The news is hideous and diseased — every new poll inspires a frenzy of speculation, and gets promoted heavily on the networks, depending on whether the results meet their biases or not. Unfortunately, that provides an incentive to the Poll Industry to do more polls and to found more polling companies, further undermining their credibility. […]

Today I’m teaching a perilous topic: the eclipse of Darwinism. There was a period of several decades where you could make an honest intellectual argument against evolution, roughly from the time it was first published (1860) to the development of population genetics (say, roughly 1920). All the arguments since then are fundamentally garbage, but before […]

The latest Stephanie Stirling video dropped a tantalizing mention. There exists something called a “woke content detector“, which is basically a small group of self-appointed censors who are busily telling everyone which video games are bad. Not particularly interesting, except that the criteria they use to decide which games are too woke are hilarious. They […]

I went to the polls as soon as they opened. Here in small town America, voting is painless — no lines, no problems, just instant service and quick gratification. However, it did feel a bit grim and unsatisfying. I felt like I’d been sent out to stop a raging, drug-addled hippopotamus with a hatpin, and […]

If all of us take little steps to deprive billionaires of some of their power, maybe we can eventually make them care about us little people. Here are some simple things that could make them sting a little bit. Obviously, get off Twitter. There’s no excuse anymore — tweeting enables fascists. Unsubscribe from any big, […]

It was hard to get motivated this morning — Fridays are typically low attendance days in the classroom, and I had worked hard to get today’s topic condensed down into a lot of digestible information (we’re talking about the rediscovery of Mendel, the biometrician and Mendelians arguing with each other). I had a presentation that […]

There is a group of people who monitor deportation flights out of Boeing Field, and other airports. The observation room at Boeing Field offers what is arguably America’s best real-time window into our vast network of privately run deportation flights, a system that has generated troubling reports of passenger mistreatment and in-flight emergencies. … While […]

A silly speculation: what if you die, go to heaven, and discover that a god had a set of fundamental rules that it didn’t tell anyone about? I was initially sympathetic to the idea that a god would judge you for doing harm to small helpless creatures — I avoid killing insects without cause — […]

I’m not a fan of phys.org — they summarize interesting articles, but it’s too often clear that their writers don’t have a particularly deep understanding of biology. I wonder sometimes if they’re just as bad with physics articles, and I just don’t notice because I’m not a physicist. Anyway, here’s a summary that raised my […]

The rich have a well-funded network that has been poisoning the collective mind of the country, yet somehow they have failed to penetrate my soft, permeable, liberal skull. How could that be? There it is, they targeted “gaming, sports, fitness” thereby completely bypassing all of my interests. Another point not mentioned: have you ever noticed […]

Every year, around this time, as the weather gets colder, we get an influx of mice moving into our house to find refuge. Our cat is useless — she makes a lot of noise, usually in the middle of the night, but she can never deliver the coup de grace. It seems I already have […]

The last time I was in Washington, we had cleaned out a lot of my parent’s old stuff, and I was leaving after having booked a real estate agent to sell off the property. There were boxes and bags of miscellaneous papers that were going to be thrown out or destroyed, and I scooped up […]

[Winnie] the Poohs [equivalent] to "[Mother Fucking] Shit"

I’m designing for the web. The infinitely flexible web.

The post The More Things Change… (or: What’s in a Job Title?) appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.

Poachers, when caught stealing content from our website, always blamed the theft on an “intern” or “freelancer.” We always pretended to believe them.

The post Ah yes, the famous “intern did it” syndrome appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.

It was late winter when my sabbatical began, and it’s late spring as it comes to an end. Next week I return to my post after three months’ paid leave, courtesy of Automattic’s sabbatical benefit. Three months. A season. With full pay, and zero work responsibilities. In a job full of rewards, this is perhaps the greatest […]

The post The gift of a three-month sabbatical appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.

Zoom has always included a clickable button/badge at the top left of its primary meeting interface window. Click the badge to copy the URL of that meeting. You can then, with just one more click in any messaging system, send that URL to the other meeting participants. Fast. Simple. Drop-dead easy. Elegant. It comes in […]

The post What happened to the Share button in Zoom? appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.

Labour's first Budget in 14 years had a lot to say about growth, but forecasts paint a mixed picture.

Economists say the state of public finances should not have come as a complete surprise to the new government.

David Lammy is on his first visit to the continent since he became foreign secretary.

Doesn't everyone want to experience Death by Dinosaur? Or is that just me?

Probability of operating an alarm clock

The arrest of Telegram’s chief executive in France has ignited a debate about moderation on his app.

Firms are advised to practise operating with pens and paper in case of a computer meltdown.

Hear from the team who test security by breaking into secure facilities.

As Wimbledon scraps human line judges, sport insiders suggest how we can make games more exciting.

Falling launch costs have given African nations a chance to send their own satellites into orbit.

Greener software could make devices last longer and use less electricity.

Paints now promise to make your house cooler, warmer, or simply peel off.

Start-up firms are looking for ways to dye clothes using less water and heat.

Big mining firms are switching to driverless trucks and other autonomous equipment.

Two voice actors take legal action claiming their voices were stolen and cloned using AI.

The BBC's Pallab Ghosh explores why this world first test is a big deal for space exploration.

BBC Tech Correspondent Lily Jamali analyses the 'robocabs' and if their technology is up to par.

We speak to the CEO of charity fundraising company GoFundMe

A portrait of mathematician Alan Turing is thought to be the first artwork by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction.

WordPress's tools are used by 40% of the world's websites, making this a spat with big consequences.

The mind-boggling figure has been levied due to the company restricting Russian state media on YouTube.