Furry Scots gibberish, TikTok, Flight Simulator 2020, what’s going on?
Howdy [subscriber:firstname | default:yall],
This is the Wolfpaw Weekly. Don’t remember signing up or don’t want this anymore? It’s easy to unsubscribe.
I’m doing a 366 Day Challenge, and am 240 days in! You can follow along on my PixelFed account.
How’s everyone doing? I’ve had quite a few ups and downs over the past two weeks. Part of me is considering making this a bi-weekly newsletter, since I’ve basically done that the past two months anyway.
I love the feedback that I get from these newsletters, but I want to do more. I know that I want to find a good voice and subjects beyond “here’s what I liked this week” to share with yall. It’s going to get there eventually! In the meantime, I appreciate you supporting the journey 💝
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Ryan has an amazing newsletter, Garbage Day, that he recently switched to coming out three days a week, with an “exclusive” (to your inbox, but still on the site free) for subscribers.
There is so much to untangle with this story. From determining the intent of the original poster, to the backlash and ultimate conclusion to a saga that could very well tear apart an endangered language on the internet. I hope that he keeps at this story.
TikTok and the Evolution of Digital Blackface – Jason Parham, Wired
Black culture moves most pop culture forward, especially on the internet. Unfortunately the creators of this culture are often obscured by others with larger platforms who steal their work.
Did Pangolin Trafficking Cause the Coronavirus Pandemic? – david Quammen, New Yorker
Pangolins are freakin adorable, but I did not know nearly as much about them as I did after this article. Not only are they an endangered species now, but they may also have inadvertently contributed to health crises, including the current pandemic.
The Uncanny Escapism of Flight Simulator 2020 – Cecilia D’Anastasio, Wired
By now you’ve probably seen several people show hilarious glitches in Flight Simulator 2020, mainly around how the AI construction of landscape from Bing map data leads to funny quirks.
The Workforce Is About to Change Dramatically – Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
I’ve been living the #RemoteLife for nearly a decade at this point, so some of the changes suggested here already make sense to me. Not all companies can do it, but as this year has proven, far more than thought possible before.
I’m most interested in the idea that more people are going to use their time to strike out on their own into business. This is going to be a big boon to the pickaxe suppliers of online commerce, but could also be a big quality of life improvement for a lot of independents if done properly.
I’m really excited to play with GPT-3 for some projects. But also a bit worried? Yesterday I heard a podcast interview with a professor talking about transhumanism. She pointed out that computers are already becoming very conversational, and she expects to get term papers from students written with GPT-3 very soon without the ability to distinguish them from real papers at times.
The Comforting Insanity of Creepypasta – Andrew Paul, Darkish Web
I don’t really like linking to Medium articles, due to how they wall the site off even more now. This is an older one, but I’ve been digging into a lot more creepypasta lately. I thought that I’d left that genre behind more than a decade ago, but it appears that it hasn’t quite finished with me.
Apple apologizes to WordPress, no longer requires free app to add purchases – Kate Cox, Ars Technica
Apple has been reminding everyone lately how to become the only company worth two trillion dollars in the world: charging huge fees to other companies for the right to access their captive audience. Epic Games is going through this at a larger scale with Apple right now, but one of the apps caught up in the struggle is the free WordPress app, which is intended for people who run self hosted WordPress sites, unrelated to the partly paid wordpress.com service.
Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic and co-founder of the WordPress software, said it best:
This also made me appreciate the freedom of the open and independent web. My life’s mission, and the purpose of WordPress, is to increase the freedom of the internet. I hope in addition to native apps people continue to create websites and web apps that provide accessibility, autonomy, and freedom to the widest audience. Future generations deserve it.
Enable jQuery Migrate Helper Plugin Passes 10K Active Installs – Sarah Gooding, WP Tavern
This one is one of those hard problems for me to deal with. As a website maintainer, I understand the wide divide between what I find second-nature to try and debug, versus what most users will do.
I hate to think that there are businesses that would charge “about $300 or more in fees to have someone ‘fix’ it”, but I also know this to very much be true.
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♥ GOJII ♥ – ALL MY HEART (FULL ALBUM)
My friend Gojii’s new album comes out today at noon! You can listen at YouTube above, or buy it on Bandcamp if you want to support artists more directly.
Sci-Fi Short Film: “APPyness” | DUST Exclusive
I can definitely imagine a future in which we regulate our emotional states with an app. I can even get the simplified interface! I just don’t know why we always show malfunctions on future tech with the type of staticy, glitchy imagery and audio that we never seen in real life.
I love the variety of shorts that DUST releases. They put out this short, “Remember Me?” yesterday that adds a bit of levity to our current pandemic situation.
I’ve never played this game but my friends keep talking about it. After this video I would definitely give it a try. I love rhythm games, and this looks so cute!
I’m a fan of working at the times that make sense to you. We can’t all do this, and I appreciate the freedom that I have to do so. I kinda wanna give this a shot, though I don’t want to take up weekend days for the others in my life.
Honestly I could probably move to a four day workweek and improve my work. Anyone here do that?
We’ve made it to the end of the week! Celebrate with something silly today.
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