Spam Mail #1

Hi, thanks for subscribing! If you know me you know I spend far too much time online and I love sharing what I find.

So, weeklyish, I’ll be sharing the awesome things I’ve discovered on the web that I think you’ll like. Occasionally I’ll also include a longer intro with my take on something culturally relevant - but that’s just when I have something on my mind worth saying.

Enjoy!

💩 Cool shit

Random and awesome links from the web to end the week with.

The Endless Doomscroller - I do it, we all do it. Stop checking your social feeds and use this all-purpose doomscroller instead.

1940s New York - A map of street view photos of every building in NYC in 1940. It's an incredible time machine.

RadiTube - A search engine to find radical YouTube channels. Eye opening to see.

Cards for Humanity - Interactive cards featuring a person and a trait. The challenge: design to meet their needs. I love this idea for inclusive design.

Theremix - I’m a sucker for a virtual simulator. This one's an interactive theremin. Turn on your webcam for gesture control fun.

BIT Barrier Identification Tool - A behavioral economics tool to help you identify barriers preventing a behavior you want to change.

Trolli The Deliciously Dark Escape - An impressively large game, in your browser, for a brand campaign. Sound on for the full Trolli experience.

McBroken - In case you missed this one amongst the US election madness: this legend tracks which McDonald's ice cream machines are broken.

💎 Word gems

Thought provoking long-form reads to savor on the weekend.

Data Disappeared (HuffPost | Samanth Subramanian and Highline Team)

A thorough and astounding account of the Trump administration's rejection of data, and the damage that has done. It’s far more than just ignoring COVID-19 unfortunately.

The meticulous assembly of numbers is one of the government’s most overlooked functions, but it’s also one of the most vital. Federal statistics inform the administration about what problems have arisen, who is in distress, and where resources need to go. Citizens aggregate themselves in public data—forcing the state to heed them when individually they might be muted or ignored, and holding officials accountable if their needs aren’t met. By gutting the collection of federal statistics, the Trump administration is burning away the government’s capacity to regulate. By attacking numeracy, it is attacking democracy.

America’s Problem is That White People Want It to Be a Failed State (Eudaimonia and Co / Umair Haque)

A lot of emotion, and an eye-opening fact: white Americans, as a majority, vote conservative.

White Americans chose to retain power, supremacy, superiority, even in a failing society. They chose staying on top of decline and ruin, rather than prospering as equals.

How Facebook Works for Trump (The Atlantic / Ian Bogost and Alexis C. Madrigal)

Putting politics aside, this is an excellent take on how Facebook advertising works. For the Trump campaign that’s been a brute-force approach, and just how effective Facebook’s algorithm is at getting ads in front of eyeballs.

A “Facebook ad” is less an ad and more a machine for producing ads. Instead of paying to put particular media in front of a specific audience, an advertiser now pays Facebook to deliver a selected outcome from a certain stripe of people.

The Rise of Risk Makers (OneZero / Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly)

The tech giants have been (mostly) swift at reacting to disinformation during this election, but the culture at the heart of Silicon Valley has always ignored risk and consequence until they’re unavoidable. This is a great piece on this.

For more than two decades, studies have found that a specific subset of men, in the U.S. mostly white, with higher status and a strong belief in individual efficacy, are prone to accept new technologies with greater alacrity while minimizing their potential threats — a phenomenon researchers have called the “white-male effect,” a form of cognition that protects status.

Masks Work. Really. We’ll Show You How (New York Times / Or Fleisher, Gabriel Gianordoli, Yuliya Parshina-Kottas, Karthik Patanjali, Miles Peyton and Bedel Saget)

On COVID-19: Masks work. If you need convincing this is an immersive zoom into the world of virus particles and masks. Shorter read but great visual storytelling too. Takeaway: wear a mask!

A well-fitting N95 is the gold standard, but don’t worry if you can’t get your hands on one. When everyone wears a mask, the combined filtration efficiency increases.

‘Success Addicts’ Choose Being Special Over Being Happy (The Atlantic / Arthur C. Brooks)

That quote says all I need to say.

Imagine reading a story titled “The Relentless Pursuit of Booze.” You would likely expect a depressing story about a person in a downward alcoholic spiral. Now imagine instead reading a story titled “The Relentless Pursuit of Success.” That would be an inspiring story, wouldn’t it?

Special thanks to Rexington Guo for the logo design!

If you ❤️ what you read, share this newsletter with 10 people by midnight and you will have good luck until your next birthday.