markjgsmith

Linkblog

2024/08/04 #

  • Norman Ohler (Joe Rogan Experience Podcast) - I thought this was a pretty fascinating look into a side of german cultural history that has been completely missed. It’s about the drugs that germans were taking around the time of the second world war. The attrocities of the war were of course happening but in parallel, psychadellic drugs were literally being discovered by scientists, and they were having hippie like experiences, hoping to spread love and togetherness to the world. These were the origins of the psychadelic movement in the US. It was also a time where mild stimulants like coffee didn’t exist yet, so people took meth instead! Norman’s research adventure took him deep into the archives of companies working on drug programs, and he discovered a treasure trove of information that paints a much more complete picture of what was actually going on around that time. It’s almost as if the seeds of destruction and it’s solution where somehow being created at the same time. And the story of how Norman got to the information, in it’s own way, is as interesting as the stories he eventually found. Really worth listening to this one. podcastindex.org #

  • Why CSV is still king - I’ve really only used CSV a few times personally, but I can imagine that many businesses do use it all the time. The simplest data exchange formats tend to get widest adoption. These days it’s actually quite rare that I need to export and re-import data between applications, which might be a sign that we are far too silo'd. konbert.com #

  • Government warns that rioters ‘will pay the price’ as wave of violence sweeps UK - Riots across many cities in the UK. It will be interesting to see how the new government handles the situation. Riots as bad as they are, perhaps are a bit like error logging in an application. You obviously don’t want them to happen but they at least do communicate that there are serious issues that need addressing. If you crack down too hard on them, you are really just turning off error logging without addressing the problem. So the resentment still builds but you won’t even know about it next time. In hell there are no flareups, but everything is resentment, but noone can be sure. www.theguardian.com #

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