Noah Mittman

Web professional since '96; Technologist; UX and IxD; Survivor of the era of Internet Optimism; I wish the punk MCs would turn to fish.

Magazines

Flips

Metal Gear
Breaking down Snake’s motivations in Metal Gear Solid
Polygon - Ed Smith
[Ed. note: Out today at itch.io, Okay, Hero is a book analyzing the Metal Gear Solid series. Written by Reid McCarter and Edward Smith — known for their game criticism at Bullet Points Monthly — the text
Internet Culture
“It was hard to take Nazi memes all that seriously when they were sandwiched between sassy cats”
Nieman Lab - Joshua Benton
When we think of the nightmarish edge of online culture — the trolling, the disinformation, the rage, the profound information pollution — it’s easy to think of the worst offenders. 4chan denizens, for-the-lulz
Apps
FaceApp is back and so are privacy concerns
The Verge - Ashley Carman
FaceApp, a Russia-based app that applies filters to photos, is having another moment in the spotlight this week. The app first went viral in 2017, but this time it’s catching on because of a filter that
Roblox
Roblox Has Quietly Built a 100 Million User Empire, CEO Says
Fortune - Lisa Marie Segarra
Gaming company Roblox has been quietly building a massive user base. That growth will propel the game to cross the 100 million monthly active user …
A Laid-Off Journalist Takes a Job in an Amazon Warehouse
lithub.com - By Emily Guendelsberger
It’s 6:45 am, and I groan—actually groan out loud—as I log in to my scanner and find myself assigned to the fourth floor. Again. Nobody likes the …
LinkedIn
Don’t Send Personal Messages Through LinkedIn (Unless You Want People to Hate You) - Boxes and Arrows
boxesandarrows.com - Marcin Lella
Looking through my parents’ storage boxes, I found letters that my mother and father sent one another prior to my existence. This unfathomable world …
Media Industry
What sort of news travels fastest online? Bad news, you won’t be shocked to hear
Nieman Lab - Joshua Benton
When one news publisher has a story about something bad — a disaster, a death, or just general terribleness — other publishers move more quickly to match it than they do with good news. As the old newsroom
Amazon Alexa
Your conversations with Google Home speakers being recorded: Report
timesnownews.com - IANS
Belgian broadcaster VRT News "overheard countless men searching for porn, arguments between spouses, and even one case in which a woman seemed to be …
Shopify
Shopify and the Power of Platforms
stratechery.com - Ben Thompson
While I am (rightfully) teased about how often I discuss Aggregation Theory, there is a method to my madness, particularly over the last year: more …
Homelessness
San Francisco Homeless Census Finds Over 8,000 On Streets, Majority From SF
sfist.com - Jay Barmann
The official results of San Francisco's point-in-time homeless count for 2019, which took place one night in January, were quietly released Friday by …
ReCAPTCHA
Google Promises ‘reCAPTCHA’ Isn’t Exploiting Users. Should You Trust It?
medium.com - Owen Williams
An innovative security feature to separate humans from bots online comes with some major concerns A surprising amount of work online goes into proving …
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Prime Day could usher in a new wave of fear-based social media usage
Recode - Rani Molla
Many more American homes will have surveillance devices after this year’s Amazon Prime Day sale. As a promotion during its 36-hour Prime shopping event, the e-commerce giant is selling its Ring video and
Screen Time, Sacred Time — Real Life
reallifemag.com - Skyler Balbus
Demonizing immersive technology limits our conception of what it’s for Image: Still from Best Friends Forever by Liu Shiyuan and Kristian Mondrup …
UX Design
The Growing Demand For UX Managers
medium.com - Jared M. Spool
The hot UX job right now is User Experience Manager. It’s a sign that things are changing for the better. UX is growing in importance inside many …
UX Design
Honestly, it depends - UX Collective
uxdesign.cc - UX Collective Top Stories About Publish a Story Subscribe to our Newsletter
A quick reminder that design is an exercise of prioritization. No design change is impossible to be done. But every design change means a trickle-down …
