What I see in different shades of gray, from behind my reading glasses
Few would disagree that Einstein knew what he was talking about. Maria Popova discovers a letter he wrote his 11 year old son with some advice
“That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes.”
These guys diving off the coast of French Polynesia had an incredible experience – watch this
Julia DeVito wrote to director Kirk Douglas to thank him for giving her son Danny a part in his movie called Scallywag. The link contains a video of Danny DeVito reading this letter out loud at some event to honor Kirk.
In the background of NSA’s mail snooping, Raj Sabhlok had this short article in Gigaom on securing your email.
A clever description by James D Schwartz:
I step outside my front door and hop on my bike because I’m too lazy to go downstairs in the parking garage to get the car. I pull my bike up to the front door at my destination because I’m too lazy to drive around looking for a parking spot then having to walk from the car to the building.
John Naughton explains why to a reader who wrote in with this problem:
“As you write about the internet, I wondered if you knew how long it takes Yahoo to get back to people. I have an iPad, but went to the library to print a document (attached to an email). Yahoo knew I wasn’t on my iPad and asked me to name my favourite uncle. I replied, but Yahoo didn’t like my answer, so locked me out for 12 hours. I can’t get into my email account. Getting to the Help page is really difficult. Do you ever speak to anybody at Yahoo? I had to open another non-Yahoo email account, so I opened a Gmail account and it looks to have the same problem. Not easy to get in touch with anybody when things go wrong. I am sure I am not the only one who wants to discuss my problem with a human being. Yours sincerely…”
A driving safety campaign from the UK.
What happens on the internet in the 60 seconds it takes for this video to play? Find out from this narrowly focused info-graphic from Buzzfeed
booface had its first annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday. Here’s a short report. Also an indication of what happens when you have more money than sense:
“Facebook shareholder says she does not know how to use Facebook. She bought thousands of shares at $35 apiece. Also wants investment advice.”
And if you have the heart (or time) to listen, an audio recording of the proceedings (90 minutes long)
For careful reading. Kieran Healy on metadata.
From a table of membership in different groups we have gotten a picture of a kind of social network between individuals, a sense of the degree of connection between organizations, and some strong hints of who the key players are in this world. And all this—all of it!—from the merest sliver of metadata about a single modality of relationship between people.