Is Santa coming on a one horse open sleigh, or with nine reindeers? Why are there so many holes in a fabricated story? Does Christmas need better writers?
Chinese spies infiltrated Aussie telco using Huawei gear and installed malware
Anthony in the The Sizzle via the old mates at Bloomberg who keep on reporting solid tech news despite screwing up ‘The Big Hack’ all those years ago:
According to Bloomberg the reason for Huawei’s exile from Australia was based on a “software update from Huawei that was installed on the network of a major Australian telecommunications company” in 2012.
A new religion is being formed on the Internet
“Call it the religion of “just asking questions.” Or the religion of “doing your own research.” It’s still in its infancy, and has evolved in an attempt to correct a societal wrong: that the world is a pretty fucked up place and it doesn’t seem like the current system of dealing with it is really working, so maybe something else is going on, something just out of reason’s reach.”
Our newest god is an algorithm.
COOKIES.TXT in 1994 according to Microsoft
Reading through this beautiful 1994 email remnant of a Microsoft that was trying to beat Apple and Unix from owning the Internet, apart from the zinger after zinger, my favourite element is the very innocent 1994 version of a COOKIES.TXT. The file was about baking cookies, the food ones. So sweet and innocent.
“The word on the Internet is that if you want to bring a server online, buy a Unix. If you want to get a cool Internet client, use Unix - or better yet buy a Macintosh.”
Some personal news: in the new year I’m also going to be studying a diploma in the difference between the “Auto Intensive”, “Auto Wash”, and “Super Wash” modes on my dishwasher.
What a time to be alive. When Dawkins defined a meme as “unit of cultural information spread by imitation” he was definitely thinking of Sidetalk NYC’s Thanksgiving on IG spreading to the Jonas Brothers in the Whitehouse on Tiktok. Bing bong.
What exactly is Crazy Frog riding? Is it a spacecraft, a motorbike, a bicycle, an Imperial Speeder Bike?
"Some worker’s preferences and lifestyles may have shifted after a year and half out of the labor force"
James Hennessy’s The Terminal on the rise of anti-work
“It’s not just media talking about the brewing revolution. In a November note to investors about the slow pace of recovery for US labour force participation, Goldman Sachs specifically pointed (with some evident concern) to the growth of r/antiwork, which it described as a possible bellwether of a developing distaste for employment among Americans.”
Ira Glass on beginners
If you’ve been in a car with me for for more than 30 minutes I’ve probably told you this story by Ira Glass, adlibbed by me. Here it is in full:
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me.
All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap.
For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.
A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.
Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this.
And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile.
It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
Alan Jones’ “audience didn’t go anywhere. It’s still there and it’s still being fed the same old shit to serve the same old interests of the truly wealthy, madly powerful and deeply, deeply unaccountable.”
From JB’s Alien Sideboob
Spiders, mannn looks large over Brisbane
📈
Calile-rise
Astral Codex Ten on the potential threat of ancient plagues emerging:
“I think if something goes wrong, the third most likely vector will be curious Siberians who see a corpse half-hidden in the ice and go investigate. The second most likely vector will be archaeologists. And the most likely vector - by far - will be scientists investigating to see whether something could go wrong.”
Listing of the day: “With minimal land left in this stunning new estate”
Stand back, imma fix email
Why people hate their email but also why they should love it.
I think it’s a crime that not many people subscribe to The Sizzle. The idea of paying $5 a month for it still scares lots of people away. Which is crazy, because for $5 you get immense value from the desk of @decryption. I referred my mate Nick to The Sizzle and he said “The Sizzle is one of the best things I regularly read. Can’t believe I didn’t know about it til now.” In that group chat another friend replied “Most people hate email. That’s a huge hurdle.” Which is true, but I have a theory about email.
People saying they hate email is like people that say they hate church. There’s actually nothing wrong with church as a building, an idea, the gospel as a whole is a good guide for living, it’s just that some people have majorly abused elements of church. Seriously, please stop, Christians. So should we burn church as a concept to the ground? Churches don’t kill people, people kill people. Or something like that. Should we burn email to the ground?
On the “burning email to the ground” note, a recent episode of Hemispheric Views interviewed Rob from Fastmail on the topic /cc @hemisphericviews @canion @martinfeld @burk
IMHO it’s the same with email, emails aren’t bad, but the way people use email can be bad.
I look at my mate Ash’s iPhone screen and see the red badge on his email app and it terrifies me. What’s the current unread count, Ash? The thing is, most people don’t love their inbox because it’s their internet yard … and most people don’t like looking after their own backyard.
They like going to restaurants where waiters bring the food and take away dirty dishes. We like going to public parks where the council mows the lawn. We love theme parks where the employees maintain the rides. In this analogy, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Apple News, LinkedIn, Snapchat, TikTok, are the third parties.
It turns out our homes & our yards are pretty cool, we just need to invest into them, maintain them, clean them, and if we do, we might enjoy living in them, and we can do whatever we like there because it’s our backyard.
Email is the backyard of the internet. Your inbox is yours, you own it, and most of us leave it to rot because it’s not on public display and most people won’t see it.
- Hit the unsubscribe button on as many emails as you can. Be brutal, if you miss it, you can go back and resubscribe, but you don’t let just anyone camp in your backyard.
- Have a personal inbox, hopefully on your own domain, so you’re not beholden to a big tech provider. I recommend Fastmail, or for my personal email I use iCloud/MobileMe/.Mac, I have for maybe 14 years.
- Separate work and personal. Get personal emails in your personal inbox, work in your work inbox. Don’t look at your work inbox if you’re not working.
- Explore other email apps, technologies, and plugins, like Spark or Sanebox.
- Listen to this episode of Mac Power Users to get a little jumpstart on email.
- Regularly check your spam fodler and mark as not junk or move it to your inbox so the junk mail filter learns what is good and bad. On GMail learn how to use the Promotional tabs etc, and even disable them if you like.
- Actively look for emails to subscribe to. If you do have emails you love to receive, share them as a reply to this so others can experience the joy of receiving good, nice, helpful, relevant emails in their inbox.
Here’s my mostly up to date list of emails I subscribe to.
Email is one of the few agnostic, device-independent, big-tech-independent, communication channels that you can easily and lovingly own. Learn to love it. Mow your internet backyard, and maybe even do some landscaping.
“Researchers have identified an odorless compound emitted by people—and in particular babies—called hexadecanal, or HEX, that appears to foster aggressive behavior in women and blunt it in men.”
Just a heads up and reminder - because @scottymcdonald reminded me - that maybe you’re walking around with excess blood this Christmas, so why not donate some and they’ll pass it onto some peeps that really need it.
Nature is healing!
The Queensland border has been open to other people for 12 hours and our roads are filled with tourists who don’t know the roads again. It’ll be a good week for tow trucks.
Business idea: Home Alone 6: Too home, too alone.