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SketchUp Weekly

SketchUp Pro, the powerful and popular 3D design software, boasts a robust tool kit that users can leverage to design, document, and share their projects. Whether you're a SketchUp veteran or a brand-new user, this weekly series can help you spend less time fussing with settings and features and more time designing amazing things. Instructor Tammy Cody shares actionable, bite-sized tips for using common SketchUp tools more efficiently, as well as how to generally work smarter with the software. Tune in every Monday for a new tip.

Note: Because this is an ongoing series, viewers will not receive a certificate of completion.




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Etc: Portland Covid-19 Mutual Aid

Wondering how you can help? Portland COVID-19 Mutual Aid is a great resource. You can fill out this form to offer support. If you are in need of food or other supplies, please fill out this form to request support. They are prioritizing assistance to folks who are sick, unhoused, disabled, quarantined without pay, elderly, undocumented, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, trans, and/or queer, including those displaced from Portland to the nearby areas. Follow @pdxcovid19mutualaid on Instagram for updates and reach out to pdxcovid19mutualaid@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Description is a copy-paste from Alberta Cooperative Grocery newsletter, the actual mutual aid is being organized by a neighbor of mine. As of yesterday, it had been up for 2 days and had 2000 offers and 100 requests. Good thing she is good at coordinating volunteer coordinators! Here is the more direct short link to both forms.

Thu April 30 at 8:00 PM, Everywhere




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Online: Watch Contagion at home and chat in MeFiChat

Ripped from the headlines, and inspired by this FPP, let's watch Contagion together on our own. It's widely available from US streaming services for under 5 US bucks. Youtube, Amazon (*not* on Prime Video), Google Play, Apple itunes, possibly available if you have Cinemax. We do not have the ability to share a stream.

. Fanfare
. IMDB
. Rotten Tomatoes
. Fact-Checking 'Contagion', npr

Thursday, March 19

Make popcorn, grab a beverage. Launch MeFi Chat, choose the LiveWatch tab (upper right), say hello. Please be ready to launch the film at 9.15 EDT; too early for the West Coast, too late for the East Coast, but whatevs. It will not be synchronized; we are resourceful. If you can't afford the movie, maybe I can screen share with 1 person? I'll watch my MeFi Mail, I have a gmail account in this name, also this page in case of issues. This is not a thing we've done before, but I've never had to avoid Covid-19 before, either. The unexpected is the new norm. This is only nominally hosted by MeFi, so if you want to complain, memail me, not the mods.

Thu March 19 at 6:00 PM,




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Senator Asks FTC To Investigate Zoom's 'Deceptive' Security Claims

A powerful Senate Democrat is asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Zoom for deceptive practices, adding to the growing chorus of concerns over the popular video chat software's privacy and security flaws . Several state attorneys general are also probing Zoom, after users, including government officials, reported harassment, known as "Zoombombing," on the platform. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the ranking member of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, sent a letter Friday to the FTC. In the letter , obtained by NPR, Brown said Zoom had made "deceptive" claims to users that their communications would remain private. Brown said Zoom incorrectly suggested its service offered end-to-end data encryption, which means that communications couldn't be accessed by anyone other than the sender and the recipient at any point. Zoom walked back on Wednesday its claim of end-to-end encryption. In a statement, it said, "While we never intended to deceive any of our customers, we




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Eine Liebeserklärung an das Fischbrötchen

Fischbrötchen sind ein Stück nordische Lebensart. Erst mit dem Genuss eines solchen beginnt der Urlaub an Nord- oder Ostsee wirklich. Was ein gutes Fischbrötchen ausmacht, ist aber Geschmackssache.




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These 'Little Eyes' Watch The World Burn

Samanta Schweblin is not a science fiction writer. Which is probably one of the reasons why Little Eyes , her new novel (translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell) reads like such great science fiction. Like Katie Williams's 2018 novel Tell The Machine Goodnight before it, Little Eyes supposes a world that is our world, five minutes from now. It is a place with all our recognizable horrors, all our familiar comforts and sweetnesses, as familiar (as if anything could be familiar these days) as yesterday's shoes. It then introduces one small thing — one little change, one product, one tweaked application of a totally familiar technology — and tracks the ripples of chaos that it creates. In Tell The Machine , it was a computer that could tell anyone how to be happy, and Williams turned that (rather disruptive, obviously impossible) technology into a quiet, slow-burn drama of family and human connection that was one of my favorite books of the past few years. Schweblin, though, is more




