Exaptation and the related term co-option describe a shift in the function of a trait during evolution. For example, a trait can evolve because it served one particular function, but subsequently it may come to serve another. Exaptations are common in both anatomy and behaviour... many structures that initially took on a function as exaptations, once molded for that new function they become adapted for that function. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exaptation (more)

AdBlocker

Tool to block ads and trackers: in web browser, also maybe in mobile apps? (more)

When markets converge enough to undermine your privacy as much as a Surveillance State would. (more)

PasswordManager I started using in 2021 to replace LastPass: (2021-02-23) Replacing LastPass

Why You Suddenly Need To Stop Using Google Chrome. Just as with Gmail, Chrome collects your user ID and device ID in too many categories. Unlike Safari, Edge and Firefox, Chrome says it links all harvested data to devices and individuals. Safari collects but doesn't link browsing history, usage data and locations to users. Neither Firefox nor Edge link usage data. But Chrome says it collects all those data fields and links all of them to user identities. (2021-03-06) Why You Shouldn't Use The Gmail App On Your iPhone After New Privacy Disclosure

Why You Shouldn’t Use The Gmail App On Your iPhone After New Privacy Disclosure. Absent any controls, Cyjax CISO Ian Thornton-Trump warns that “the ‘collection’ of all these data points may be fed into an AI model which may spawn a host of ethical questions around your inbox. Purchase confirmations could indicate health, marital status, political and religious persuasion, births and deaths… Will AI make suggestions that are crass, inappropriate or even offensive?”

Winifred Mitchell Baker (born 1957) is the Executive Chairwoman and CEO of the Mozilla Foundation and of Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates development of the open source Mozilla Internet applications, including the Mozilla Firefox web browser. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker

Tom Critchlow: Weird Work. Quantity has a quality all its own as Lenin said. The sheer volume of your work is what works as a signal of weirdness, because anyone can be do a one-off weird thing, but only volume can signal a consistently weird production sensibility that will inspire people betting on you. The energy evident in a body of work is the most honest signal about it that makes people trust you to do things for them. Writing As Online Networking, Quantity Beats Quality

see (2004-01-23) Quantity And Quality (more)

Dan Shipper: The Notetaking Cold War. People in our little corner of the internet actually fight about how to organize notes. Tiago Forte thinks notes should be organized by actionability, and that each note should go in one and only one place in the following categories: Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives. Conor White-Sullivan thinks that notes should go everywhere, and that there’s no single top-down structure that can encapsulate all note-taking. (more)

The Backward-Looking Futurism of Stewart Brand. In a new documentary about his life, We Are As Gods, the famous tech prophet looks to his—and Earth’s—past. (more)

Anne Weiner: The Complicated Legacy of Stewart Brand’s “Whole Earth Catalog.” Brand now describes himself as “post-libertarian,” a shift he attributes to a brief stint working with Jerry Brown, during his first term as California’s governor, in the nineteen-seventies, and to books like Michael Lewis’s “The Fifth Risk,” which describes the Trump Administration’s damage to vital federal agencies. (more)

Brian Eno: The Necessity of Nuclear. Davie Byrne: My friend and frequent collaborator, Brian Eno, read my piece about the encouraging rise in divestment from fossil fuels and took issue with my concerns regarding the safety of nuclear power... Brian reached out to his friend Stewart Brand (Whole Earth Catalogue, The Long Now Foundation) who has been an advocate for nuclear for a while now. I may still have concerns about nuclear and safety, but hear them out. (more)

Matthew Yglesias: Meritocracy is bad. The current system of social hierarchy in the United States is of course not a perfect meritocracy (nothing is ever perfect), but it’s genuinely pretty successful on its own meritocratic terms. The problem is that those terms are bad. (more)

danah boyd: How “Demo-or-Die” Helped My Career. I left the Media Lab 15 years ago this week. At the time, I never would’ve predicted that I learned one of the most useful skills in my career there: demo-or-die. (more)

Endangered Firefox: The state of Mozilla. First, Mozilla laid off some of its most senior staffers... Then, in August, Mozilla laid off almost a quarter of its staff. (more)

Argument about designing Social Network as single big public space (e.g. Plaza) vs cluster or semi-private spaces (warren): see 2010-11-08-SocialSoftwareCoolingLegibilityAndWarrensVsPlazas (more)

having Creativity (more)

Creative Thinking (more)