The internet can’t seem to get tired of complaining about how bad modern journalism is. There are lots of reasons for this perceived loss of quality, but there is one that I find specially worrisome that I don’t think is mentioned often enough: Modern journalism is being censored by marketing departments.
How things were before Journalism has always been at least partially funded by advertising. But advertisers didn’t have as much power at least until digital advertising became a thing....
Text editors are a funny piece of software. They are undeniably important. You can’t write any code without them1. Text editors are like the software engineer equivalent of a hammer for a woodworker: not the only tool we use, but one we’ll certainly use a lot during our entire careers.
It would make sense, then, to invest as much time as possible trying to be as good as possible with text editors, right?...
Here is an interesting thought exercise that I have been seeing around the internet for some time now:
Think about libraries as a concept – the government builds a huge building, buys loads of books from many different authors and allows everyone to just go there and read the books for free or some small fee. Sometimes you can even take the books to your home! – Now imagine libraries didn’t exist and some politician came around proposing we create libraries exactly as they are....
I live in Brazil. Brazil is a developing country. It is definitely not a rich country, but it is definitely not among the poorest either. We are placed on 84th in human development index rankings. You will find Brazil similarly in the middle of other rankings like per-capita income, education or life expectancy.
There is, however, one ranking where Brazil is a solid 1st: Having expensive Macs and other apple products....
Here’s a very 2020s experience: You get to a friend’s house for dinner. You start chatting about random things. You open a bottle of wine or something. “Hey let’s orders something for dinner, I’m starving”. Chaos ensues as everyone argues about what to order for 10-30 minutes. A compromise is reached eventually, food is on the way. Chatting continues. “Lets put on some music”. Your friend opens YouTube on their Smart TV....