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Short on Cash? Here's Some Advice For Families Stretching Their Budgets

Updated on April 13 at 5:06 p.m. ET Forget living paycheck to paycheck. Many families have lost work during the pandemic and are running out of cash as they wait for unemployment checks and government rescue money to arrive. These are highly unusual times, and family budgeting recommendations are also unconventional. Kathy Hauer, a financial planner based in Aiken, S.C., says she's telling people to do things she has never recommended before: "Defer as many payments as possible and worry about it later." But, she says, don't just ignore all the bills. Make sure to call all the companies and ask for forbearance — either a delayed payment or a new payment plan. This is an especially hard time for lower-income families who don't have a lot of wiggle room in their budgets, Hauer says. They may not be able to borrow money from other family members. If they have bad credit, they can't qualify for personal loans from banks. Many also don't have credit cards or are close to maxing those out.




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School Bus Driver: I Lost My Job Over The Dispatch Radio

Angelita Wynn has driven a school bus for six years. Wynn was driving the kids back home on her afternoon run in Pittsburgh one day in March when she got word her job was going away. Over the radio. "Our dispatcher came across the radio saying that school was closed, so that's how I found out," Wynn said. "And that's the last time I've been in the bus." Her favorite thing about her job was the sense of freedom it offered, where driving can get you from one place to another. Her least favorite thing: It didn't pay a living wage. Wynn notes that most school bus drivers are retired or married to someone who brings in another income. "If you don't fit in those categories it can be a struggle," she said. She typically collects unemployment during the summer when school is not in session. But the abrupt layoff this spring and a weeks-long delay in getting her jobless benefits has thrown her for a loop. "My bank account is in the negative," Wynn said. "I've had to rely on savings that will




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Commercial Hit Songs - Submit for the SE Asian Market - Taiwan, Japan, China etc

Looking for commercial hit songs for a host of pop artists in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan etc. We work closely with Universal Music in Hong Kong, giving us direct access to major artists in South East Asia and Japan searching for tracks for their next and current projects.

We are looking for commercial radio tracks which have great beats, memorable hook lines and current styles. Uptempo K-Pop, ballads, R&B/Pop, Rock, Soul and MOR suitable for male, female and boy and girl-bands.

Lyrics may be translated depending on the artist so send in all language demos or masters.

We are looking forward to hearing some great music.

- Dean Hart / Afrikan Cowboy Publishing

Deal Type: Song Placement
Decision Maker: Selected tracks will be pitched for final decision
Deal Structure: Non-Exclusive
Compensation: $1,000+ based on final placement
Song Quality: Rough Demos, Fully mastered, Broadcast ready




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948- John Pizzarelli Trio, Catherine Russell, Devotchka, Kate Vargas, Bob Thompson Unit

John Pizzarelli Trio, Catherine Russell, Devotchka, Kate Vargas and Bob Thompson Unit all in live performance. Support provided by Adventures on the Gorge.https://adventuresonthegorge.com/




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Diese Smartwatches sind Alternativen zur Apple Watch

Vor kurzem stellte Apple die vierte Generation seiner Apple Watches vor. Wer auch gerne in die Welt der Smartwatches einsteigen will, aber lieber auf den Kosmos des kalifornischen Technikriesen verzichten möchte, hat eine ganze Reihe von Alternativen.



  • Webwelt & Technik

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So finden Sie die richtige Fitness-Smartwatch

Eine Fitness-Smartwatch kann im Alltag sowie beim Sport nützlich sein – Features wie Herzfrequenz- und Schlafrhythmus-Messung, aber auch das Tracken von Schritten und verbrannten Kalorien können dabei helfen, gesünder zu leben.



  • Webwelt & Technik

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Hatching a Plan

A comic about hunting for easter eggs.