Alabama
Police warn against rise of meth gators in Alabama
consequenceofsound.net - Alex Young
Visual depiction of a meth gator, or... Louis the Alligator from The Princess and the Frog Police are asking residents to think twice before flushing …
Satire
Is Satire Possible in Art and Design Today?
aiga.org
In the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood in Berlin, a green storefront opens into the studio of artist collective Slavs and Tatars. There’s …
Culture
Al Jaffee's MAD Life: how a traumatized kid from the shtetl became an American satire icon
boingboing.net - Cory Doctorow
Back in 2010, It Books published Mary-Lou Weisman's biography of MAD Magazine icon Al Jaffee: Al Jaffee's Mad Life: A Biography; I missed it then but …
FBI
The FBI plans more social media surveillance
Engadget - Christine Fisher
It may gather user IDs, emails, IP addresses and telephone numbers. The FBI wants to gather more information from social media. Today, it issued a call for contracts for a new social media monitoring According
The Legend of Zelda
Not even Mario and Zelda could make the Barcode Battler any good
eurogamer.net
Years ago, when I worked in retail in a long gone Blockbuster store, Easter was an awkward time of year. Not because seemingly everyone on the face …
Oceans
How 'climate crisis games' could better model our problems and our future
rockpapershotgun.com - Robert Yang
In Vectorpark’s Sandcastles, you build fantastic towers and watch the waves erase your work every 10 seconds. It’s a very direct metaphor for the …
Medieval Period
'Mordhau' and the Fantasy of an All-White Middle Ages - VICE
VICE - Dante Douglas
The past few years have been host to a number of discussions regarding supposed “historical accuracy” in games that portray Europe as a wholly white and nearly-entirely-male landscape. The fact that Mordhau,
Voice Acting
Labor and Capital
unwinnable.com - Justin Reeve
There’s something strange about the dockworkers in Dishonored 2. It’s not the way they talk, though – it’s the way they walk.
Prey (2017) as a Teacher and Tester of Player Empathy
dualshockers.com - Steven Santana
Prey is framed as a test of empathy not only for the player character but for the player themselves. Technology and fiction as a teacher of empathy …
Introducing ROMchip | ROMchip
romchip.org
We first became motivated to create ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories in 2015, at the Society for the History of Technology’s annual conference in …
Craigslist
Craigslist's Craig Newmark: 'Outrage is profitable. Most online outrage is faked for profit'
The Guardian - David Smith in New York
As the Craig in Craigslist, the free online noticeboard that changed everything, Craig Newmark can surely get his hands on just about anything. His new home in Greenwich Village, New York, contains everything
Desegregation
It Was Never About Busing
The New York Times - By NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES
When Senator Kamala Harris confronted former Vice President Joe Biden at the second Democratic presidential debate about his support of bills to ban busing for school desegregation during the 1970s and
Algorithms
The Racist History Behind Facial Recognition
The New York Times - By SAHIL CHINOY
Researchers recently learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement used facial recognition on millions of driver’s license photographs without the license-holders’ knowledge, the latest revelation governments
Genius
Researchers Gave Math Geniuses 5th Grade Math Problems. It Didn't Go Well
Inc Magazine - Chris Matyszczyk
Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek. He doesn't think like me. Or you. Or, indeed, anyone else I know. This is a good thing -- certainly
Lifestyle
She proved them wrong: A deaf couple is opening a pizzeria in D.C. with all deaf employees
The Washington Post - By Hannah Natanson
Not only did her parents own and operate a Chinese eatery in San Francisco, but the family — all of them foodies — also constantly went out to eat. Stein still remembers the excitement of sampling Japanese,

Noah Mittman

Web professional since '96; Technologist; UX and IxD; Survivor of the era of Internet Optimism; I wish the punk MCs would turn to fish.