The Enshittification Lifecycle of Online Platforms:

The Amazon example he uses is really easy to follow. Early in the company’s history, the site used to be a great place to shop; their customers loved Amazon. But then Amazon’s sellers became their real customers and the user experience started to suffer. And now, much of the value generated by the users and customers goes to the shareholders (which, functionally speaking these days, means several dozen people who run hedge funds or large investment funds).

YouTube Speedrunner Becomes Full-Blown Fascist In Record Time:

According to reports, the speedrun, which took only three minutes and four seconds, began when Flannery opened the video-streaming platform, watched a neutral, 10-second news clip, and then immediately clicked through over 80 pieces of algorithm-suggested content made by various extremist influencers, many with titles like “The Truth About Grooming,” “Why The Aryan Bloodline Matters,” and “The Dangers Of Female Consent.”

• via The Onion

Behind the scenes of Durham investigation reveals special counsel engaged in serious abuse of power:

As the end of 2022 approached, it became clear that all Durham had really done was vindicate everything about the original Russia investigation. That shouldn’t be surprising, since the parallel report put together by a Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee determined that there had been more than 100 contacts between Trump’s team and Russian agents, that Trump’s team had actively sought more assistance from Russia, and that the close association of members of Trump’s campaign with Russian agents represented a threat to the United States. The reason the Russia investigation found connections between Trump and Russia was simple enough — there were connections between Trump and Russia.

Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts With New Guardrails to Deter Repeat Offenses | Meta:

The suspension was an extraordinary decision taken in extraordinary circumstances. The normal state of affairs is that the public should be able to hear from a former President of the United States, and a declared candidate for that office again, on our platforms. Now that the time period of the suspension has elapsed, the question is not whether we choose to reinstate Mr. Trump’s accounts, but whether there remain such extraordinary circumstances that extending the suspension beyond the original two-year period is justified.

The normal state of affairs is that presidents don’t attempt coups, traitors who violate their oath of office get arrested and are barred from being re-elected. There’s nothing normal about lord dampnut, and giving him a voice or any kind of attention other than illuminating his crimes is a problem.

From the via

So no matter what Trump does, the longest they’ll suspend him is another two years? This is whistling past the graveyard. Trump wasn’t suspended because he posted something, say, racist or untruthful or hateful. It’s not about Trump and his supporters being on the political right. The man tried to overthrow the democratically elected government of the United States while serving as President of the United States. He still insists he was correct to do so, and quite obviously intends to try again. If there were only one person in the world suspended from Facebook’s platforms, it should be Donald Trump. No one is more dangerous. No one is more deserving of being outcast as a pariah.

• Via Daring Fireball

Mass shootings and America’s unique gun violence problem, explained - Vox:

No other high-income country has suffered such a high death toll from gun violence. Every day, more than 110 Americans die at the end of a gun, including suicides and homicides, an average of 40,620 per year. Since 2009, there has been an annual average of 19 shootings in which at least four people are killed. The US gun homicide rate is as much as 26 times that of other high-income countries; its gun suicide rate is nearly 12 times higher.

Technically this is only the second worst thing the GOP has done to us as far as deaths in recent years, with 500 people a day still dying from COVID.

The Availability of Guns and Books in America:

Exaggerating China’s military spending, St. Louis Fed breaks all statistical rules with misleading graph - Geopolitical Economy Report:

In an attempt to grossly exaggerate China’s defense spending, and simultaneously downplay the US military budget, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis published a jaw-droppingly deceptive graph.

If a student presented this in a statistics 101 class, the teacher would likely give them an F. But because it involves Washington’s public enemy number one, Beijing, the US regional reserve bank was awarded a Golden Star for exemplary service in the New Cold War.

Things to do and not to do during a wave of tech layoffs | Christian Heilmann:

Be there for others

If you worked in a place resembling some human society, you will have colleagues that reach out to you and tell you how sorry they are. Take these moments and thank them. Also reach out to people who have been laid off and just offer to be available for a chat. These are annoying, frustrating and bad times, and there is period of flooded job markets and even more layoffs coming.

• via: The Tao of Mac

Florida teachers told to remove books from classroom libraries or risk felony prosecution:

Teachers in Manatee County, Florida, are being told to make their classroom libraries — and any other "unvetted" book — inaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution. The new policy is part of an effort to comply with new laws and regulations championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R).

Evil.

Lessons on How to Draw by Hokusai:

In 1812, Japanese woodblock print artist Katsushika Hokusai, who would later become famous for his iconic Great Wave off Kanagawa prints, published a three-volume series called Quick Lessons in Simplified Drawing. All three volumes are available online: one, two, three. Even if you’re not in the market for drawing lessons, the pages are wonderful to flip through.

Ermagerd I love him even more. Great Wave and the series it comes from are possibly my favorite art in existence, but he was such a cool artist in general…

The Lisa: Apple’s Most Influential Failure - CHM:

Despite the Lisa’s failure in the marketplace, it holds a key place in the history of the GUI and PCs more generally as the first GUI-based computer to be released by a personal computer company.

Inside Elon Musk’s “extremely hardcore” Twitter - The Verge:

In three months, Musk has also largely destroyed the equity value of Twitter and much of his personal wealth. He has indicated that the company could declare bankruptcy, and the distraction of running it has caused Tesla stock to crater, costing him $200 billion.

I read this as “…of ruining it…” and it made far more sense.

Daring Fireball: The End May Be Nigh for Third-Party Twitter Clients:

(Twitterrific for Mac is still functioning, though — at least as I write this. Unlike Tweetbot, Twitterrific uses different app IDs for iOS and Mac, and whatever is going on, it seems to have affected only the most popular third-party apps.)

The fact that certain apps/API IDs haven’t been swept up in this reads to me that it’s an intentional shut-out, and that Twitter has shot itself in the foot deliberately. Even before taking hiatus over the antics of their Austin Powers Villian leadership, I never willingly interacted with the service via their website, only through third-party clients… And I’m absolutely not alone in that.

Beware the Gifts of Dragons: How D&D’s Open Gaming License May Have Become a Trap for Creators | Electronic Frontier Foundation:

According to leaks reported last week, the company that owns Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is planning to revoke the open license that has, since the year 2000, applied to a wide range of unofficial, commercial products that build on the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons. The report indicates that this wouldn’t simply be a change going forward, but would affect existing works that relied on the license. The old license would be revoked for existing uses, and people who have used on it will be forced to adopt new terms or renegotiate with the company, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of game giant Hasbro.

Obviously, this would be a rude and unfair thing to do to people who have accepted the invitation of the open gaming license (OGL) to create new games and stories that build upon Dungeons and Dragons. But would it be legal?

Even more interesting, would revoking the OGL actually give some third parties more freedom to operate, given that the OGL forced them to promise not to do some things that copyright and trademark law otherwise permit?

The real secrets of iOS and accessibility – Six Colors:

There’s a joke I tell a lot: if you encounter an article whose headline includes the words “secret features” and “iOS”, chances are you’re about to be taken on a whirlwind tour of your phone’s accessibility settings. “Did you know you could….?” Or. “Buried deep in iOS settings, you’ll find…”

Truth is, these aren’t secret features at all; they’re just unfamiliar to people whose eyes, ears and hands operate in a typical way. And these “secrets” are rarely written about, even in comprehensive coverage of iOS. “Invisible” might be a more honest way to describe these tools.

Apple’s products make Accessibility a first-class feature, though often below the bar of easy discoverability.