∞ The history of Jews, Chinese food, and Christmas, explained by a rabbi
Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, rabbi of Metropolitan Synagogue in New York, interviewed by Jamie Lauren Keiles from Vox, says
In Chinese-American cooking, if there is any pork [which is not a kosher food], it is usually concealed inside something, like a wonton. A lot of Jews back then — and even now — kept strict kosher inside the home but were more flexible with foods they ate at restaurants. Sociologist Gaye Tuchman wrote about this practice. She described [the plausible deniability of non-kosher ingredients] as safe treyf. [Treyf is the Yiddish word for non-kosher.] A lot of Jews considered the pork in Chinese food to be safe treyf, because they couldn’t see it. That made it easier to eat.
I always thought the only reason it was Chinese food is because there was only Chinese restaurants open on Christmas Eve back then. I didn't realize there is another reason that made it a tradition.
∞ Five Photo Book Printing Services
I have printed a few photo books from Google Photos, they are absolutely gorgeous.
What's more impressive, the service is available in so many countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States.
The first two things I did after opening a P.O. box:
- Send a physical mail to myself 😁
- Create a mailing list without knowing what the mailing list would be. By the way, you can sign up here: https://eepurl.com/gbJJuX
∞ Airpod Stickers on Etsy
What a unique category of tiny things, and so much creativity.
∞ CenturyLink Is Blocking Its customer's Internet And Injecting Ads
Rich Snapp writes:
CenturyLink is blocking its customer's internet until they confirm they've seen notification for paid security offering
Notification is injected into customer's browsing sessions using ethically questionable DNS Hijacking
CenturyLink claims this is required due to Utah S.B. 134 but bill sponsor says "not like this"
Those using streaming devices (FireTV, Chromecast, etc) or their own DNS offering (OpenDNS/GoogleDNS) don't receive notification to unblock their internet and are effectively SOL
If you haven't heard of CenturyLink, it's actually the third-largest telecommunications company in the US in terms of lines served.
∞ Discord to Allow All Developers Self-publishing Games with 90/10 Revenue Split
Last week Epic announced they are launching a game store. Now today, Discord announced:
Starting in 2019, we are going to extend access to the Discord store and our extremely efficient game patcher by releasing a self-serve game publishing platform. No matter what size, from AAA to single person teams, developers will be able to self publish on the Discord store with 90% revenue share going to the developer.
Yet another great news for game developers.
If the Moon Were Replaced With Some of Our Planets
Yeti Dynamics shows us what if the moon were replaced with some of our planets:
On Jupiter, you might be able to make out the 4 big moons, They all have orbits larger than our moons orbit. but I stuck them on the far side of jupiter so that they could be seen so it looks as if they are closer (to Jupiter) than they really are.
Another video from them showing what if the moon were at the same distance as the International Space Station is also fascinating.
∞ Epic Removed the Infinity Blade Trilogy from App Store
Epic removed the Infinity Blade Trilogy from App Store because:
With the development of Spyjinx and other projects, it has become increasingly difficult for our team to support the Infinity Blade series at a level that meets our standards.
I enjoyed Infinity Blade when it was first released. It has truly pushed iOS gaming as a platform. It's a shame that they can no longer keep them on the App Store.
∞ On Switching from an iPad Pro and a Macbook to a Pixelbook
Fraser Speirs, who designed and deployed the world's first whole-school 1:1 iPad deployment, talking about their work and Chromebooks:
Fast forward to 2018 and virtually all of the work I do at school is now in Google Docs. I don’t think I’ve created anything new outside Google Docs for a couple of years now.
...
As for doing “real work” on the Chromebook, I’ve been in that world for some time already. That part wasn’t even a concern for me. I had proven all that some time ago - my Macbook literally had no non-default software on it except Chrome. It effectively was a Chromebook in all but name. Sure, the Chromebook doesn’t run all the software in the world, but it runs the software that I actually need and use every day absolutely flawlessly.
And,
Ironically, the web browser was what opened the door for the first Mac revival in the original iMac era. The lack of a fully-capable web browser is what’s closing the door on the iPad for me.
For a lot of people, the lack of a desktop web browser is the reason why the 2018 iPad Pro isn't a "real" computer, even though it's performing better than many of the Macbook Pros.
∞ 39 Points of a Blogging Style Guide
A great read of Robert Heaton's blogging style guide. Calling out the 19th point:
"They" is a great word for referring to an unspecified person of an unspecified gender.
100% agree. It's not only the right word, but also much easier since you don't have to even think about the word choice. I also find myself starting to use They more often even if I know the person's gender.