đ§ŞWeekend Links 04/24
Why Scientists Have A Mass Communication Problem: Context Collapse #90!
Hey there internet friends. Itâs good to see you.
On to the links!
New Futures:
The Markup on why so many states have terrible COVID-19 vaccine websites.
The BBC explains how current science indicates your risks of catching COVID are sharply reduced by being outside. Related: Why scientists are so bad at communicating with the public.
Kate Bernot at Good Beer Hunting throws cold water (cold beer?) on the idea that bars and restaurants will have a post-COVID boom:
People are still, on the whole, quite wary of returning to bars in particular. A March 18 report from RBC, a large Canadian bank, cites a Numerator report that found among all vaccination groupsâthose already vaccinated, those waiting their turn to be vaccinated, and those who refuse to be vaccinatedâgoing to a bar or nightclub ranked the lowest among activities they feel comfortable doing now.Â
Meanwhile, many of the legislative and technological gains for alcohol in the past yearâe-commerce, direct-to-consumer shipping, new permissions for to-go alcohol salesâincentivize at-home consumption rather than a return to the on-premise. Any âroaring â20sâ-themed parties may be more likely to happen with a few close friends at home than in a packed bar or restaurant.
But what was so âroaringâ about the 1920s anyway? As Mark Hulbert points out for The Street, citing data from the National Bureau of Economic Research:
Three recessions occurred between 1920 and 1927
Half of all months of the 1920s were recession months
Visit Serbia on vacation and get a free COVID-19 vaccine.
Advertising/Marketing/PR:
Facebookâs new PR strategy about hackers stealing user data is basically âhey, itâs normal for hackers to steal your data, donât worry about it.â
Ed Zitron on what PR actually does:
Good PR results in third party discussion and approval of what you and your stakeholders are doing, or third party discussion and approval of what you and your stakeholders think. The reason itâs tough is that you do not inherently have any control of anything other than what you say and do - you cannot make anyone do anything for you 100% of the time, and what you are doing and saying will always be organized and mediated by someone else.
Media:
Why Lil Nas X understands Twitter better than any pundit or college professor.
Harperâs is a really weird place to work.
HBO Max is pretty much AT&Tâs breakout brand.
Apple wants you to pay for podcasts (and to give Apple a cut).
Tech:
Moe Tkacik on the revolt against the big tech platforms:
For casual restaurants selling food that held up well in takeout boxes, the fee caps made operating without their dining rooms almost sort-of viable, at least so long as they didnât get evicted.
But the caps also represented the start of a grassroots revolt against the 30% Mafia, an unimaginative label Iâll use for the increasingly unimaginative syndicate of Silicon Valley gatekeepers whoâve made a business model of charging businesses from booksellers to hotels 30% of their top-line revenues for the privilege of existing on the internet.
Amazonâs opening an automated hair salon in London that sounds all sorts of PR-stunty, and also testing paying via scanning your hand inside Whole Foods. Guessing the conspiracy crowd is going to have lots of fun with that one?
Chat platform Discordâs staying indie for now after they reportedly put the brakes on an Amazon acquisition.
Fun:
Window Swap lets you look outside strangersâ windows around the world.
How Instagramâs become the place for punk house nostalgia. Iâm literally smelling the stale beer, tofu stir-fry dinners and packed shows in a fire code failing basement right now, people.
Thank you, YouTube algorithm, for suggesting this lecture on fiction in ancient Egypt and Judea.
Things Iâve Enjoyed Lately:
Learning about the McDonaldâs ice cream machine hacker subculture.
The late comic book artist Herb Trimpe on life after the comic book industry and transitioning careers.
Listening to lots of music from the late Jim Steinman, one of musicâs great magnificent weirdos.
What Iâm Working On These Days:
Iâm helping clients put together case studies, write white papers, consulting on a book proposal and writing an ebook.
I have availability to take on new projects starting in July; email me to learn more.
Love and coffee,
Neal