Weeknotes: September 12, 2023

This newsletter includes links to things I’ve been reading and thinking about. Enjoy!

What I’m Reading

• Osmarks on how they datasette for their personal data warehouse
• Osmarks on RSS
• Osmarks meme search engine
• Robin Sloan asking for “truly great author website” nominations here.
  • I’m interested in good websites, especially ones that promulgate or host information about a person or organization.
  • I also assist my partner Cat with their writing site.
• Critical Ignoring as a Core Competence for Digital Citizens
  • “We argue that digital information literacy must include the competence of critical ignoring—choosing what to ignore and where to invest one’s limited attentional capacities.”
  • I like the concept of lateral reading, where a reader leaves a source quite quickly to verify who is behind it.
  • Found via Robin Sloan’s Newsletter
• This comment on lobste.rs about IT rants

  • IT rant checklist:

    • Humble brag (I could do X in 10 min, people that take longer are dumb or lazy)
    • Shitting on (a straw man/worse case scenario of) agile, then describing a solution that is … agile
    • Hustle culture worship
    • Absence of a point or conclusion

  • The comment dovetails nicely with the critical ignoring article above.
• Aardvark’d: The Fog Creek Documentary, 18 Years Later