Notices by Harry McCracken (harrymccracken@mastodon.social)

No matter what you think of Meta’s recent pivot, the fact that a company can turn on a dime from one stated set of principles to their polar opposites shows they weren’t really principles in the first place. https://www.fastcompany.com/91269069/users-should-boycott-meta-over-ending-dei

I’m at the Media Lab. This thingie is autonomous.

@robertwrighter has two jobs open at his NonZero media empire, which has done so much good stuff for so many years. Application deadline ends shortly. https://nonzero.substack.com/p/nonzero-is-hiring-59c?open=false#§staff-writer

So much for Meta’s embrace of the fediverse, which doesn’t appear to apply in instances where one of its platforms is already dominant. https://www.404media.co/meta-is-blocking-links-to-decentralized-instagram-competitor-pixelfed/

I finally took the Vegas Loop. Our driver said they were intentionally slowing down the Teslas because there are so many of them they were clogging the stations.

(Remember when this was Elon’s dumbest idea? Ah, nostalgia…)

I think the first time Elon Musk was really on my radar screen as an individual was many years ago when I met one of Tesla’s founders, who told me about the jerk who’d stolen the company.

Backed!
From: @mmasnick
https://mastodon.social/@mmasnick/113677719606954011

Dick Van Dyke turned 99 on Friday, which is a good reason to remember that, among his many admirable traits, he is (like me) an Amiga fanatic. https://www.metv.com/stories/dick-van-dyke-made-computer-effects-for-diagnosis-murder

Your 1984 tech update “real” computers on your lap will radically alter the face of computing.

Yikes. (Is this actually based on knowledge of where I am at the moment based on GPS?)

I wrote about how Twitter and Threads prove that algorithms are a bad way to curate social networks that need to be timely and reliable. And how Bluesky benefits from turning the job back to humans. https://www.fastcompany.com/91239259/bluesky-starter-packs-threads-twitter-for-you-algorithm

As long as I’m in NYC I visited the former Time & Life Building. When I worked at TIME I got a thrill walking into the same building Luce once entered. Still bizarre that Time Inc. no longer exists.

@evan Underdog, Bullwinkle, and Linus the Lionhearted are the balloons I remember best—all had amazingly long runs,

My father’s photos from the 1965 Macy’s parade.

@sjvn I’m not sure how often Wired comes out these days, but all the other survivors have dramatically cut their frequency.

From my ancient email: tech/business magazine circulation figures from 2000. PC World, my employer, is #1 at 1.25 million. In 2024, only Businessweek, Forbes, Fortune, Inc, Wired, and my current employer,Fast Company, still exist as magazines at all.

The fact that Bluesky exists is making Threads better. https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/25/24305690/threads-default-following-feed-test

I wrote about the possibility that Google will have to sell Chrome, and the larger fact that the big browsers are so sleepy. They feel like obligations, not the vibrant tapestries of innovation they could be. https://www.fastcompany.com/91231751/google-chrome-sale-department-of-justice-browser-war

Tom Kurtz, who co-invented BASIC—probably the piece of software that has meant the most to me—has died at age 96. When it turned 50 ten years ago, I wrote a VERY long article about why it was so important, and I’m very grateful that he helped with it. RIP. https://time.com/69316/basic/

Vile respects vile. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/14/vaccine-maker-stocks-fall-as-trump-chooses-rfk-jr-to-lead-hhs.html