onfocus

I’ve been having fun with this 3D animated dice-rolling app. Seems like it’ll be good for all of my RPG needs especially those rare times I need to roll a bunch like 10d6 or 12d8. (This is a picture of a roll with advantage—a nice built in feature.)

Cory Doctorow on the legacy of Internet pioneer John Perry Barlow: “...treat the internet with the gravitas that it is due, as a system that could be a force for great human flourishing, but only if we ensure that it isn’t used to snuff out human dignity and agency.”

20 years!? This is like when you find out your favorite album in college is 20 years old. And also you were in that band.

There's a lot to unpack here. First, catch up on all 11 years of Uses This if you haven't been reading it. Twice a week people describe the tools they use to get work done and it's always fascinating.

Here's how it usually works. Uses This proprietor, Daniel Bogan, sends an email interview with a few questions and interviewees can answer at their leisure. I know because I was happy to participate in 2014 when I worked at MetaFilter: Uses This: Paul Bausch. He sent me the interview in November, I responded in a couple days, and promptly forgot about it. Then I got a note from Bogan that my answers were on the site in January, hooray!

In this case, Bogan sent the interview questions to Ford in 2011 and I'm guessing they've been sitting in one of his Emacs to-do lists until yesterday: ...I finally finished my Uses This interview.... This is great because Ford is very thoughtful about how we all use technology and you can tell through this article that stems from his thoughtfulness about how he personally uses technology. Letting these questions marinate for nine years has also given this article the long view. (Unlike my short view of what was interesting to me at that time.) He talks about what hasn't changed in his toolbox and his relationship between personal and work technology.

I'm very curious about who else Bogan is waiting to hear from.

Captain America: The First Antifa. He is depicted in the first Captain America comic literally punching Hitler. Art Spiegelman of Maus fame talks about the history of comics and why Marvel Comics’ modern stance on staying “apolitical” might in fact be political. Spiegelman recently pulled an introduction he wrote for a golden age collection because Marvel didn't want to offend. Newsweek: 'Maus' Author Removed from Marvel Collection for Calling Trump 'Orange Skull'.

Like the Ogilvy company meeting a few weeks ago, this is an inside look at employees pushing back against management decisions. It's fascinating to get insight into debates around language at a major media outlet like this. Language defines how we interpret the world, so this conversation is like watching people determine what is real.

Eric Schlosser of Fast Food Nation fame makes an important point here about the Mississippi immigration raids and immigration patterns in general. They have been driven by the business need for cheaper, less organized labor.

This is a nice collection of in-the-zone music. No mention of the Flow State newsletter?! Travesty! Flow State sends links to music like this to your inbox everyday.

Because there isn't much happening there? And maybe that's good?!

"Scaling job two – looking good at work – up to a social network creates a new sort of venue: a non–office office, with thousands of bosses, none of them yours, all of them potentially watching."

Interesting to consider the different social pressures at work on LinkedIn that aren't explicitly part of the service. (Sorry about the NYT paywall link—I'm trying to stop linking there.)

The spectacle is merciless but can the media change that fact with selective attention? I like Ezra Klein's thought here:

"Perhaps offense and bigotry should be understood as Trump’s baseline — newsworthy, just as the central projects of other leaders are newsworthy, but not worthy of blanket coverage upon every utterance."

I also think this is partly what Beto O'Rourke was challenging when he lost his cool with the media: ‘What the F*ck?’ Is Right. The media feigning suprise at every new racist comment has worn thin.

Sometimes you need to read a good rant about medieval history and this is one of those.

"In fact, medieval people loved a bath and can in many ways be considered a bathing culture, much in the way that say, Japan is now. Medieval people also very much valued being clean generally in an almost religious way."

Someone should tell Dennis.

I really enjoyed this essay about Conceptual Labor. Sometimes the work we need to do is understanding the work we need to do. It reminded me of a favorite saying of mine by Victor Frankl that if you have a why you can get through almost any how. (Paraphrased, it's from Man's Search for Meaning which I should reread.) I think I saw this link on Mastodon, but not finding links again is my theme today.

Most books published before 1964 are in the public domain even though copyright has been extended to cover things by default after 1923. This article explains things well. Here's another take with more background: Where to Download the Millions of Free eBooks that Secretly Entered the Public Domain.

Almost completely unrelated, I enjoyed Top 5 bits of advice for first-time readers of Moby-Dick which I found via Austin Kleon but now can't find a direct link to that mention. Moby Dick is not in copyright so it's easy to track down. har har.