Things of note for the week ending Friday December 9th, 2016
In the week that I got retweeted by Dwayne THE ROCK Johnson (why? the trailer for BAYWATCH THE MOVIE dropped and THE ROCK himself decided he agreed with my POV – so there), I say welcome.
Much to get through this week and little time. Let’s dive into my Twitter favourites, tagged up inbox, secret Chrome bookmarks, and find out exactly what I’ve been storing up for your sordid little hungry eyeballs this week.
Shall we?
1. FEATHERED DINOSAUR ADVENTURES
Finding a feathered dinosaur tail (with primitive plumage) trapped in mid-cretaceous (that’s 99million years ago, btw) amber is one [amazing] thing – BUT going fully undercover and wearing face paint just to get into the region where this amber exists is something else entirely.
But that’s what Lida Xing, paleontologist based at the China University of Geosciences, had to do.
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2. FEELING LIKE A S’LEB ON INSTAGRAM
Remember a while back when Instagram had supposedly developed a tool for superstar celebrities to [tell their social media managers to] manage their nasty comments and trolls and stuff? Well, these features (or ones similar) are coming to (or have already arrived on) your favourite filtered photo app.
These features include:
- Comment Filters
- Disabling Comments on Elected Content
- Ability to Remove Followers from Private Accounts
Also:
Finally, we want to continue to be a place where people can share deeply personal moments. From time to time, you may see friends struggling and in need of support. If you believe that someone you care about may be thinking about injuring themselves, you can report it anonymously, and we will connect your friend to organizations that offer help. We have teams working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, around the world to review these reports.
Which is excellent.
You kinda have to wonder: if Instagram can knock this stuff up and out in a matter of months, what the bloody hell have Twitter been doing all this time?
More, via Instagram.
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3. LIKE LONGFORM? YOU’LL LOVE THIS.
Which pretty much tells you all you need to know. Well, aside from:
For the next couple of months we’ll be sharing some of our best longform or multimedia journalism, and some behind-the-scenes glimpses into the process of how our correspondents work. It’s a very different kind of journalism from the rapid-response news analyses we published in the run-up to America’s recent election. Some of this work will be produced exclusively for Medium, meaning you won’t even be able to find it on economist.com or in print.
And I think this is excellent. I mean, really. A publication like The Economist, tinkering with a [crucially] FREE to read digital publishing platform such as Medium. It’s HUGELY interesting. And definitely one to watch.
Go and follow The Economist on Medium.
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4. ALL THE TRAILERS
- SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING – this looks GREAT.
- WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES – Caesar is back, and he’s not happy with Woody Harrelson.
- GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2 – Baby Groot!
- THE MUMMY – Tom Cruise is kicking off a shared universe here…
- TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT – I mean, I’m only here for the Hopkins.
- THE CIRCLE – based on the Dave Eggers book
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5. MOBILE IS EATING THE WORLD
Ben Evans is back again with another take on how Mobile [technology] is, how he puts it, ‘Eating the World’. If you know Ben’s stuff, you’ll know he updates this document fairly regularly. This is the latest take and it’s a doozy.
If you want to know where technology is right now then Mobile Eating the World is a must read.
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Bonuses this week are as follows:
- Mainsplainus – takendownus.
- Eatus, Chickenus (Pengest) for reals the best thing I’ve seen this week.
- Presidentus Post-Literatus
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Last thing, for those that care: Marshall Manson and I will be publishing the yearly Ogilvy Key Digital Trends deck early next week. I will of course link to it in next week’s edition but if you want to know about it first, be sure to follow us both on Twitter (@Whatleydude -Â @MarshallManson).
Laters, fam.