glennf

glennf, 5 months ago to random

Retail theft went down and the national retailers federation had to admit 5% not 50% of theft was from criminal gangs. This whole panic was concocted to close underperforming and unionized stores and the media bought it. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/organized-shoplifting-retail-crime-theft-retraction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ek0.cMux.iabRLNkE-vqu&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

glennf, 9 months ago to random

"The Tragedy of the Commons" was written by a eugenicist and was effectively debunked as ahistorical fantasy decades ago. More propaganda in the service of privatizing public space and resources. Pass it on. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-tragedy-of-the-tragedy-of-the-commons/

glennf, 5 months ago to random

Did you love Yahoo! Pipes and miss it? I sure did. I wrote this history of the graphical web-based processing tool that sure seemed like the future when it was introduced! https://retool.com/pipes I interviewed the core team and several other folks so we could finally have a definitive history. (And forget my words, even—the illustrations are amazing!)

This is part of a series at Retool, a visual programming tools company, that decided to make sure the past wasn’t forgotten.

The Pipes 404 error “Something has gotten into our Pipes!”
Caricatures of the Yahoo! Pipes team and managers (Bradley, Ed, Jonathan, Catrina, Pasha, Kevin, Daniel)
The word “Pipes” in cement, a bit of minor product vandalism at a Yahoo! building

glennf, 4 months ago to random

Boeing’s #1 problem is not that they lack a culture of accountability.

It’s that they hate unions and hate criticism. So many of Boeing's major actions in the last 20, even 30 years have had to do with their attempts to break unions and escape political pressure in Washington State. The payoff is pressing workers without enough training, denigrating and overruling the work of union employees, and outsourcing work to avoid increasing union employment. This has cost them $10s of billions.

glennf, 2 months ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Fascinated by how comics pass from an artist’s hand through to the printed page—or a display? I’ve spent years researching, interviewing, and developing How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page.

If you’d like to a rich history of 130 years of newspaper cartooning told with original art, printing artifacts, and much more, pre-order now for delivery later this year: https://howcomicsweremade.ink/order

glennf, 1 year ago to random

Missed the exciting news that the boffins at NASA JPL have figured out a way to use reserve power to keep using all the scientific instruments on board Voyager 2 for even longer. For a mission that only had a requirement to last until about 1982, job well done. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-voyager-will-do-more-science-with-new-power-strategy

Several years ago, I wrote extensively about space probes, including six articles about or involving the Voyager probes! https://glog.glennf.com/blog/2017/8/4/if-you-love-voyager-like-i-love-voyager

glennf, 3 months ago to random

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever trust what caller ID says. Never do anything that someone who calls you and claims to be from a company or government organization tells you to do. Never give cash to anyone who claims they represent a company, a lawyer, or the government, and they need the cash to help you out. No legitimate organization works solely with cash. https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-warrants.html

glennf, 9 months ago to random

People keep making new Substack newsletters. I keep pointing out politely that the founders are terrible enablers of transphobes, hate speech, vaccine denial, and more. They reap their reward from fear, hate, and disinformation.

glennf, 4 months ago to random

In February 2023, I helped @mwichary run what became the #1 tech book campaign on Kickstarter for his massive tome, Shift Happens. How did we raise over $750,000 in the campaign (and sell more copies later)? How did we deal with the expected—and surprise problems? I've detailed all that in this essay: https://glennf.medium.com/how-we-crowdfunded-750-000-for-a-giant-book-about-keyboard-history-c30e24c4022e Hard-won advice from this weathered campaign veteran.

glennf, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago) to random

My next big project is about comics, artists, printing, and the future of cartoons:

How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page https://howcomicsweremade.ink

I’ll cover from how artists draw their strips (on paper and on screen) to print production to the outcome as reproduction, from the 1890s to the present.

Kickstarter, Feb. 2024; planned pub. date: October 2024. Sign up for an email when the project launches: https://buttondown.email/howcomicsannounce

Mark Kaufman, designing

glennf, 3 months ago to random

It seems like I'll never finish assembling this Ship of Theseus LEGO model.

glennf, 1 year ago to random

Still reading and hearing takes that Mastodon has “failed” as a Twitter alternative. Listen, it’s ok if it doesn’t work for someone—unlike Twitter, I think Mastodon requires more effort and cultivation to produce an experience that feels meaningful. It’s been worth it for me. But there is definitely a smell of…not sour grapes but people making broad assumptions based on their own experience while ignoring millions of other people. Will Mastodon top 100 million? Who knows. Who cares?

glennf, 15 days ago to random

It just struck me what Apple got wrong with its “crushing ad.”

