OLDaily

The 20 Most Influential PCs of the Past 40 Years
Eric Grevstad, PC Magazine, 2022/06/10

To be clear, this article isn't talking about specific computers, it's talking about types of computers, as identified by model or band name (the type-token distinction strikes again). So we read about such types as the IBM PC Model 5150, the overpriced but oh so chic Apple Macintosh, the Dell XPS 13, and 17 others. I think  talking about specific computers would have been a much more interesting article. You know: the computer used to run the first Pong video game, the computer Edward Snowden used to reveal government spying on its own citizens, the computer Seymour Papert used to teach music in this video, the computer Murray Goldberg used to write WebCT. Via Doug Peterson.

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The Logos, Ethos, and Pathos of IndieWeb
Chris Aldrich, 2022/06/10

Chris Aldrich describes the IndieWeb community as consisting of three spheres: the logos (or knowledge) which can be found in the community forums or discussions; the ethos (those representing the IndieWeb ethic) who can be found out there interacting on their own ("because they grew up in the period of the open web, or because they never felt accepted by the thundering herds in the corporate social enclosures"), and the pathos (or sympathizers) "wishing they had better user interfaces, better features, different interaction, more meaningful interaction, healthier and kinder interaction." Image: studiobinder.

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Fallacies of Distributed Systems
Mahdi Yusuf, Architecture Notes, 2022/06/10

I saw this somewhere on Mastodon this week (I can't find the reference). It's an update to the original article from Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz published on the venerable Dr. Dobbs web site (I used to rely on the magazine). This article is shorter and punchier and no less relevant, though I like to think that a lot of administrators and developers have learned these lessons by now.

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On Defeating Inevitability
Michael Feldstein, eLiterate, 2022/06/10

Michael Feldstein took so long getting to his point I thought he was trying to sell me something. But no. His main point is that Instructure proved successful in the LMS market by helping shift the locus of decision-making from computer services and IT departments to the faculty who would actually use the system. There's merit in that observation. He wraps this discussion in an argument to the point that people should be wary about missing patterns or trends they weren't expecting. In other words, people should get out more and see things from different points of view. There's merit in this point as well.

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