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School Counselor Gives Life Lessons On YouTube From Her Kitchen

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit DAVID GREENE, HOST: Let's visit the kitchen of an elementary school counselor in Ohio. Her name is Marie Weller, and she has turned to YouTube to help kids stranded away from school during this pandemic. NPR's Cory Turner has been visiting with her. CORY TURNER, BYLINE: In Delaware, Ohio, just north of Columbus, she's known as Mrs. Weller. And if I had to describe her in a word, it would be joyful. MARIE WELLER: (Laughter). TURNER: Once Ohio closed its schools, Mrs. Weller started going through counseling videos she could share with her kids remotely, but she says many of them were just too... WELLER: Boring. So I started thinking - well, I'm bored and can't imagine that the kids aren't. TURNER: And this is the magical moment when Mrs. Weller took her talents to YouTube. (SOUNDBITE OF THE IRISH ROVERS' "WHAT'S COOKING IN THE KITCHEN") TURNER: Weller set up a smartphone in her kitchen, surrounded herself with puppets - of course she has puppets -




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Create your own 1980s police sketch

I recently came across some old abandoned police sketch software for Macintosh systems from the 1980s. I've wrapped it up in a web-based emulator and now you can play with it in your browser. Make your own face sketches.

[Link]




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SF Soup Kitchen / What Does Shelter-In-Place Mean Abroad? / New From Uncuffed

What does the quarantine mean for people who are homeless? We hear how one soup kitchen is adjusting to the shelter-in-place order. Then, we begin a series that looks at how other countries are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, starting with Australia. And, from our project Uncuffed, how to make a wet burrito if you’re stuck in a prison cell.




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Attorneys: Watchdog Wants Coronavirus Scientist Reinstated Amid Probe

Attorneys for Rick Bright, the government scientist who said he had been reassigned and subsequently filed a whistleblower complaint , say a government watchdog agrees that he should be reinstated to his post. Bright was serving as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which is working on a vaccine to combat the coronavirus. He said he was ousted from the position last month because he wanted to spend money on safe and vetted treatments for COVID-19 — not on ones without "scientific merit," such as hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug that President Trump and others had been touting. Trump on Wednesday called Bright "a disgruntled employee who's trying to help the Democrats win an election." Bright's attorneys say that the Office of Special Counsel, which hears whistleblower cases, determined there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that his removal was retaliatory and therefore prohibited. Bright's attorneys say OSC plans to contact the




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Polish Sound Postcards

Techmoan looks at a unique music format from Poland - records pressed into thin plastic, originally with a cardboard backing. They were designed/intended for mailing. More from PRX.

He also branches off into a discussion of and comparison with Russian records cut into old radiographs - 'ribs' or 'bones' music - previously 2012 / previously 2014




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From the Desk of Doug Batchelor

You can put Amazing Facts on A&E, reaching a potential 90 million homes every Sunday morning. A&E is the third-largest broadcast network in the nation, and many ministries are vying for time on this popular secular station. Thousands of people channel surf on Sunday mornings, looking for Bible answers to their deepest needs. You can provide God’s truth to these searching souls by supporting this far-reaching project.




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LISTEN: 911 Dispatcher Doesn’t Understand What Arbery Is ‘Doing Wrong’

In the 911 call regarding the fatal incident involving Ahmaud Arbery and his assailants, Gregory and Travis McMichael, the 911 dispatcher said she didn't understand what Arbery was "doing wrong."




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dutch

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/1319800 Ptskillz - dutch




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MITCHYSLICK FT COCAKAZI,ASHYNUXX ---PAID YA Dues

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/1319812 HUNNAFIEDRECORDS - MITCHYSLICK FT COCAKAZI,ASHYNUXX ---PAID YA Dues




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COKEBOY BROCK FT MITCHYSLICK -COOKING CRACK

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/1319813 HUNNAFIEDRECORDS - COKEBOY BROCK FT MITCHYSLICK -COOKING CRACK




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gangsta love,mitchy slick,B.F.L.Y -Make it mix final

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/1319828 HUNNAFIEDRECORDS - gangsta love,mitchy slick,B.F.L.Y -Make it mix final




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BelieveYou_Scratch

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/1319848 LaramieMusic - BelieveYou_Scratch




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RatherBe_Scratch

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/1319849 LaramieMusic - RatherBe_Scratch




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Outcome Bias

We’re biased towards what we pay attention to, and we generally pay more attention to outcomes rather than process. Yet, if we really want to learn from our mistakes or our successes, we have to look at the process as well. On this edition of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr....




