📖 Read: A shocking share of the public thinks randomized trials are immoral (Vox)

“Randomization is a key tool to learn about the world, but it makes people uneasy”

Vox

In all of those cases except the last one, people felt the same way. Option 1? Fine. Option 2? Fine. Random assignment between Option 1 and Option 2, for the sake of learning which works better? Not fine.

I’d be fascinated to find out the why around this. Is it because people think it’s “unfair” somehow? I’m kind of at a loss trying to understand.

📖 Read: Blog a Little (Bitsplitting.org)

“Over on Twitter today, I was inspired to ask people to write “just one blog post” today. Later, it occurred to me that after 10+ years on Twitter, I am privileged to have a substantial following. I thought I would take the opportunity to help promote some folks who don’t have as much immediate reach.”

Bitsplitting.org

I think people neglect to write blog posts because the feedback loop is not as tangible as the onslaught of (sometimes mechanical) likes or faves that you can receive on a social network. With blogging, you need a little faith that you will gain an audience. And on the open web, you never know who might come along and expand your audience.

If you want to read the thread this generated, you can find it via the tag on Twitter.

I can relate to this. I get exhausted by social interactions pretty quickly.

In an attempt to setup a new “test” instance of my site, I accidentally reset this site back to how it was around 24 hours ago, wiping out everything had done today – every post, interaction, and bit of media I had imported. All gone. I’m a bloody moron sometimes. I really don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or hit my head off the desk.

I’ve reconstructed all my posts… but a handful of the URLs will have changed as they were auto-generated IDs and the system had imported a few hundred photos by the time the original posts were made. I might just leave the media import; I’m not sure I could bear screwing that up again.

Sorry if this has screwed up your reader feed, given you duplicate mentions or a feeling of deja vu.

💬 Replied to: a post

“”

How odd! Although, now you mention it, I don’t see a mention about your reply, either – only for the “like”. I only caught this because it popped up in my reader – it doesn’t show as a reply on the post itself.

Curiouser and curiouser…

Reposting: McHive, the World’s Smallest McDonald’s (for Bees)

A few McDonald’s restaurants in Sweden started putting beehives on their rooftops to help save dwindling bee populations and it turned into a national sustainability effort.

"More franchisees around the country are joining the cause and have also started replacing the grass around their restaurants with flowers and plants that are important for the wellbeing of wild bees."

To promote the idea, McDonald’s constructed what might be their smallest restaurant, actually a fully functioning beehive just for the bees

kottke.org

📖 Read: Twitter co-founder Ev Williams says social media will get better ... eventually (Vox)

“”There is a better version of social media to be invented,” Williams said on the latest episode of Recode Decode with Kara Swisher.”

Vox

“I think there is a better version of social media to be invented and I don’t know if that will happen incrementally, because there’s lots of smart people trying to evolve these systems at these massive companies,” he added. “Or if it will happen with just completely new paradigms and new ideas that come along.”

I can think of at least one good way to get to the “better version of social media,” but I’m biased. Let’s not leave it to the massive companies.