reading list-Island in the Net is A personal website by Khürt Williams, with inchoate ramblings on technology, photography, beer, and geekery.

Can we really change the world..

We can pick something up and move it somewhere else. We can share a thought or idea with others. It is within the ability of every single one of us to say, write, or do something that changes the parameters of the world right now — or at least a small corner of it. However, I get the sense that many of us are hung up on the issue of scale. We are greedy. Some of us want to be all-star ‘change agents’ who apparently possess more power to incite change in the world relative to other people (or at least relative to the mean average of other people’s ability to change the world). We want more network influence, higher impact metrics, and broader systemic reach.

In short, we want power. We talk about changing the world to encase our thirst for power in a blanket of benevolent feel-good. But it still boils down to the exertion of our will into and over the experience of other human beings.James Shelly

I find generic advice of this sort completely useless. The problem for me isn’t what to do but “how” to do it.

First of all, to increase readership you would want to increase the number of pages each reader is seeing. You don’t want to be judged only on your last post, but rather on the whole of your work.Rach the writer

Artist Romon “Rostarr” Yang in a recent interview in Intelligence Magazine.

What I’ve learned is that everyone has their own path, if you try and replicate what someone else has been able to achieve and try and follow in their footsteps, you’re just dreaming of being them. It’s hard because there are so many ways to come up in any craft, sometimes people are just super lucky or very fortunate and they have someone who is looking out for them or they’re the son or daughter of someone rich or influential. My advice is to trust your own way, embrace all of your experiences, the highs and lows because every one of them is uniquely your own. Listen to your instincts and trust that there’s much to be learned in not knowing what’s going to happen. The beauty is in discovering it for yourself; that’s the game.Romon “Rostarr” Yang

John Saddington on starting a business.

A real startup has zero tolerance for drag, for anything that weighs it down, even if those things are good, honest people. This is hard medicine and if you can’t take it then you’re not cut out for it.
…
For a startup, after you’ve made the decision on the founders and founding team, it’s work before people, always.John Saddington

Would my spouse, kids and family agree to that contract? If push comes to shove, should family be collateral damage in the quest? If “work before people, always” is part of the initial DNA of the startup what sort of culture results from that? I prioritize spouse and kids over money and ambition. I don’t want to be Citizen Kane. There is no right or wrong, just consequences; wanted and unwanted.

Wonderfullly intimate portraits by Indian photographer Joshi Daniels, shot with a 28mm lens.

Since June 2017, I have been working on my new idea-the 28mm Portraits Project. For the past six years, I have primarily been using a short telephoto prime lens for my photography. I have, however, always wanted to get more close to my subjects and out of my comfort zone. Towards this end, I will be working with a 28mm wide angle lens, which is a focal length I have hardly used before.Joshi Daniels

Are you excited about securing your phone with facial recognition?

And now we’re entering the world of facial and iris based authentication. This is another model entirely. So now you don’t have to get a secret out of somebody’s head, and you don’t even have to get their physical body to touch something. All you have to do to unlock the device is to show it to their face.Daniel Miessler

Apple is releasing an update to iOS soon. Enhancements to Siri seems to be buzzing.

Amazon, with the Echo, is opening things for third-party developers making the device work with more services but also requiring users to learn the specific syntax needed to use those newly acquired skills. Apple, on the other hand, wants things to become more natural language-based where users don’t have to use a specific syntax to get work done.

For non-nerd users, natural language seems the only approach.MacSharky

Every Saturday, I share a list of inspiring or interesting articles that I read during the week. Here’s what I read this week.

Capitalism as Cult:

Perhaps the next time your television, magazine, or social media network tries to leverage and exploit your authentic self, your passion to do what you love, your devout commitment to carpe diem everything with a hashtag, or the unique sanctity of your dreams, perhaps you will think to yourself… “When did I explicitly sign up for this religion? When did I declare my adherence to this doctrine? Who is selling me the supposed ‘self-evident’ truths of this belief system?” James Shelly

Being right:

For the longest time, I thought that if the winning idea wasn’t my idea, then I’d be nothing. I thought no one would see me as valuable. No one would see me as insightful. People would think I wasn’t adding value. And worse, I’d see myself as not contributing.

I’ve never been so wrong.Farnam Street

False dichotomy:

Not only do you not have to choose a side, but you shouldn’t choose one.

Life isn’t a set of ones and zeroes. It’s nuanced and dirty, and if we are thoughtful people our opinions should mirror that complexity.

Ultimately the problem is intellectual laziness.Daniel Miessler

German self-driving car algorithm:

Kill animals, damage property, protect humans.Mac Observer

Free speech and free thinking:

I had come to believe that one of the great constants in life was the breezily confident Princeton undergraduate with an utterly idiosyncratic idea (that she or he thought would be easy to carry out), that I, with a bit more experience, suspected was not quite right, and that despite that, and despite the blithe confidence of the thesis author, it would be turned into an interesting senior thesis anyway due to the sheer grit and audacity of the author. Over the past decade, I have more than occasionally encountered Princeton seniors who, instead of confidently espousing their own eccentric view of the world, proposed theses built around platitudes, and who showed an unsettling reluctance to exposit controversial conclusions, even when the research pointed that way. It hasn’t been all of the students, but it hasn’t been none of them either. I want my brazen, free thinking, quixotic undergraduates back! So, in the hope that the new cohort of young people arriving on campus finds a brighter and freer environment, I joined in penning our statement.John Londregan is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the University.