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Episode 0x0F: Why Samba Switched to GPLv3

This episode is a recording of Jeremy Allison's talk, Why Samba Switched to GPLv3 from the 2011 Linux Collaboration Summit, with some commentary from Bradley and Karen on the talk.

Show Notes:

Ironically (or perhaps appropriately), Bradley was at Samba XP with Jeremy the day this show was released. So, there he wasn't able to get show notes together in detail for this show.

However, Jeremy's slides from the talk are available (in PDF), and also ODP format. So, you can follow along with it in the talk.

Also, you may be interested to read Bradley live-dent'd Jeremy's talk, so the discussion there might be useful to read as well.


Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).




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0x5E: Conservancy's ContractPatch Initiative

Bradley and Karen discuss Conservancy's ContractPatch Initiative that will help Free Software developers negotiate their agreements with employers.

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:38)


Send feedback and comments on the cast to <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on on Twitter and and FaiF on Twitter.

Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums.

The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).




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0x68: Molly De Blanc at CopyleftConf 2019

Bradley and Karen enjoy and discuss Molly De Blanc's keynote at the first annual CopyleftConf, entitled The Margins of Software Freedom, followed by an exclusive interview with Molly!

Show Notes:

Segment 0 (00:37)


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Notch, endlessly parameterized visual tool, explained and reviewed for mere mortals

Imagine the powers of motion effects - but with the ability to control all of them, parameter by parameter, and use assets dynamically without only rendering video. From artists and VJs to big events, that's significant. CDM's Ted Pallas breaks down Notch in a review for the real world. -Ed.

The post Notch, endlessly parameterized visual tool, explained and reviewed for mere mortals appeared first on CDM Create Digital Music.




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266: ‘iPhone-Colored Glasses’, With Rene Ritchie

Special guest Rene Ritchie returns to the show. Topics include Google's new Pixel 4 phones, Apple's travails in Hong Kong and China, whether there will be another Apple event this year, and MacOS 10.15 Catalina.




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272: ‘The Save Twitch’, With Rich Siegel

For your holiday listening enjoyment, very special guest Rich Siegel joins the show to talk about BBEdit's past, present, and future, the state of developing for the Mac, and more.




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273: ‘My Cousin Hans’, With Rene Ritchie

It’s the last show of the decade. Special guest: Rene Ritchie.




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281: ‘A Kryptonian Baby’, With Rene Ritchie

Rene Ritchie returns to the show to talk about going independent after 11 years at iMore. Topics include the new MacBook Air and iPad Pros, and we answer questions sent by listeners.




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Hal Ketchum // Pokey Lafarge

On this episode of “This Song,” Elizabeth McQueen sits down with Hal Ketchum to hear how the music of Van Morrison has inspired him since his days as a teenage drummer playing rowdy clubs.  And Pokey LaFarge talks about how Lefty Frizzel’s imperfect yet compelling singing influenced his own music. Subscribe via iTunes or Stitcher to get the new episodes of  “This […]




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This Song: SXSW Extra! Butch Vig

Butch Vig talks about how seeing the Who perform "My Generation" on the Smothers Brothers made him want to be become a drummer, and showed him the kind of energy he would later help others capture in the studio. Along the way talks about what it means to be a producer and about his new documentary "The Smart Studios Story."




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This Song Postcard

This Song postcards are here! Now you can download a blank postcard and make it your own by coloring in the front however you please. Then, fill out the back with a song that changed your life and pass the music on by sending your postcard to family and friends. Don’t forget to also share […]




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Mitch Landrieu (Ep. 7, 2020)

This week on In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. speaks with Mitch Landrieu, best selling author, speaker and attorney who was Mayor of New Orleans from 2010 to 2018. He discusses a report on race and class he authored, titled Divided by Design: Findings from the American South.




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Federal Watchdog Says Coronavirus Whistle-Blower Should Be Reinstated as It Investigates

The Office of Special Counsel has found “reasonable grounds” to investigate whether Dr. Rick Bright was ousted from a senior science post for questioning Trump administration actions.




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Watching You Without Me

"I will give them a heart to know Me... they will return to Me with their whole heart." Our guilt becomes our burden, but our devil is not bigger than our God. Let us return to our Father & He will forgive and He will give strength to survive the condemnations and defeat the temptations. In this installment of Bible Answers Live, listen to the pastor counsel those who face discouragement in the church, those who question the truthfulness of the Bible and those who doubt they've been forgiven.



