This gets convoluted. Verizon bought a bunch of shit a couple of years ago from Yahoo, including Tumblr, the hosted microblogging platform. They paid $1.1 billion for it. They owned it for a couple of years, did nothing to it other than to ban porn, and are now selling it to Automattic, the company behind WordPress, for somewhere north of $3 million and south of $20 million. For some reason this reminds me of the last years of 6 Apart, when they (for some reason) bought LiveJournal and then sold it to a Russian company before imploding and moving to Japan.
The internet is a strange place, my friends.
Interesting...
- November 6
Fast Company reports on a data viz designer who saw the a tweet showing the counties of the United States colored in by how they voted, and thought he could do a better job of displaying the truth. You've seen the GIF he created—it's this one:
Measuring Land vs Measuring People https://t.co/Vju0kknYby#HowChartsLie #Elections2020 pic.twitter.com/EKhrJ4lBuo
— xan candal (@xancandal) November 6, 2020
October 17
The New York Times Editorial Board lays out the case against the Great Pumpkin: "Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.". The whole thing is great, but I love this part:
In June, his administration tear-gassed and cleared peaceful protesters from a street in front of the White House so Mr. Trump could pose with a book he does not read in front of a church he does not attend.
October 12
A deteriorating 1942 mural entitled “Incidents in the History of Catonsville” that includes a portrayal of Black slaves pulling barrels of tobacco alongside white men on horses has quietly been covered over in plastic in the town’s post office after state and federal representatives called for its replacement.
...Slavery in the state existed “from the very beginning,” Wright said, from the 1600s until Maryland abolished slavery at the end of 1864, two months before Congress ratified the 13th amendment abolishing slavery nationwide.
We are lucky to have an example of the WPA's portfolio in our town, but I can see why this mural is confronting. I'd prefer not to take it down (it was designed to be integral to three walls of the Post Office) but I understand if they decide to, much like Confederate statues around the country. (previously)
September 30
Ha-ha, funny. Ha. Wait, is this illegal?
September 25
Coup attempts have happened all over the world, and over half have failed. That’s because coups are hard to orchestrate. They are a violation of norms that require quick seizure of multiple levels of institutions with a claim that they are the rightful heir.
Coups tend to fail when government institutions (like elections) are trusted, there is an active citizenry and other nations are ready to become involved.
The role of citizenry is crucial. That’s because during the period right after a coup attempt— when the new government is claiming it is the “real” government — all the institutions have to decide who to listen to.
10 Things You Need to Know to Stop a Coup, from Waging Nonviolence (emphasis mine).
