Kickoff For November 30, 2020
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I’ve found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.
Let’s get this Monday started with these links:
Technology
Why email loses out to popular apps in China, wherein we learn that the popularity of apps like WeChat in China is a result of people embracing an early 2000s desktop messenger called QQ, which was more convenient (and flexible) than email.
Webwaste, wherein Gerry McGovern looks at how websites have become more and more bloated over the years, the effect of that on user experience and the environment, and offers some advice on how to slim webpages down.
Socialism’s DIY Computer, wherein we learn about the Galaksija, an 80s computer that was something like the Raspberry Pi before there was a Raspberry Pi.
Ideas
How We Lost Our Attention, wherein Matthew B. Crawford walks us through how our attention has become more fragmented thanks, in part, to the range of distractions that are literally at our fingertips.
What Irony Is Not, wherein Roger Kreuz explains how irony differs from its related concepts like coincidence, paradox, satire, and parody.
A Brief History of Dangerous Others, wherein we’re introduced to the centuries-old trope of the outside agitator who comes into a city or region to wreak havok and to try to impose a sinister (if non-existent) agenda.
Odds and Ends
Meet the company that sells your lost airplane luggage, wherein Zachary Crockett takes us into the bizarre secondary market for lost luggage.
Overexposed: A History of Fotomat, wherein we learn about the little yellow huts that once dotted thousands of parking lots where, for decades, people dropped off their film to be processed.
Back to the Future, wherein Dolly Church takes us on a trip through the history of the drive-in movie theatre, and looks at why it’s making a comeback.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.