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Snap Judgment: The Novel of Podcasts
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1–2 minutes·
No comments on Snap Judgment: The Novel of PodcastsSnap Judgment is the novel of podcasts for me – each episode is hard to get into, and each story can be intimidatingly unpredictable, as personal tales inevitably are. But overall, the podcast is surprisingly rewarding and consistent. That’s a real achievement compared to more highly-produced podcasts that are like crystals, almost too perfect and…
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Port Standard
There are about 20 plug socket types being used around the world today, but only one really matters for modern devices: USB-A. And USB is truly a worldwide standard. Practically all the devices I might carry around – phone, tablet, watch, camera — can be powered directly via USB cable. My next laptop will be…
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Ingrateful Expectations
This week, I bought a new iPad Pro 9.7″ to replace my iPad Mini 2. I use my iPad at home for at least two hours every day, mostly for web browsing and reading magazines, so it didn’t feel like a stretch to spend the not-inconsiderable £619 to get an upgrade. I was particularly interested…
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How to Succeed in Digital Storytelling
Stop the presses: storytelling has just entered the digital age! Every month, daring authors are creating new kinds of interactive experiences that push the boundary of what’s possible, featuring such innovations as ‘branching storylines’, ‘non-linear narratives’, and ‘illustrations’ – none of which would be possible in printed books. These authors are being aided by risk-taking,…
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Invariable Reinforcement
Our office manager Sophie passed me the phone. “It’s someone from Google,” she said. I raised an eyebrow. Perhaps this was an invitation to an event, or another chance to test prototype hardware, or something even more magical. I unmute the phone. “Hello?” “Hi, I’m Tim, from Google Digital Development. I’d love to talk about…
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Initial Thoughts on KSR's Aurora
Spoilers abound for the entire plot of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy changed my life. I was 14 and reading plenty of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov when I idly flipped through our monthly book club brochure. They usually didn’t have any…
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Shootings, and how not to prevent them
In order to prevent yet more tragedies like the shooting at the Planned Parenthood centre in Colorado Springs, gun rights activists – and rightwingers in general – often suggest that we need to prevent the ‘mentally ill’ from gaining access to firearms. In fact, even Democrats and centrists say that, “I think as a state,…
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Do adblockers favour legacy brands?
With the advent of ‘content-blocking’ in iOS 9, I run an adblock on all my devices* – desktop, laptop, phone, and tablet. Like several hundred million other people, I see next-to-no display adverts on the web. After a few days it becomes so normal to see the online world without ads that it’s a genuine…
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Sentience Footprint
I’m confident that in a hundred years, eating meat will be regarded in the negative way we now view racism or sexism – an ugly, demeaning, and unnecessary act. Like smoking, it will simply fall out of fashion because we’ll find better and healthier alternatives, although we’ll still occasionally eat humanely reared-and-killed animals. Note that…
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Two Million Runners Five
Zombies, Run! just passed the two million sales-and-downloads mark. It’s the fifth-most popular running app in the US, and the most successful smartphone fitness game of all time — a phenomenon on par with Soulcycle, Crossfit, or Tough Mudder. Four years ago, we began as an fun, amusing app idea on Kickstarter. Today, we’ve become a massive…
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