All Of June 2019 In One Big Post
June 2019 functioned just as it was designed.
If you're reading this post, you're probably a Digg dot com reader, which means you probably generally keep up with What The Internet Is Talking About. But even the most astute news nerd can miss a major event or two. That's fine. It's good, actually. Especially if you went on a vacation or did a digital detox or something.
Still, it's important to keep up with The Story that is always unfolding in front of us, no matter how funny, exciting, depressing or infuriating it can be. Composed of some of the most trafficked, best-performing stories of the month, this One Big Post should catch you up, starting with…
June 3 — This Is What Old English May Have Actually Sounded Like
This delightful clip was one of the first big ones of the month, and it's easy to see why. Below is an example of a stunning mixture of linguistics, history and performance. It's a sight to behold, and Simon Roper should be commended for it, as should his description for the video on YouTube:
"DISCLAIMER: This obviously isn't an actual Anglo-Saxon, it's me in a sheet."
June 4 — Apple Keynote Crowd Has The Appropriate Reaction When The Cost Of The Display Stand Is Announced
$999 for a stand, $199 for an adapter. Those were the numbers that stunned this year's WWDC crowd into a low roar. Apple has never been known for its low prices, but this seemed like a weird boiling over moment at the richest company in the world's annual showcase.
June 11 — Jon Stewart Blasts Congress For Its Shoddy Attendance At 9/11 Victims Fund Hearing
The 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, the sum of money Congress periodically sets aside to help take care of people who were affected by the terror attacks on the World Trade Center — including first responders who risked their lives to help! — is running out. Most recently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said his chamber is working on replenishing the fund. You can read about that here.
But at the beginning of June, 9/11 victims were given the shaft by Congress after a hearing on the matter was met with pitiful attendance. In response to that, comedian and commentator Jon Stewart appeared before Congress to say "you should be ashamed of yourselves." It was an remarkably powerful speech. Watch:
June 17 — This Garlic Peeling Hack Is Life-Changing
One of those videos that just scratches a part of the human brain because everyone who's ever picked up a clove of garlic knows what a pain they are to peel. Take a gander at this beautiful lifehack in action:
[via @VPestilenZ]
But… is it real? Is this a viable way to peel garlic? Helen Rosner, a food writer for the New Yorker got it to work for a story:
And then promptly messed it up:
Peel at your own risk.
June 17 — What Really Happened To Malaysia's Missing Airplane
There's a reason Malaysian Airlines flight 370 dominated headlines and cable news chyrons for days on end in 2014: it is a gripping story. Two pilots, ten flight attendants and 227 passengers took off over the Indian Ocean. That was it. Nearly everything after that is a mystery.
This long read from William Langewiesche at The Atlantic deep dives into that mystery and comes up with some fascinating nuggets that only bring up more questions. Like, for example, flight 370 didn't "disappear" because it crashed — it actually continued flying for hours after air traffic control lost track of it:
Despite reflexive denials by Malaysian officials, and outright obfuscation by the Malaysian air force, the truth about the airplane's strange flight path quickly began to emerge. It turned out that MH370 had continued to link up intermittently with a geostationary Indian Ocean satellite operated by Inmarsat, a commercial vendor in London, for six hours after the airplane disappeared from secondary radar. This meant that the airplane had not suddenly suffered some catastrophic event. During those six hours it is presumed to have remained in high-speed, high-altitude cruising flight.
June 19 — Facebook Moderators Break Their NDAs To Expose Desperate Working Conditions
Another phenomenal long read from the middle of the month. This time, instead of exploring a world-famous mystery, Casey Newton at the Verge blew the lid off a nearly unknown one.
Newton's story revolves around Facebook's enormous shadow workforce of content moderators. Facebook depends on a legion of content moderators — who are paid and treated incredibly poorly — to comb through much of the media uploaded to its website. And the objectionable stuff they're supposed to catch isn't simply nude photos. A lot of it is much, much darker.
Below is a quote from a content moderator brave enough to breach his NDA with Facebook in order to speak on the dreadful conditions under which he and his coworkers labored. Warning: it is gross.
"People were crying, breaking down, throwing up. It was like one of those horror movies. Nobody's prepared to see a little girl have her organs taken out while she's still alive and screaming." Moderators were told they had to watch at least 15 to 30 seconds of each video.
One of the terrible things about this story is that if you aren't careful, it would be easy to assume a company as rich and powerful and tech-forward as Facebook has automated these sorts of tasks. You might imagine that would be a task for algorithms and machine learning. Not so.
This has been investigated before. For more on this story, check out this 2017 documentary, "The Moderators." And for a real deep dive, consider Sarah T. Roberts' book, "Behind the ScreenContent Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media."
June 19 — Man Thrills 'America's Got Talent' Judges With Karaoke Performance Of 'Tequila'
This is just one of those clever bits executed perfectly. Karaoke is hard. Comedy is even harder. Combining the two on national TV is a risk, to say the least, and Andy Rowell pulled it off.
June 21 — Guy Plugs His Roku Into An Old Black And White Television Set And Steps Into Another Dimension
This video went super viral and it's easy to see why. Anyone who has used both Netflix and a black and white TV set appreciates the intricacies of both. Anyone who uses both would probably also consider the two largely incompatible.
Twitter user @ellingson disproved that notion. And our blog about the phenomenon explores more than just the main video that blew up. There's a whole lot of Netflix content out there to explore in monochrome, and it's great.
June 27 — Jony Ive Leaves Apple. What Does That Mean For The Company?
Twenty five days after WWDC, Apple's chief design officer, Jony Ive, announces he is leaving the company. Digg rounded up the web's takes on what Ive's departure could possible mean for the world's richest company, but I'd like to focus on one in particular.
For Vice, Jason Koebler wrote a story called "History Will Not Be Kind To Jony Ive." In it, he details the myriad of ways Koebler advanced Apple's goals — selling prettily designed tech products — at the cost of the environment. Here's Koebler:
With Ive as Chief Design Officer, Apple released the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and various iterations of the iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Pro. He was there for, and key to Apple's transformation from a computer company to the most valuable company in the world. Under his watch, Apple's products became thinner, lighter, and sleeker. They also became steadily less modular, less consumer friendly, less upgradable, less repairable, and, at times, less functional than earlier models.
[Vice]
There's a lot of positive to say about Ive, regularly heralded as a genius in his field. We rounded up that in our blog too. But I think it's worth underscoring the fact that this man became venerated from making products that are bad for the environment, users' wallets and the workers who have to make them. Writers have called this an end of an era at Apple. That might be good news. Perhaps the next one will not involve stands sold a tick below four figure prices.
That was June. This was May.
Here's to July <3
Did you like this One Big Post? Did you hate it? If you have criticisms, questions, concerns or queries shoot me an email at [email protected]. Make the subject line "June 2019 Post" so I know it's real.