  • Bible Answers Live

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Watch the Mailchimp meetup & learn audiences

The video below is from one of the four Mailchimp meetups that I hosted in April 2020. In this webinar I covered Mailchimp settings and audiences including tags, segments, importing contacts and much more. There are plenty of questions asked by participants as the meeting progresses. The meetups were attended by Mailchimp beginners as well […]

This article appeared first at ❤ OrganicWeb - Mailchimp training, consulting & integration experts.





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WSU’s DJ Rodman talks about watching ‘Last Dance’ show spotlighting his dad Dennis Rodman


With the third episode of "The Last Dance" largely centered on his father, DJ Rodman made sure his schedule was clear so he could watch unbothered and uninterrupted. What he saw even surprised him.




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AMP&#039;d Up for Recaptcha

Beyond search Google controls the leading distributed ad network, the leading mobile OS, the leading web browser, the leading email client, the leading web analytics platform, the leading mapping platform, the leading free video hosting site.

They win a lot.

And they take winnings from one market & leverage them into manipulating adjacent markets.

Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.

AMP is an utterly unnecessary invention designed to further shift power to Google while disenfranchising publishers. From the very start it had many issues with basic things like supporting JavaScript, double counting unique users (no reason to fix broken stats if they drive adoption!), not supporting third party ad networks, not showing publisher domain names, and just generally being a useless layer of sunk cost technical overhead that provides literally no real value.

Over time they have corrected some of these catastrophic deficiencies, but if it provided real value, they wouldn't have needed to force adoption with preferential placement in their search results. They force the bundling because AMP sucks.

Absurdity knows no bounds. Googlers suggest: "AMP isn’t another “channel” or “format” that’s somehow not the web. It’s not a SEO thing. It’s not a replacement for HTML. It’s a web component framework that can power your whole site. ... We, the AMP team, want AMP to become a natural choice for modern web development of content websites, and for you to choose AMP as framework because it genuinely makes you more productive."

Meanwhile some newspapers have about a dozen employees who work on re-formatting content for AMP:

The AMP development team now keeps track of whether AMP traffic drops suddenly, which might indicate pages are invalid, and it can react quickly.

All this adds expense, though. There are setup, development and maintenance costs associated with AMP, mostly in the form of time. After implementing AMP, the Guardian realized the project needed dedicated staff, so it created an 11-person team that works on AMP and other aspects of the site, drawing mostly from existing staff.

Feeeeeel the productivity!

Some content types (particularly user generated content) can be unpredictable & circuitous. For many years forums websites would use keywords embedded in the search referral to highlight relevant parts of the page. Keyword (not provided) largely destroyed that & then it became a competitive feature for AMP: "If the Featured Snippet links to an AMP article, Google will sometimes automatically scroll users to that section and highlight the answer in orange."

That would perhaps be a single area where AMP was more efficient than the alternative. But it is only so because Google destroyed the alternative by stripping keyword referrers from search queries.

The power dynamics of AMP are ugly:

"I see them as part of the effort to normalise the use of the AMP Carousel, which is an anti-competitive land-grab for the web by an organisation that seems to have an insatiable appetite for consuming the web, probably ultimately to it’s own detriment. ... This enables Google to continue to exist after the destination site (eg the New York Times) has been navigated to. Essentially it flips the parent-child relationship to be the other way around. ... As soon as a publisher blesses a piece of content by packaging it (they have to opt in to this, but see coercion below), they totally lose control of its distribution. ... I’m not that smart, so it’s surely possible to figure out other ways of making a preload possible without cutting off the content creator from the people consuming their content. ... The web is open and decentralised. We spend a lot of time valuing the first of these concepts, but almost none trying to defend the second. Google knows, perhaps better than anyone, how being in control of the user is the most monetisable position, and having the deepest pockets and the most powerful platform to do so, they have very successfully inserted themselves into my relationship with millions of other websites. ... In AMP, the support for paywalls is based on a recommendation that the premium content be included in the source of the page regardless of the user’s authorisation state. ... These policies demonstrate contempt for others’ right to freely operate their businesses.

After enough publishers adopted AMP Google was able to turn their mobile app's homepage into an interactive news feed below the search box. And inside that news feed Google gets to distribute MOAR ads while 0% of the revenue from those ads find its way to the publishers whose content is used to make up the feed.