They thought we would identify with the iPad, not the creative instruments and materials.

glennf, 9 months ago to random

The Voyager probes are amazing in many regards but they may ALSO be the longest continuously running computer programs (by some definitions). Each probe has three computers each of which has a backup. I wrote this eight years ago for MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/08/06/166822/what-is-the-oldest-computer-program-still-in-use/

glennf, 9 months ago to random

Incredible sentence in this article focusing on Sinead O'Connor's early condemnation of Catholic abuse: "Catholic leaders were outraged, including some who were forced to resign years later for their roles in covering up abuse." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/nyregion/sinead-oconnor-childhood-abuse.html?unlocked_article_code=vRLWhal8DetL2w4vJCut7XdIS3OJiO-oJXDiNTvecjoBkyj3K0P71LHT-EIDoPwJXJDdYEP3p4TvGlpcZT8h_1B3lqUmzj5o7hUmhZMU4ifazeDWH3toYsFbaLcU2N5dZXwCTc_ncEAFDW_XRBEnMOCV3GsowtDt-fVQGwL--qeBhCHx1h2izPukHUPzjWdE1VA_-Qt2URM0ReRNO7K-BP-GjVHBB17BzXUsSJQDiQDP92Yr_YFd4WSdAJi2B2FhgE5lWamEaduyR6TqfjU9CsJG8j1Bu3zReVmdd2T36vRmXUfclxj_PEq0AOrPtYAjs6qk1VdalhzA2Jsz6EQCxedpk_1nIw&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

glennf, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

Harvard's president will be ousted for all the below reasons:
• an organized right-wing bad-faith effort to find any thing that sticks
• mainstream media can't identify bad-faith
• she’s a Black woman in a key role and vulnerable because of pressure by wealthy white male alumni already angry about her reaching the highest position at Harvard
• a lack of citation rigor in a tiny percentage of her work that nevertheless violates policies, not having been found and corrected contemporaneously

glennf, 6 months ago to random

“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”: That cartoon’s original sold for $175,000 a few weeks ago! Peter Steiner, its artist, is a very interesting chap himself (his novels are quite good), and when he drew it in 1993, he didn’t really know what the Internet was. https://www.ha.com/heritage-auctions-press-releases-and-news/new-yorker-s-most-reprinted-cartoon-sells-for-175-000-at-heritage-to-become-world-s-most-valuable-single-panel-cartoon.s?releaseId=4817

I wrote a New York Times article in 2000 about its appeal, which never tapered. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/technology/cartoon-captures-spirit-of-the-internet.html and a 20th annivesary follow up in The Magazine in 2013: https://the-magazine.org/21/everybody-knows-you-re-a-dog/

It’s 30 years old!

glennf, 4 months ago to random

AI voice scams are here. Create a simple family password based on a story you all remember. Or ask for a very specific memory and when the person says they don’t remember or are too upset you know it’s a fake because everyone in your family would know they’d be asked in just this circumstance.

glennf, 6 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

Looking for a gift for the TYPE-OBSESSED person? Consider my letterpress-printed Six Centuries of Type & Printing. Bound in green cloth and arriving in a matching slipcase, it traces the history of printing through technology innnovation, starting with the first efforts in Asia, Gutenberg’s European creations, and on through the current era. It’s rather beautiful, too, if I say so myself. https://glog.glennf.com/tiny-type-museum-time-capsule-and-more/six-centuries-letterpress Ships worldwide.

glennf, 8 months ago to random

Everyone should update their iPhones, iPads, and Macs right now—the latest updates fix attacks apparently out in the wild that provide the full process for escalation and exploitation. Even if they were only known to a government actor before, it's possible they could be more widely exploited now.

glennf, 5 months ago to random

Substack continues to conflate their existence with a government entity. By definition, a company is always engaged in choices, cannot censor (unless it's the sole platform available), and has financial, regulatory, legal, and social responsibilities that differ from government censorship.

It’s such mealymouthed greedmongering that normalizes hateful speech no company is required to carry…just like no one is required to pay for Substack subscriptions. https://substack.com/@hamish/note/c-45811343

glennf, 3 months ago to random

I am seeing some clear misogyny (from male and female comedians) using Joanna Stern's WSJ cooking with Apple Vision Pro video to make fun. I am not seeing male tech videos of the AVP being used that way. This is not cool. (Also, "the timer over cooking items" thing is one of the best use cases I've seen for me…)

glennf, 4 months ago to random

As a Yank watching UK news and comedy the last several days I had absolutely no idea what was going on because everyone spoke of an ongoing issue that everyone already knew was a travesty. Private Eye’s editor, Ian Hislop, said that they covered this weekly for years to no avail! A bad accounting system led to UK local postmasters being told they were thieves for well nearly 20 years. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/world/europe/uk-itv-mr-bates-vs-post-office.html?unlocked_article_code=1.M00.HDa9.tt0UuU8Ng5tE&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.indy100.com/tv/ian-hislop-tories-post-office

glennf, 26 days ago (edited 7 days ago) to random

I am down to 30 copies (as of May 18) of Six Centuries of Type & Printing, a letterpress-printed book in an edition of 425. The book traces printing with type before Gutenberg through the present day across all technological developments. Typeset in hot metal in North Yorkshire, printed in London, bound in Germany, the hardcover book is covered in green cloth and comes in a slipcase of the same fabric. https://glog.glennf.com/tiny-type-museum-time-capsule-and-more/six-centuries-letterpress Some copies remain with Tiny Type Museum slipcase stamping.