Text Me

Well that was a week. Thankfully we all made it to Friday.

Now, your humble author is an old millennial, which means I remember a time before the Facebook and the Whatsapp and the internets. I also remember the first carphones and mobile bricks and flip phones. But what’s stayed consistent amongst all these platforms? It’s the humble old text message. Yep. Those still work. (And your humble author prefers it for his personal communications.) The technical term for a text is SMS. And despite approaching 30 years old, it’s still a widely used channel. If someone has a phone, but they don’t have Facebook? You can text them. No Whatsapp? Text. No Slack? Text. No Teams? Text. No Skype? Text. No whatever? Text.

xkcd recently looked at the ye olde SMS and its perseverance.

I don’t even know what half of these are. Get off my lawn.

And after all that, if you still want to come at me, bro, just text me first.

Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

Feathered Raptors

Well we made it to Friday. Admittedly, for many of us it was a short week.  But we can end it all the same with this piece from xkcd. It asks the question, are feathered dinosaurs scary? Back when they made the first Jurassic Park, we didn’t know how prevalent feathers were and so the dinosaurs were scaly. Now the Jurassic World films keep the dinosaurs scaly because, well, anti-science?

I think feathered raptors would be terrifying
I think feathered raptors would be terrifying

Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

Amazon’s Selection for HQ2

Well this week Amazon finally chose not just one city for its HQ2, but two—New York and Washington. Of course Philadelphia had been angling for the site. Alas, it was not to be. So let’s work with that for this Friday post.

No Amazon in Philadelphia
No Amazon in Philadelphia

Credit for this one is mine.

Government Officials Using Private Devices

Earlier this week the news broke that President Trump refuses to use his government-issued iPhone for all his communications and prefers his private, unsecured device. This of course means, and reports indicate is happening, that Chinese and Russian intelligence agencies can listen in on his calls.

So how about those private e-mail servers?

Happy Friday, all.

Just saying…
Just saying…

Voting

On the Friday after the president retweeted support for British extremists, then when told it was inappropriate, told off the British prime minister. On Twitter.

I would only add, vote next time, vote every time
I would only add, vote next time, vote every time

But at least we made it to week’s end. So Happy Friday, all.

Credit for the piece goes to Jessica Hagy.

With a Side of Iodine Please

We made it to Friday, everyone. And not just any Friday, but for the Americans reading this, a three-day weekend. (You Brits had a bank holiday last week, so whatever.)

While Harvey has been in the news a lot, did you miss that North Korea shot a missile over Japan? Well it did. So this older piece from Indexed came out a few weeks ago and seemed appropriate.

Waiter, there's a fly in this post-apocalyptic mess…
Waiter, there’s a fly in this post-apocalyptic mess…

Credit for the piece goes to Jessica Hagy.

Hot Summer Days

We made it to Friday, folks. So here in Philly it is, of course,  hot and disgusting. (Please refer to Tuesday’s post about the increasingly hot weather in summers.) Thankfully we have ThisIsIndexed to explain what happens in hot weather.

To be fair, I'm not sure misanthropy couldn't be in any other overlap…
To be fair, I’m not sure misanthropy couldn’t be in any other overlap…

Credit for the piece goes to Jessica Hagy.

Trump Fires Comey

I miss the days when I could design a weekly content strategy. Well, at least sometimes I would design a weekly content strategy. Nowadays I find that what I want to do is often trumped by news out of Washington and the administration.

And that news is the abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey. There is a lot more to this story than I can type up this morning. (But I am sure we will get to it in the coming days and weeks.) But I saw this image in a tweet this morning and it sort of sums up my concerns.

That is not the sliver in which you want to find people
That is not the sliver in which you want to find people

Aren’t Venn diagrams fantastic?

Credit for the piece goes to Emily Farris.