Appropriate appropriation. :D

Thank you for your content!!!

The mainstream media is waking up to AMP being a trap, but their neck is already in it:

European and American tech, media and publishing companies, including some that originally embraced AMP, are complaining that the Google-backed technology, which loads article pages in the blink of an eye on smartphones, is cementing the search giant's dominance on the mobile web.

Each additional layer of technical cruft is another cost center. Things that sound appealing at first blush may not be:

The way you verify your identity to Let's Encrypt is the same as with other certificate authorities: you don't really. You place a file somewhere on your website, and they access that file over plain HTTP to verify that you own the website. The one attack that signed certificates are meant to prevent is a man-in-the-middle attack. But if someone is able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack against your website, then he can intercept the certificate verification, too. In other words, Let's Encrypt certificates don't stop the one thing they're supposed to stop. And, as always with the certificate authorities, a thousand murderous theocracies, advertising companies, and international spy organizations are allowed to impersonate you by design.

Anything that is easy to implement & widely marketed often has costs added to it in the future as the entity moves to monetize the service.

This is a private equity firm buying up multiple hosting control panels & then adjusting prices.

This is Google Maps drastically changing their API terms.

This is Facebook charging you for likes to build an audience, giving your competitors access to those likes as an addressable audience to advertise against, and then charging you once more to boost the reach of your posts.

This is Grubhub creating shadow websites on your behalf and charging you for every transaction created by the gravity of your brand.

Shivane believes GrubHub purchased her restaurant’s web domain to prevent her from building her own online presence. She also believes the company may have had a special interest in owning her name because she processes a high volume of orders. ... it appears GrubHub has set up several generic, templated pages that look like real restaurant websites but in fact link only to GrubHub. These pages also display phone numbers that GrubHub controls. The calls are forwarded to the restaurant, but the platform records each one and charges the restaurant a commission fee for every order

Settling for the easiest option drives a lack of differentiation, embeds additional risk & once the dominant player has enough marketshare they'll change the terms on you.

Small gains in short term margins for massive increases in fragility.

"Closed platforms increase the chunk size of competition & increase the cost of market entry, so people who have good ideas, it is a lot more expensive for their productivity to be monetized. They also don't like standardization ... it looks like rent seeking behaviors on top of friction" - Gabe Newell

The other big issue is platforms that run out of growth space in their core market may break integrations with adjacent service providers as each want to grow by eating the other's market.

Those who look at SaaS business models through the eyes of a seasoned investor will better understand how markets are likely to change:

"I’d argue that many of today’s anointed tech “disruptors” are doing little in the way of true disruption. ... When investors used to get excited about a SAAS company, they typically would be describing a hosted multi-tenant subscription-billed piece of software that was replacing a ‘legacy’ on-premise perpetual license solution in the same target market (i.e. ERP, HCM, CRM, etc.). Today, the terms SAAS and Cloud essentially describe the business models of every single public software company.

Most platform companies are initially required to operate at low margins in order to buy growth of their category & own their category. Then when they are valued on that, they quickly need to jump across to adjacent markets to grow into the valuation:

Twilio has no choice but to climb up the application stack. This is a company whose ‘disruption’ is essentially great API documentation and gangbuster SEO spend built on top of a highly commoditized telephony aggregation API. They have won by marketing to DevOps engineers. With all the hype around them, you’d think Twilio invented the telephony API, when in reality what they did was turn it into a product company. Nobody had thought of doing this let alone that this could turn into a $17 billion company because simply put the economics don’t work. And to be clear they still don’t. But Twilio’s genius CEO clearly gets this. If the market is going to value robocalls, emergency sms notifications, on-call pages, and carrier fee passed through related revenue growth in the same way it does ‘subscription’ revenue from Atlassian or ServiceNow, then take advantage of it while it lasts.

