Dec 22, 2020How advertising is making hatred and bigotry worse$70,000,000,000. Seventy billion US dollars. That’s what Facebook made from advertising alone in 2019[1], across 2.45 billion active users[2]. That comes out to about $28.5 dollars per active user for the year. Twitter made about $3,000,000,000 dollars in 2019[3], across 330 million users[4]. That’s about $9 dollars per user. It’s no secret that advertising money…Social Media5 min readSocial Media5 min read
Published in The Startup·Sep 28, 2020Member-onlyThe Thinking Behind Codidact’s Abilities SystemRecently, the Codidact team announced that an entirely new Abilities system is in development; this is the system that will allow people to earn new privileges and perform trusted actions within the system. Now that that’s finally been officially announced — instead of just cryptic Tweets — I thought I’d…Open Source5 min readOpen Source5 min read
Jul 26, 2020An interview with Monica Cellio about Codidact“We’re there to help and empower, not to dictate.” I sat down over Discord with Codidact team member and former Stack Exchange contributor Monica Cellio to have a chat about the project and her involvement and goals. …Open Source8 min readOpen Source8 min read
Jun 15, 2020Member-onlyYou should drop Harry Potter and pick up Percy Jackson. Really.At a first glance, Harry Potter and Percy Jackson look very similar. They both feature a young (pre-)teenage boy as the protagonist, who discovers he has powers, goes to a special place to train, and then has to team up with a group of friends to fight monsters, rescue friends…Harry Potter7 min readHarry Potter7 min read
Mar 2, 2020Codidact: The community-oriented Q&A platformUpdate June 26, 2020: Codidact now has several sites up and running. You can visit https://codidact.com to get a list of existing communities. “For the community. By the community.” On the surface, these six words — the tagline of the Codidact project — are simple and rather dull. Yet these…Technology7 min readTechnology7 min read
Sep 3, 2019It’s time to stop using the term “Antisemitism”You’ve probably heard the term “Antisemitism” before. It’s been in colloquial usage for over a century at this point, and over that time it has in essence become the “standard” way to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment. Unfortunately, that’s a problem. …Judaism3 min readJudaism3 min read
Jun 10, 2019Member-onlyImgur needs to decide what it wants to be when it grows up.You’ve probably heard of Imgur. The ubiquitous image-sharing platform was founded in 2009 as a way for users to share images on Reddit and other platforms. Since then, it’s swelled in popularity. It’s used to host millions of images across the web. It’s got both Android and iOS apps. It…Social Media7 min readSocial Media7 min read
May 22, 2019The death of a community: A tribute to the first site I was a part of on the internet.Dates are approximate, as a lot of the stuff being referenced here no longer can be found on the internet. I might be shifting things by whole years in my head, but the exact dates aren’t the important bit. This is a tribute to the first internet community I was…Online Community10 min readOnline Community10 min read
Dec 29, 2018I spent three months as a keyboard-only user. Here’s what I learned.Would you be able to use the internet for three months without a mouse? I did exactly that. Here’s what I learned. Backstory A few months back, my laptop suffered a slight mishap — the cord, which was old and frayed, suddenly sparked, then smoked, and I found myself with a…Accessibility12 min readAccessibility12 min read
Nov 21, 2018Why open source is importantSome people don’t think that open source software serves any point. Here, I’m going to try to explain why I think that open source is important. What is open source? Open source is software that anyone can see the entire code for, and can then use that to create their…Open Source2 min readOpen Source2 min read
