In the 11th century, sailors in the Mediterranean developed a pidgin language to communicate with one another, a mix of Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Occitan, French, Latin, English, and other languages in which they could conduct trade and diplomacy.
Category: Random
All your favorite songs reimagined as vintage book covers. (You’re welcome.)
This morning, Open Culture pointed me to the work of screenwriter and graphic artist Todd Alcott, who—when he’s not writing movies—translates his favorite songs into vintage book covers, mostly of the pulp fiction and mid-century modern variety, but with some other genres (nature guides, self-
3 Smart Ways to Keep Yourself From Rambling
Have you ever walked away from a meeting or a conversation face-palming, thinking things like, What was I thinking? Why did I run on like that? Or, I can’t believe I didn’t know when to stop talking! It’s not uncommon.
The peak–end rule
The peak–end rule predicts that your memory of an experience strongly correlates with the average of how you feel at the peak of the experience and the end of the experience. Have you ever thought about how strange it is that the moment you’re experiencing right now will never happen again?
One Year After ‘The Big Hack’
Today marks the one-year anniversary of Bloomberg’s publication of a story about Chinese intelligence intercepting the supply chain of Supermicro, a company which has built and sold servers to Amazon, Apple, the U.S. Department of Defense, and dozens of other companies.
Addicted to Screens? That’s Really a You Problem
Nir Eyal, who wrote the industry manual for hooking people on tech, now has a recipe to free you — even though it was your fault to begin with.
The Like Button Ruined the Internet
Here’s a little parable. A friend of mine was so enamored of Google Reader that he built a clone when it died. It was just like the original, except that you could add pictures to your posts, and you could Like comments.
1917, a WWI Thriller Presented In Real-Time as a Single Continuous Shot
Master cinematographer Roger Deakins has teamed up with director Sam Mendes on 1917, a WWI thriller that follows two soldiers tasked to deliver a message to the front lines to save the lives of thousands of men.
The New Way To Hack Democracy: How Political Operators Are Impersonating Real Americans To Flood The Government With Fake Comments
Sarah Reeves sat on her couch in Eugene, Oregon, staring at her laptop screen in furious disbelief. She was reading the website of a government agency, where her mother appeared to have posted a comment weighing in on a bitter policy battle for control of the internet. Something was very wrong.
Boris Johnson, Shady SEO Master?
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears to be strategically using particular words and phrases in speeches and appearances as SEO bait to bury unfavorable news about himself in Google’s search results. My pal Matt Webb has collected three examples of this devious practice over the past month.