I’m pretty sure that I will also continue to refer to them as blog posts, not blogs. I may be the last holdout of this nomenclature in 2020. I never planned to die on this hill, but here we are.

No, @adactio, you are not alone.

John Naughton's view of the huge NYT investigation into smartphone tracking. And to people who moan that the NYT is complicit in enabling tracking, I say, sure, but that doesn't diminish the importance of the report.

"TikTok versus Instagram is pretty much the perfect synecdoche of domestic cozy versus premium mediocre."

Found via philgyford, I think I understand what this is all about, and I'm a little bit guilty as charged. I wonder what Grant McCracken would say.

Tim Harford certainly belaboured the point that safety systems may make things more prone to failure, what with the Oscars fiasco (two systems bad; three systems worse). Wheeling out Galileo was a masterstroke. Little could he have anticipated that someone who actually knew about statics would be listening..

Dr. Drang kindly shared his expertise.

I think we can forgive Galileo this lapse. He was creating new knowledge and, given his trouble with the Vatican, was desperate to get it published. Editing was of secondary concern at best.

I’m less forgiving of Tim Harford. Anyone who’s taken a statics class could have told him that the story on which he was basing “Galileo’s Principle” didn’t demonstrate that principle.

I wonder whether Tim Harford will even see that. Probably not; comments are closed.

Fascinating stuff. I remember reading The Dice Man, and wondering, briefly, whether I would do something like that. Then I moved on.

Maybe they'll start to take communications professionals seriously ...

I wonder whether I'd have any of the same reactions if I re-read it, 20 years on?