Matter

There’s a great long-form article about this: https://medium.com/matter/8476df17bddf

I used $50 alcatel phone for the last four years. It was actually pretty nice for the first three years, it wasn't even slow for many purposes (though cruising the web was annoying). That it's screen was 1/3 normal size helped - sped things up and made the phone much tougher. The phone was killed in the last year by the gradual process of applications upgrading themselves and exceeding memory. And then the touch screen started dying. The cheapish thing I have does more but is not more aesthetically pleasing. See: https://medium.com/matter/shitphone-a-love-story-a44e66434807

I just began paying $5/mo to be a "member" at Medium. It's meant to enhance the discovery feature and the ability to access curated archives. Really it was a spur of the moment decision after I found myself reading and greatly appreciating an article from 2015[1], but I haven't really used the membership or understood it well enough to say that I'll continue yet. I think there's great need for a specific type of personal journalism Medium is known for, and I do want to support it especially if it means better research and discovery. Also given how much I've read off of Medium (good and not so good), a payment of some sort felt due. Let's see. [1] https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dying-on-airbnb-6bff8d600c04

Reminds me https://medium.com/matter/shitphone-a-love-story-a44e66434807

This article reminds me of the "shitphone" story that got posted here a while back. Long but definitely worthwhile IMHO. https://medium.com/matter/shitphone-a-love-story-a44e66434807 Basically an exploration of value. An iPhone can cost 3x times as much as some of these other phones, and is certainly a more pleasant device to use, but does it really offer 3x as much functionality? The basic (world-changing) functions of the smartphone (location services with GPS, decent point and shoot camera with you at all times, web access on the go, etc.) are present in both devices.

It's linked in the article, but worth reading: * "Mars One Finalist Explains Exactly How It‘s Ripping Off Supporters": https://medium.com/matter/mars-one-insider-quits-dangerously-flawed-pr… > No money, no process, no explanation: An insider speaks out on the hopelessly flawed scheme. * iflscience coverage: http://www.iflscience.com/space/whats-going-mars-one (HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9250474 (81 points, 132 days ago, 23 comments))

> It's fairly well established that many pedophiles where in fact victims of pedophilia in their childhood themselves This point is oftentimes overlooked. Also, the word "pedophile" is oftentimes conflated with "child molester", which makes it impossible to distinguish the individuals who are pedophiles but have not (and have no intentions to) act on those desires. I found this article to be a worthwhile read on the latter situation: https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-…

This is the same person who just doxxed a journalist who dared write about her negatively [1], and made up a story (quite similar to the current one) about another journalist who wrote about her positively [2]. This person is being assessed for their actions: changing from a far-right racist to a far-left racist/sexist. Their pretending to be a victim was fairly predictable. 1. https://twitter.com/shanley/status/556221414408069123/ 2. https://medium.com/matter/speaking-up-every-fucking-time-a61a24aa7629 More on this person: http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/12/10/the-madness-of-queen-shanle… Edit: from the actual article being posted: "misandry forever". For real. Elisabeth Spiers (the sympathetic journalist attacked by this person last time) also has a fairly insightful article on the recent revelations: http://www.elizabethspiers.com/on-the-matter-of-weev-vs-kane/

Goatse Security actually, but yeah. Him and people from GNAA called it a security firm. Sort of grey hat trolling for hire? I guess it could be considered the template for what got us Cambridge Analytica, Brexit, and Trump. I'm not sure if it's up anymore, but the GNAA public code repo used to be just full of interesting software solutions for mass griefing people. Here[0] is a DEFCON talk from a GNAA/lulsec affiliate talking about trolling as an art. I think the talk actually has some interesting things going on when looked at through the lens of what weaponized trolling has produced in the now. At one point someone in the audience asks the presenter to read his "funny" slides and it's a racist "joke" comic. He acts embarrassed and says "I don't believe this stuff." He does break down a few of their trolling tools from their repo that they were pretty proud of at the time. So the curious can scope that out if you don't have to browse to any of their official sites or do a risky google. This was before Facebook so it's mostly IRC tools and general troll culture commentary. They used the ATT dump, knowing it wasn’t really illegal to get hype to sell their services. I think it worked? Here's a pretty good piece on him with a reporter who followed him around during the first trial. I think it covers a lot of it[1]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHqGV5WjS4w [1] https://medium.com/matter/the-martyrdom-of-weev-9e72da8a133d EDIT: DO NOT GOOGLE GNAA or GOATSE AT WORK.…

As someone who purchased a Galaxy S4, I'll _never_ purchase another Google phone. The entire reason I purchased a google phone was to avoid the lack of updates, like I had when I was at the whim of Motorola with my Droid2. I was stuck on 2.3 and never saw an upgrade in the time I owned the phone. I figured that Google would be a better actor and actual push updates, but boy was I in for a wild ride. When I saw that 5.0 had been pushed, I upgraded, thinking that Google had vetted the release. Instead what I had was wifi that never stayed connected and seg faults ALL over the place in virtually every app that I used on a regular basis, including apps developed by Google (hangouts, photos [which were trapped on the phone unless I wanted to connect external and download them], my SMS app, WeChat, Strava, Kindle ect). They broke my phone, no way around it. It was miserable and I stuck with it, because I paid for a premium device and wasn't about to go blow another $650 on another device. Three weeks ago I got the 5.1 upgrade, just shy of a year after it was released. I'm now a firm believer of the shit phone. https://medium.com/matter/shitphone-a-love-story-a44e66434807 Buyer beware.

In 2013-14 or so, one person, Adam Magyar, did a similar thing with a hand-built line scan / slit scan camera and made quite interesting portraits of NYC subway cars and passengers: https://medium.com/matter/einsteins-camera-88aa8a185898 [now paywalled, it wasn't when first published]

All of these. Jonah Peretti has a good explanation here: https://medium.com/matter/buzzfeeds-jonah-peretti-goes-long-e98cf13160… It's not impossible, but it is much much harder.

