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My Favorite Things This Week (2019 #7)

Keenen Charles

Feb 17, 2019 — 1 min read

Articles

Amazon cancels HQ2 in New York after backlash
After a ton of backlash Amazon changed it's mind on builing HQ2 in Queens. It's a complicated issue, it would've brought jobs, but negatively affected lower income families. Also why did New York of all cities need to offer so many incentives to Amazon who already has an office there?

Google’s Waymo risks repeating Silicon Valley’s most famous blunder
This is a very interesting comparison of the stalling progress to bring Waymo's tech to market and Xerox's failure to do the same with the first GUI. Hopefully Waymo will adjust their strategy.

Amazon’s questionable MMO has you colonize the ‘new world’
I've never heard of this game but its' premise intrigued me. The article questions the troubling portrayal in the game of colonisers as typical heroes fighting the "zombified" masses. It definitely feels weird to be put into those shoes. Maybe the creators didn't think of it but this is why you need diversity to spot these issues early on.

'The beginning of great change': Greta Thunberg hails school climate strikes
It's amazing the work this 16-year old has done. It feels like we've all been quietly ignoring the slowly building catastrophe that climate change is. At this point I feel a bit apathetic about it. I don't believe we're going to change enough, quickly enough. But maybe there's still hope. Or at least we shouldn't stop fighting.

Videos

This is hilarious and also scary. Just goes to further illustrate how many politicians are strictly driven by what will satisfy their bases to keep them in power.

Music

I've been aware of Njomza since her features on Mac Miller's songs but this is the first of her solo tracks I've really loved.

Meta is Getting AR Right

It seems that major tech companies are placing two major bets on the "next platform:" Artificial Intelligence and Augmented/Virtual Reality. Meta has dabbled in AI, but it's poured a ton of money into AR and VR in the past decade. They've been tackling

AI is Not a Friend

The following tweet might easily be one of the most unintentionally dystopian posts I've seen. At first, it seems fine. Changes to APIs on iOS can harm the app ecosystem and what's possible for developers. But this part sticks out. Have you seen it yet? a

People Power

For a long stretch of human history, meritocracy would have been a foreign concept. People were born into positions and no one expected to be in a different position at the end of their lives. The promise of meritocracy must have been intoxicating for the masses when it became a

Dark Mode Sucks

There I've said it. The decision by major tech companies to add native dark mode support to their operating systems is the biggest mistake in the last decade. Does it look like you're doing some cool hacks with Angelina Jolie? I guess. But does it look