Kickoff For October 12, 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:
Business and Economics
The unsurpassed 125-year-old network that feeds Mumbai, wherein we learn about the city’s dabbawallas, who deliver thousands of lunches using low tech means, and how they’re able to compete with the well-funded digital players who are trying to enter their world.
The Walkman, Forty Years On, wherein we learn how Sony’s portable cassette players came into being and became the iPods of their day.
Dirty Tricks Of The Public Relations Industry, wherein Nick Slater looks at three techniques which the PR industry uses to distort reality and to sway the public.
Politics and Government
Can the liberal order be transformed by global government?, wherein we learn about the origins of the so-called liberal order, where it’s going, the challenges it faces, and how it can overcome those challenges.
Abolish Oil, wherein Reinhold Martin argues that to have a truly Green New Deal, we need to do more than just stop using oil and get rid of the entire system of oil production, a system with a colonial legacy and which has left a trail of deaths.
How Corporations Try To Be More Human Than Humans, wherein Eli Zeger examines the good and bad (mostly bad) of recognizing corporations as people.
Technology
On COBOL, wherein Mike Loukides looks at the history of an early programming language, why it was so widely adopted, and we need more people who know and understand COBOL programs.
The Making of the Tech Worker Movement, wherein Ben Tarnoff takes us through the history of what led to the walkouts at several tech giants and why those walkouts are the start of a shift in the way people in that industry view themselves and what they do.
Notes from a Tech-Free Life, wherein Mark Boyle discusses why he turned his back on modern technology, and tried to make living my life.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.