Kickoff For October 25, 2021
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
The outdated machine hampering the fight against Covid-19, wherein we learn how the fax machine is still prevalent in a number of key sectors, and how reliance on that technology can slow things down (especially response to a pandemic).
Voices From The Beyond, wherein Vanessa Chang argues that artists can use vocal deep fakes to achieve something like creative immortality.
Where Would We Be Without the Paper Punch Card?, wherein we learn how a rectangle with 80 columns and 12 rows, made out of stiff paper, was the start of the data (and computing) revolution.
Online Life
The online data that’s being deleted, wherein we learn why data stored on the internet vanishes, and about some of the efforts to try to preserve that information.
The ugly, geeky war for web privacy is playing out in the W3C, wherein we learn about the intense infighting among those who ostensibly are supposed to be protecting our privacy online.
The Internet Is Rotting, wherein Jonathan Zittrain looks at the online phenomenon of link rot and laments all of the information that’s been lost to it.
Odds and Ends
Shock Therapy, wherein Ania Spyra recounts her first encounter with homelessness in her Polish hometown shortly after the fall of communism.
The Surprisingly Complicated History of the Frisbee, wherein we learn about the interesting genesis of the wildly popular toy, and how it evolved into the plastic disc we know and love.
The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world’s first cryptocurrency cruise ship, wherein we learn how a coterie of cryptocurrency enthusiasts and seasteaders tried to create the ideal libertarian society on a repurposed cruise ship, and how it all fell apart.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.