This is what happen when societies treat something as taboo. People who seek help can't have it: https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-…

See https://purplestatesofamerica.org/ (Click on "Population".) And here's an interesting take: https://medium.com/matter/the-trouble-with-the-purple-election-map-31e…

A pretty good chunk of what's mapped as land in Louisiana isn't. The map lies. https://medium.com/matter/louisiana-loses-its-boot-b55b3bd52d1e http://samuel-warde.com/2018/10/louisiana-maps-are-all-a-lie-the-true-… https://www.businessinsider.com/real-map-louisiana-should-scare-you-20… https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ZBGYb5An8Mo

That's bad, because your life can be in the hands of your AirBnb host. https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dying-on-airbnb-6bff8d600c04 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-death-at-an-airbnb-rental-puts-the-te… There are going to be legitimate reasons for removing a review like bad writing, personal information, or foul language, but the net effect is making the listing appear better than it is, and that doesn't sit well with me.

see also how Runa Sandvik got a copy of all her photos from the DHS: https://medium.com/matter/how-i-requested-my-photographs-from-the-depa…

Murderer in my family, probably not, but what if it is "drug crime in my own family" or the more likely "expensive medical disorder which will preclude insurance, employment, dating, etc.". It's still data being used "against" the user or his relatives. This long article that someone on Twitter sent me is interesting: https://medium.com/matter/23-and-you-66e87553d22c

> but the same meaning is always conveyed Debatable. https://medium.com/matter/lost-in-emoji-translation-apple-vs-android-6… Old article, and Android is/has ditched the blobs, but still highlights the importance of the art in conveying the same meaning.

See also the analysis (from 2015) of an Iranian blogger who got arrested in 2008 and got free in 2015 - he did not recognize the new web. (Ironically also posted on Medium...) According to him, hyperlinks turned into a social media stream. https://medium.com/matter/the-web-we-have-to-save-2eb1fe15a426

The problem has been defined, countless times. Examples include 'The Web We Lost'[1] from 2012, 'The Web We Have To Save'[2] from 2015 and so on. I think we spent enough time on defining problems, so let's start working on fixes.[3] [1]: http://anildash.com/2012/12/the-web-we-lost.html [2]: https://medium.com/matter/the-web-we-have-to-save-2eb1fe15a426 [3]: https://indieweb.org/

I agree with you, however, I just want to point out that a completely destroyed house in a drug binge orgy party isn't even close to the worse case scenario, at least then you can "only" lose 100% of the value of your physical property, maybe ~$300,000. The worse case scenario is someone getting seriously hurt or dying, that could cost millions and has virtually no upper limit - https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dying-on-airbnb-6bff8d600c04

It's still a big problem. https://medium.com/matter/ubering-while-black-146db581b9db http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/digital-discrimination-the-case-of-airbnb-co… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining#Current_issues

Here's an extensive article on the subject of the Louisiana coast, and how the usually seen map silhouette of the state needs to be fixed. https://medium.com/matter/louisiana-loses-its-boot-b55b3bd52d1e

Well, I wrote mismanagement this morning and have spent more time reconsidering the topic since. I'd guess that if people knew then what they know now, they'd do things differently or not do them. Using the word mismanagement is an unfair criticism. If the coastline changes were significantly caused by climate change/rising sea levels then the other Gulf coast states would have problems too. The link between the control humans have exerted on Louisiana rivers, additional artificial waterways and loss of coastline is fairly well established. If you'd like more information, the below medium work seems a reasonable introduction--I scanned over it and it seems to have the main points, some nice maps, doesn't avoid the problem of sea level changes, and has some human interest stuff: https://medium.com/matter/louisiana-loses-its-boot-b55b3bd52d1e

One AirBnB customer DID die from an unsafe tree-swing on the property: https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dying-on-airbnb-6bff8d600c04

I remember reading this blog piece regarding Ubering while black, and it improved my opinion of the company/"taxi startup" industry: https://medium.com/matter/ubering-while-black-146db581b9db#.4qhpwjocq

I was hoping I could somehow sap the plant of some or all of its life force to bolster my mother's health. I even knew then it was a bit of quackery, but I was more evenly split between just doing and just thinking. Nowadays, I feel I have strayed to the too much thinking, or 'paralysis by analysis' syndrome. Years later I read a fringe 'science' book about bioelectricity and limb regeneration. I guess I never kicked the Frankenstein thing (I visited Mary Shelley's grave site in Bournemoth, England in the 80s). It seems to be making a real science comeback. [1] [Edit] the fringe book I wrote of was 'The Body Electric' mentioned in the article I cited just before. [1] https://medium.com/matter/could-this-man-hold-the-secret-to-human-rege…

Many of these appeared in Margaret Atwood's piece "It's Not Climate Change -- It's Everything Change." https://medium.com/matter/it-s-not-climate-change-it-s-everything-chan… (2015)

> Medium is a blogging platform. The comparison is just plain wrong. Yes, I'm familiar with the type of work they publish, but I'm talking about those beautiful full-width images they use (https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/215679797-Images), in comparison with the 2-page wide images used in some of the example books. And full-width images have even worked well for longform stories like https://medium.com/matter/who-killed-the-jeff-davis-8-d1b813e13581 ... Just look at those illustrations and consistent color-palette, absolutely beautiful. > > ... but here on the web you can have ... pages with sections divided however you want. > Yep, exactly. :-) The phrase "infinitely long" is important. Without it, it sounds like I'm talking about fixed-size pages, rather than a single page encompassing an entire chapter or even an entire book.