Engaged watching time

Lovely short documentary from the NYT. The internet is the perfect place for these short stories - which work so much better at a tight 10 minutes than a whole half hour.