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How Facebook and Other Sites Manipulate Your Privacy Choices

“Researchers call these design and wording decisions “dark patterns,” a term applied to UX that tries to manipulate your choices. When Instagram repeatedly nags you to “please turn on notifications,” and doesn’t present an option to decline? That’s a dark pattern. When LinkedIn shows you part of an InMail message in your email, but forces you to visit the platform to read more? Also a dark pattern. When Facebook redirects you to “log out” when you try to deactivate or delete your account? That’s a dark pattern too.”

Technology, BusinessHenry GoodmanOctober 26, 2020Digital, Tech, Social

How Facebook Helps Shady Advertisers Pollute the Internet

"They’d come to mingle with thousands of affiliate marketers—middlemen who buy online ad space in bulk, run their campaigns, and earn commissions for each sale they generate. Affiliates promote some legitimate businesses, such as Amazon.com Inc. and EBay Inc., but they’re also behind many of the shady and misleading ads that pollute Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the rest of the internet."

TechnologyHenry GoodmanApril 9, 2018Facebook, Ad Fraud

Why Paper Jams Persist

"There are many loose ends in high-tech life. Like unbreachable blister packs or awkward sticky tape, paper jams suggest that imperfection will persist, despite our best efforts. They’re also a quintessential modern problem—a trivial consequence of an otherwise efficient technology that’s been made monumentally annoying by the scale on which that technology has been adopted. Every year, printers get faster, smarter, and cheaper. All the same, jams endure.

Technology, InnovationHenry GoodmanFebruary 8, 2018Xerox, Printing

How Analogue remade the Super Nintendo

"Taber is a deeply devoted member of this group. Mention the word “emulator” to him, and he’ll immediately rev up his proselytizing process, complete with anecdotes and analogies designed to convince you of the virtues of original hardware. It’s downright convincing, too — 10 minutes into our first conversation, I was already beginning to question the legitimacy of the $50 Raspberry Pi currently plugged into my TV. But Taber’s concerns aren’t just rooted in his business interests, or a fanboy’s sense of old-school superiority. Rather, he’s upset that future generations will experience the story of video game history through an imperfect lens, a palimpsest of glitched textures."

Innovation, TechnologyHenry GoodmanFebruary 8, 2018Super Nintendo, Emulation, Retro