Linkdump for September 1st through September 3rd

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Sometime between September 1st and September 3rd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

Linkdump for August 1st through September 1st

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Sometime between August 1st and September 1st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • The P-I error that changed Seattle history: "Occasionally, newspapers report factual errors. A well-intentioned interview subject gives bad information, a name is spelled wrong, a breaking news story is inadvertently peppered with grammatical errors. But no incorrect newspaper story has had a bigger impact on Seattle history than one published June 7, 1889."
  • 98.6 degrees is a normal body temperature, right? Not quite: “Forget everything you know about normal body temperature and fever, starting with 98.6. That’s an antiquated number based on a flawed study from 1868 (yes, 150 years ago). The facts about fever are a lot more complicated.”
  • The “I Am Steve Rogers” Joke in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Is the Definitive Captain America Moment: That’s who Captain America is, a man who listens to and believes in people when they tell him who they are. That’s a lesson we all should take away from that moment.
  • The Bullshit Web: “An honest web is one in which the overwhelming majority of the code and assets downloaded to a user’s computer are used in a page’s visual presentation, with nearly all the remainder used to define the semantic structure and associated metadata on the page. Bullshit — in the form of CPU-sucking surveillance, unnecessarily-interruptive elements, and behaviours that nobody responsible for a website would themselves find appealing as a visitor — is unwelcome and intolerable.”
  • Ignorant Hysteria Over 3D Printed Guns Leads To Courts Ignoring The First Amendment: "…in the last few days the hysteria [over 3D-printed guns] has returned… and much of it is misleading and wrong, and while most people probably want to talk about the 2nd Amendment implications of all of this, it's the 1st Amendment implications that are a bigger deal." Interesting. I'm not at all comfortable with wide availability of 3D-printed guns, but this analysis of the issues is worth reading.
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And Summer vacation part two (four nights with friends at a lake house on Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho) is done! Had to make it a working vacation, but when not being responsible, I drove a boat, rode a rainbow floaty unicorn, swam in a lake, and had a grand time!

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Summer vacation part one was in the mountains; today we leave for summer vacation part two, by a lake! As before, connectivity will be low priority, so y’all have fun without me for another week. Once more, don’t let anything important happen while we’re gone, okay?

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Summer vacation part one (four nights camping at Seaquest State Park) is done! Saw Mt. St. Helens on a smokey, hazy day and on a gorgeous, clear day, introduced two of our nieces to camping, got my new tattoo’s first unsolicited compliment from a stranger, and many bug bites. 😁

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Running away to the mountains for a few days for part one of our summer vacation! Will be either entirely disconnected or nearly so for the duration. Make sure nothing important happens for the next few days, okay?

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Leaning ever closer to closing down my Twitter account once I’ve passed on the keys to the Norwescon social media accounts. Between their inconsistent application of rules and their neutering of third-party clients, it’s harder to care about staying.

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First Facebook cuts off posts from external sources, and now Twitter’s crippled any third-party clients. Even after years of talk of how social media is adversely affecting our culture, I didn’t really expect the platforms themselves to be so invested in driving users away.

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Interesting side effect to Facebook killing the ability to mirror content from outside and my mirroring not just my blog, but also (not all but) many random links and tweets to Tumblr: my Tumblr is probably my most comprehensive online presence right now.