Why are some people such dumbasses.

We recently had quite a spectacle in the United States, with a Solar Eclipse reaching totality throughout a large portion of the United States. Being that this was the first solar eclipse passing through the Continental US since 1979, excitement ran wild on capturing this natural event using the best camera gear available.

But with such excitement, came a treasure trove of warnings. Warnings that this event can easily damage your camera, your lens, and your eyes if you do not have the proper protection. With all of our rentals leading up to this event, we warned everyone to view the event with appropriate eyewear and to attach a solar filter to the end of their lenses to protect the lens elements and camera sensor.

But despite our warnings, we still expected gear to come back damaged and destroyed. And as evidence to our past posts of broken gear being disassembled and repaired, we figured you’d all want to see some of the gear that we got back and hear what went wrong. But please keep in mind, this post is for your entertainment, and not to be critical of our fantastic customer base.lensrentals.com

Every Saturday, I share a list of inspiring or interesting articles that I read during the week. Here’s what I read this week.

The British were stuck.

We tend to stick with the first conclusion we reach. Because of our commitment to our own narrative, it becomes very hard for us to change our minds once we form a definite opinion. This involves us admitting we made a mistake — something we avoid, as it can challenge our very sense of self.Farnam Street

What’s the goal? To be famous? Or successful (whatever that means) or both?

You don’t need to be famous to succeed. You do need to be good at what you do though. Sometimes focusing entirely on that, on your craft and connecting to a tiny number of the right people, is all you need.Paul Jarvis

Every Saturday, I share a list of inspiring or interesting articles that I read during the week. Here’s what I read this week.

In the workplace.

Although more people are learning what being an introvert means, there are still several misconceptions about introverts in the workplace. Even some of the most well-meaning extroverts I know still have trouble understanding what being an introvert really means. WE REALLY NEED TO END THE STIGMA ABOUT INTROVERSION IN THE WORKPLACE by Megan Malone writing for Introvert Dear

Using the phone.

Non-verbal communication (aka body language) is remarkably important to conversation. Introverts rely heavily on observation skills and being unable to see our conversation partner is extremely frustrating. We can’t examine their facial expressions to discern their true feelings or anticipate when they’re about to speak so we can avoid interrupting. Many introverts already consider social interaction to be uncomfortable at best; removing helpful visual cues just ends up making things so much worse.
WHY INTROVERTS ABSOLUTELY LOATHE TALKING ON THE PHONE by Liz Greene in Introvert Dear

My personal tip: be in the right spot, at the right moment, under the right conditions for a rainbow.

Few natural phenomenon can cheer people up faster than the beauty of a rainbow. Getting great images of one is a challenge, they are difficult to predict and constantly changing, occurring due to a specific set of conditions. These tips will help you photograph rainbows when they appear, and get great results when processing.How to Capture Fantastic Photos of Rainbows by Photofocus

The Windows vs Mac logic on Android OS vs iOS security.

Plus, he says, the process of “patching” security holes is easier on iOS devices. Apple’s iOS operating system only runs on iPhones, while Alphabet’s Android software runs on phones made by numerous manufacturers. It’s more complicated to deliver patches, or bug fixes, that work across so many device makers and carriers. Android can release a patch, but it won’t necessarily be available on all devices right away.Android vs. iOS: Are iPhones Really Safer? by Emily Barry in Barron’s

Writing for the BBC, David Frum reaches a bleak conclusion.

America is no longer the leader its partners once respected “but an unpredictable and dangerous force in world affairs, itself to be contained and deterred by new coalitions of ex-friends”.Is Trump abandoning US global leadership?

Every Saturday, I share a list of inspiring or interesting articles that I read during the week. Here’s what I read this week.

The group of people who are the least compassionate, most angry, and driving division in American culture are secular Christians. This is the group of people who claim Christian identity but never go to church.Pastor Drew Downs

We are not built to live in the moment. We are future focused.

Behaviorists thought of animal learning as the ingraining of habit by repetition. Psychoanalysts believed that treating patients was a matter of unearthing and confronting the past. Even when cognitive psychology emerged, it focused on the past and present — on memory and perception.

But it is increasingly clear that the mind is mainly drawn to the future, not driven by the past. Behavior, memory and perception can’t be understood without appreciating the central role of prospection. We learn not by storing static records but by continually retouching memories and imagining future possibilities. Our brain sees the world not by processing every pixel in a scene but by focusing on the unexpected.MARTIN E. P. SELIGMAN and JOHN TIERNEY for the New York Times