Welcome to Web Finds, where I curate a collection of the most interesting and useful web links that I've come across. In this post, I'll be sharing some of the most exciting finds that cover a range of topics, from technology and culture to lifestyle and more. Get ready to explore the internet with purpose and discover some of the best resources available.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova over the situation in Ukraine. In other news, one of Instagram's cofounders says the app has lost its soul. Meanwhile, on the Pivot Podcast, they're talking about Silicon Valley Bank fallout and how ChatGPT is ready to see you now. Google is warning users to protect themselves against remotely exploitable flaws in popular Android phones. Microsoft has unveiled Copilot, an AI-powered software for Office apps. T-Mobile is buying Ryan Reynolds' Mint Mobile. Wondering which airline has the best on-time performance? Delta takes the lead. But it's not all good news, as private health plans are quietly taking over Medicare. And unfortunately, Alabama's March Madness run is overshadowed by Jamea Harris' murder, while Vox warns that gambling on expanding legal sports gambling during March Madness was a bad idea.
Welcome to Web Finds, where I curate a collection of the most interesting and useful web links that I've come across. In this post, I'll be sharing some of the most exciting finds that cover a range of topics, from technology and culture to lifestyle and more.
In the world of tech, Apple Podcasts has extended its lead as the top platform according to a recent 'report card', but some folks are opting for the Overcast app instead. The popular social media app TikTok is facing potential ban in the US unless its owners sell it, while cybersecurity experts warn against bank-related scams. Have you ever wondered why people have so many tabs open in their browsers? Alan Ralph has some insights. An exciting new open-source laptop called MNT Reform Pocket is set to ship in October, starting at $899. Amazon is also aiming to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink with their own satellite internet service. Lastly, for those who need to sign documents on their iPhone, there's a helpful guide available from 9to5Mac.
In yesterdays Web Finds I included a link to a Macworld opinion article by Jason Snell “Apple's PC and tablet are on a collision course, and something needs to change”. If you read that article, you may be interested in this article by Zsolt Benke offering an opposing view.
Welcome to Web Finds, where I curate a collection of the most interesting and useful web links that I've come across. In this post, I'll be sharing some of the most exciting finds that cover a range of topics, from technology and culture to lifestyle and more. Get ready to explore the internet with purpose and discover some of the best resources available.
On my walk the other day I was listening to John Gruber's The Talk Show podcast. His guest was Jason Kottke who is celebrating the 25th anniversary of his blog.
John and Jason reminisced about the history of their blogs as well as the history of blogging in general. As I was listening I started thinking about my history of writing a blog and it goes something like this:
The name of my blog is simply ldstephens. The first two letters are my first and middle initials and then my last name. I choose this because the domain Stephens wasn't available so I picked an available variation.
When I decided to start a blog I knew that I wanted to blog about technology.
I published my very first blog post on Medium in September 2015. In August of 2016, I decided to start blogging as ldstephens and moved to WordPress so that I could have my domain (ldstephens.net), identity, and place on the web. At this point, I cross-posted most of my posts to Medium.
In 2021 I wanted to move away from WordPress and the block editor. I disliked the block editor because it took time to learn and get used to compared to the classic editor. It slowed down my editing process. I like writing content in markdown in one place and then posting it to WordPress, which is contrary to the block editor's “block” approach.
So in 2021, I decided it was time to leave the WordPress platform. After a fair amount of research on blogging platforms, I settled on write.as. I wanted to keep the ldstephens name and settled on the domain ldstephens.me. I published my first post here in December 2021 and I'm very happy here.
All that said I've been doing this going on 8 years. I love doing it and plan to be doing it for as long as I can type on a keyboard. I don't have a huge audience but the one that I do has been loyal and I thank you all for that.
WASHINGTON, DC — The following statement was released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg:
Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system. This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth.
After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors. Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.
In the news: Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a significant financial institution for the tech industry and venture capital firms, has been seized by regulators due to a panic-induced bank run. This development has significant implications for the industry as a whole.
A podcast from Pivot examines the bank's downfall, while an article from CNBC discusses how the collapse happened within just two days. Another CNBC article reports that Roku has 26% of its cash reserves stuck in SVB. Finally, an article from The Atlantic argues that the failure of SVB is now everyone's problem.
Picture this: you wake up one day, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and sit down at your computer, ready to start your day. But as soon as you try to load up your favorite website, you're met with an error message. You try a few more sites, but nothing seems to be working. Suddenly, it hits you – the internet is down.
At first, it might not seem like a big deal. You'll just have to find something else to do with your time for a little while, right? Wrong. It's a massive, extended internet outage, which will result in severe implications for our society.
First of all, communication would be severely impacted. You wouldn't be able to send emails, use social media, or even video chat with your loved ones. Imagine having to resort to snail mail or – gasp! – actually talking on the phone to keep in touch with people. Oops! Who even has a fucking landline phone these days.
A random person on the internet who freaked out and jammed as much of his entire Twitter feed into his RSS reader as possible. He then freaked out about freaking out, and then freaked out again about the new prison he built for himself.
I’m not sure I’d recommend doing what I did, but I do think RSS is an incredibly powerful, under-appreciated, and under-utilized technology.
As our communities continue to fracture, an open data format like RSS may be a way to bind them back together. The web just needs to double-down on it first.
I've been using RSS for almost 10 years now. With RSS, I can see all the news and content from about 100 different individual websites and 30 news sources all in one place, without having to go to each website separately. As you can imagine, this saves me a huge amount time and makes it easier to keep up with everything.
One cool thing about RSS is that you get to pick and choose which websites you want to follow. This makes your reading experience tailored to your interests! If you're not using RSS you should really give it try. And please read Eric's complete post.
