Toilet paper isn’t selling out because the supply chain is collapsing, or because people are hoarding.

According to an article in Medium, toilet paper isn’t selling out because the supply chain is collapsing, or because people are hoarding. We’re using more toilet paper at home. Yes, some people are hoarding, but we’re all spending a lot more time at home. All the toilet paper we would have used at work, in school, in malls, at restaurants or in theaters is still there, not being used. Businesses…

In March 2000, I was blogging about Palm V computers for the Navy, NCAA banning online journalists, Stephen King, and diploma mills

In March 2000, I was blogging about Palm V handheld computers for Navy officers Teaching with bells and whistles Stephen King selling a short story online NCAA banning online journalists Great moments in bureaucratic history Diploma mills Maps of imaginary lands

When People Only Read the Headline — Misuse of Journalism

The Society of Professional Journalists links to an interview with an MIT professor who’s studying misinformation on social media (which is not the same thing as bad journalism — some bad actors take journalism out of context in order to deceive). Responsible journalists are aware that sensational headlines can harm the public. The truth is journalists in the field reporting breaking news often don’t write the headlines. Marketers will try…

No, the Fed Did Not Just Give Stock Traders $1.5 Trillion

I don’t know that much about the world of finance. This was a helpful explanation of what it means to say the Fed “injected” 1.5 trillion dollars. According to Slate, that money was in the form of short-term loans, not a gift. “Again, this is all short-term lending against the safest collateral in the world, U.S. government securities. Nobody is just being given money for keeps. This is why the…

These Fake Local News Sites Have Confused People For Years. (Buzzfeed) Found Out Who Created Them.

People who caught the sites plagiarizing began speculating about the motivations of whoever was running them. One person noticed that their Google Alerts for Julian Assange were flooded with results from the sites, leading them to warn that “cyber marketing tools are being used in the propaganda war against #WikiLeaks.” One researcher labeled the network of sites “a malicious information operation masquerading as a news aggregator.” Neither was the case. In fact,…

Over time, Google has made paid ads harder to spot

In 2007, Google changed the long-standing shaded background indicating the ads section of the page from blue to yellow. In 2008, it then briefly tried a green background before reverting back to yellow. Google continued to test variations of background colors including bright blue and a light violet. In 2010, violet officially replaced the yellow, but only lasted about a year before yellow reappeared in 2011. In 2013, Google…