Large platforms offering temporary subsidies to ensure they dominate their categories & companies like SoftBank spraying capital across the markets is causing massive shifts in valuations:

I also think if you look closely at what is celebrated today as innovation you often find models built on hidden subsidies. ... I’d argue the very distributed nature of microservices architecture and API-first product companies means addressable market sizes and unit economics assumptions should be even more carefully scrutinized. ... How hard would it be to create an Alibaba today if someone like SoftBank was raining money into such a greenfield space? Excess capital would lead to destruction and likely subpar returns. If capital was the solution, the 1.5 trillion that went into telcos in late '90s wouldn’t have led to a massive bust. Would a Netflix be what it is today if a SoftBank was pouring billions into streaming content startups right as the experiment was starting? Obviously not. Scarcity of capital is another often underappreciated part of the disruption equation. Knowing resources are finite leads to more robust models. ... This convergence is starting to manifest itself in performance. Disney is up 30% over the last 12 months while Netflix is basically flat. This may not feel like a bubble sign to most investors, but from my standpoint, it’s a clear evidence of the fact that we are approaching a something has got to give moment for the way certain businesses are valued."

Circling back to Google's AMP, it has a cousin called Recaptcha.

Recaptcha is another AMP-like trojan horse:

According to tech statistics website Built With, more than 650,000 websites are already using reCaptcha v3; overall, there are at least 4.5 million websites use reCaptcha, including 25% of the top 10,000 sites. Google is also now testing an enterprise version of reCaptcha v3, where Google creates a customized reCaptcha for enterprises that are looking for more granular data about users’ risk levels to protect their site algorithms from malicious users and bots. ... According to two security researchers who’ve studied reCaptcha, one of the ways that Google determines whether you’re a malicious user or not is whether you already have a Google cookie installed on your browser. ... To make this risk-score system work accurately, website administrators are supposed to embed reCaptcha v3 code on all of the pages of their website, not just on forms or log-in pages.

About a month ago when logging into Bing Ads I saw recaptcha on the login page & couldn't believe they'd give Google control at that access point. I think they got rid of that, but lots of companies are perhaps shooting themselves in the foot through a combination of over-reliance on Google infrastructure AND sloppy implementation

Today when making a purchase on Fiverr, after converting, I got some of this action

Hmm. Maybe I will enable JavaScript and try again.

Oooops.

That is called snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

My account is many years old. My payment type on record has been used for years. I have ordered from the particular seller about a dozen times over the years. And suddenly because my web browser had JavaScript turned off I was deemed a security risk of some sort for making an utterly ordinary transaction I have already completed about a dozen times.

On AMP JavaScript was the devil. And on desktop not JavaScript was the devil.

Pro tip: Ecommerce websites that see substandard conversion rates from using Recaptcha can boost their overall ecommerce revenue by buying more Google AdWords ads.

---

As more of the infrastructure stack is driven by AI software there is going to be a very real opportunity for many people to become deplatformed across the web on an utterly arbitrary basis. That tech companies like Facebook also want to create digital currencies on top of the leverage they already have only makes the proposition that much scarier.

If the tech platforms host copies of our sites, process the transactions & even create their own currencies, how will we know what level of value they are adding versus what they are extracting?

Who measures the measurer?

And when the economics turn negative, what will we do if we are hooked into an ecosystem we can't spend additional capital to get out of when things head south?




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It’s cherry blossom season, but because of the coronavirus, the UW invites you to watch from home


The UW wants you to stay away from the quad — but you can add the school's cherry blossoms to your home streaming queue.




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Microsoft to pitch new Xbox game console with monthly showcases


Microsoft, gearing up for its biggest-ever year of launches for Xbox products and services in the middle of a global pandemic and economic recession, will replace its plan for a splashy public game-conference event with a monthly series of online showcases.




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Twitch is developing talk shows and dating programs for gamers


Twitch, the online video site popular among gamers, is looking for its version of “The Bachelor.” The company plans to fund a slate of original, unscripted series that would be live and interactive, airing two to three times a week, according to an internal document seen by Bloomberg. Its preferred genres are game shows, dating […]




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Van Gogh painting stolen from Dutch museum closed by virus


THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A painting by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh was stolen in an overnight smash-and-grab raid on a museum that was closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, police and the museum said Monday. The Singer Laren museum east of Amsterdam said “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884” […]




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Van Gogh painting stolen from Dutch museum closed for coronavirus


PARIS – A Van Gogh painting was stolen overnight Monday from a small Dutch museum in an affluent enclave outside Amsterdam, officials at the Singer Laren museum announced. To add to the mystery, there was also an uncanny coincidence, which may not have been a coincidence at all: Monday, March 30, marked Van Gogh’s birthday. […]