onfocus

This sinus infection I’ve had for what feels like forever has been miserable but I did catch up on some good TV to keep myself distracted. My loss can be your gain! Here are some recent shows I recommend for binging and I don’t think you need to have a fever to enjoy them.

• The Bureau - French spy drama. I haven't been this addicted to a show since The Wire. Mathieu Kassovitz of Amélie fame in a completely different role here. RIYL: anxiety. (4 seasons streaming on Sundance.)
• Name of the Rose - Middle Ages crime procedural set in a monastery! What's not to love? John Turturro is fantastic as man-ahead-of-his-time William of Baskerville. RIYL: logic. (8-episode miniseries streaming on Sundance.)
• The Mandalorian - I was primed to not like the new Star Wars offering but a certain puppet character makes up for many flaws. RIYL: shooting. (Streaming on Disney+.)
• Modern Love - This anthology love letter to New York has such stellar casting for each mini-movie. RIYL: feelings. (Streaming on Amazon Prime.)
• Letterkenny - Hicks vs. skids in rural Canada. Had to look up so much hockey slang to sort myself out for this show, boys. RIYL: drinking and punching. (7 seasons streaming on Hulu.)

Impeachment, right? Since I've been in this timeline for quite a while now it's tough for me to remember that we are in a historic moment for our democracy that I should pay attention to. As with all things online, I'm trying to batch my attention instead of drip-feeding during all waking hours. And with the public impeachment hearings starting tomorrow, I thought I'd share two resources for batching that I've found helpful:

Impeachment.fyi is an afternoon newsletter with the news of the day. In the same spirit as WTFJHT, it's a great concise summary with just the right amount of shock.

For a higher level view of what impeachment means I really like Ezra Klein's podcast Impeachment, explained. I feel ike Ezra is earnestly trying to make sense of things and talking with experts to help him. I think I'm getting a better sense of the process following Ezra's process here.

The information intensity is only going to ramp up from here. You can't go wrong adding these.

It has been so long since I've linked anything that I just need to clear the backlog with an old fashioned link dump. Enjoy!

• The Verge: Text messages delayed from February were mysteriously sent overnight - This is terrible—I hope more details come out about why this happened.
• Brand New: New Logo for Facebook, Inc. done In-house with Dalton Maag and Saffron - "...no amount of nice kerning can make up for reputation lost."
• Reuters: AT&T to pay $60 million in settlement for slowing cellphone data on unlimited plans - "None of these allegations were ever proved in court. We were fully prepared to defend ourselves, but decided settling was in the best interests of consumers," said Weasel McWeaselface, a spokesweasel for AT&Weasel.
• CJR: Twitter hates me. The Des Moines Register fired me. Here’s what really happened. - "They wanted the clicks. But they did not anticipate how powerful the narrative would be once wrested from their control and turned on them and their reporters."
• Fast Company: One simple trick to be happier - Chain small happy events together.
• Greater Good: Four Ways Technology Can Make You Happier - ...and fourteen-hundred ways it can make you meh.
• APA Style: Welcome, Singular “They” - Hopefully this will become standard in all style guides. AP Style allows it for limited cases but it should be used widely.
• Popular Mechanics: The Best Websites Ever - Nice history of websites. I worked on a couple of these.
• alexdanco.com: Everything is Amazing, But Nothing is Ours - "Worlds of scarcity are made out of things. Worlds of abundance are made out of dependencies." AND "...Technology that's Actually Yours could be the next great counter-trend."
• The Baffler: All Right Already - Facebook is a conservative site. Someone had to say it.
• Mercury news: Kincade Fire: Why you can't make cell calls in this emergency - Maximizing profits on critical infrastructure has hidden costs that appear in emergencies.
• NYT: Read the Letter Facebook Employees Sent to Mark Zuckerberg About Political Ads - Finally seeing some dissent within Facebook. Good for the employees for speaking out about a horrible policy.
• watabou: One Page Dungeon by watabou - Nicely designed random dungeon generator.
• YES! Magazine: The Sustainable Future Town of Your Imagination by Rob Hopkins - Nice dreams.
• Vox: Elizabeth Warren has a lot of supporters on Wall Street over Trump - A counter to all the ‘wall street is panicking about warren’ stories I’m seeing.
• Continuations: Facebook and Speech: It’s All About Power - Agree that open APIs would help! That’s why these companies disabled them a long time ago.
• Timothy Burke on Twitter: "completely befuddled." - It sure looks like the fix is in.
• Buzzfeed: The 2010s Have Broken Our Sense Of Time - Add this article to your flow.
• CityLab: Why Asking for Bike Lanes Isn't Smart - scraps and twigs are not enough
• Ars Technica: Alexa and Google Home abused to eavesdrop and phish passwords - "Now, there's a new concern: malicious apps developed by third parties and hosted by Amazon or Google."
• Vox: The embarrassing epilogue to the media’s obsession with Hillary Clinton’s emails - This should put to rest the old lie that the NYT has a liberal bias.
• The Guardian: Zuckerberg has a bizarre take on history. More Facebook doesn't equal more democracy - Excellent summary of the Facebook trade-off: "Sometimes your phone call would be connected directly to the person you wanted to reach, sometimes it would reach no one and sometimes it would be blasted to hundreds or thousands or even millions of people at once. People with money would be able to pay extra to increase the likelihood that their calls would go through; those without would be stuck trying to game the system, without ever really knowing the rules."