Showing all posts about trends
A not so deep dive into a not so new neologism
17 April 2024
When it comes to what’s published online, I consider myself a moderately well-read person. Obviously, I’m not across every last thing posted on the web, but I probably spend a good couple of hours a day following news sites, what’s on the RSS feeds I subscribe to, social media, and so on.
Despite this, what I’d describe as big news stories still seem to slip me by. I’m sometimes surprised to read, for example, that a major international sports fixture is about commence. Or a music act that is otherwise a household name, is preparing to play their first show locally, and I had no idea they were even in the country.
Maybe that’s why — prior to a few days ago — I’d seemingly missed seeing the term deep dive, which is being used to refer to in-depth news stories, and blog posts, on a given topic. It’s quite possible however I missed seeing the neologism, in my daily futile attempts to sidestep that other overused noob of a term, reach out.
Of course neither deep dive, nor reach out are neologisms, new terms, as such. People I’m sure have been deep diving, or feel as if they have been, in the oceans and other bodies of water for eons. Similarly, people have been reaching out to grab an apple from the fruit bowl, or take a book off a shelf, for many long centuries.
But it is the connotation these terms are used in, that is new, or rather, somewhat new. So before writing a post heralding the advent of a freshly minted neologism, in this case deep dive, I decided to have a look around. This actually amounted to a pretty perfunctory look around, consisting of but a single search engine query.
That query led me to Merriam-Webster, a “leading provider of language information for more than 180 years”. Thanks to their listing of deep dive, I learned the term had been used to describe “an exhaustive investigation, study, or analysis of a question or topic”, since, wait for it, 1986.
1986. That’s like ten years before the internet as most of us know it, come along. Either I’ve been hanging out in all the wrong places online, all this time, or someone on TikTok has only recently made the term deep dive go viral. Obviously, my money is on the latter.
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How crush proof is the average marriage? Maybe not much
16 April 2024
Gabe Trew, owner of Australian market retailer POP Canberra, decided to run a Valentine’s Day competition this year. He invited social media followers to send him, anonymously I believe, stories about the great love crushes of their lives.
Entrants would be in the running to win what was described as a “dream date.” But something strange happened. Two weeks after Valentine’s Day passed, submissions, or romantic confessions, were still rolling in.
Now, nearly two months on, and some five-thousand people, with stories to tell about their secret crushes, have been in contact with Trew. As a result of the promotion, eight couples — people previously staring down the barrel of possibly a lifetime of unrequited love — have come together.
Of those who were united with their crush through the POP Canberra promotion, I’m not sure how many, if any, were married, or in a relationship, immediately beforehand.
But when ABC National Radio show, Life Matters, recently canvassed the subject of crushes, some listeners admitted to holding a torch for someone else, despite being married. And some of these people eventually deal with the dilemma. They end the relationship, or marriage, they’re in, and find it in themselves to tell their crush how they feel. Sometimes, it turned out the light of their life felt the same way. But for others, the path can be fraught with peril:
For Julie, another Life Matters listener, things haven’t worked out so neatly. She’s been dealing with a difficult crush on a friend that has left her feeling confused and distressed. She’s also married, and has been trying to work out how to protect both her relationship with her husband and her friendship with the object of her crush. “I don’t want to hurt my husband. I’m sort of trying to hold on to that,” she says.
While things may have worked out well for some POP Canberra contest participants, it’s not all bad for those who remain where they started. Professor Michael Slepian, an American psychologist, says having the chance to air their secret, albeit anonymously, can be beneficial:
“[Individuals] do want to get secrets off their chest, they do recognise that a secret can burden them … but those opportunities rarely present themselves,” he said. “It [the POP Canberra competition] provides people this outlet that is not normally available to them, to talk about the things they don’t normally get to talk about.”
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Third best coffee on Earth? Sydney. Tenth best? Melbourne…
11 April 2024
Espresso, brewed by Crepe & Coffee Co, photo by John Lampard.
Sydney has been adjudged the third best city in the world for coffee, this according to American magazine, Food & Wine. Copenhagen, perhaps unsurprisingly, comes in at number one, followed by Tokyo in second place. But here’s where things may get contentious: Melbourne — perhaps surprisingly — ranks at number ten on the list.
Number ten? How can that be? Did not Melbourne birth McCafe, the McDonald’s hamburger restaurant coffee-shop off-shoot? Isn’t Melbourne where the rest of Australia supposedly draws all ideas and inspiration coffee related from? Not that I’m trying to stoke up any Melbourne versus Sydney antagonism, or rivalry, here.
Not me. After all, I’m officially based almost two-hours drive north of Sydney. But when it comes to coffee consumption elsewhere, I’ve had more Sydney coffee than I have Melbourne. And besides, I like both cities. But they’re different places, they’re not cookie-cutter replicas of each other.
Objectively, how then could one possibly be better than the other? Let me illustrate, while keeping the theme victual. Years ago, a chef (whose name escapes me), described the differences between the two cities, thusly. When you go out for dinner in Sydney, it’s for a quick bite, because you’re on the way somewhere else.
That’s true. Sydney never stands still.
On the other hand, when you go out for dinner in Melbourne, it’s an occasion. People dress up, and stay seated at the table for hours. And sometimes we like doing both. But let’s avoid any further Melbourne versus Sydney discord, and take solace in the fact Australia is a country that embraces independent coffee brewers, and has little time for multinational coffeehouse chains.
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Australia, coffee, Melbourne, Sydney, trends
Independent publishers jeopardised by Google search changes
8 April 2024
Google seems to have it in for small, and or independent publications and blogs… Google: whatever did we do to you?
Changes last month — known as core updates, which occur regularly — to the way the search giant indexes and ranks websites on search results, have seen scads of sites excluded from the listings. Google claimed one goal of recent core updates was to remove “low quality websites” from the rankings. This may have happened, but they’ve also taken out numerous sites publishing high quality content, in the process.
But some publishers found themselves out in the cold about six months ago, following the September 2023 core update. Retro Dodo, a UK based website that tests and reviews retro gaming products, has seen a sharp decline in traffic since then, something that threatens to wipe out the publication, according to Retro Dodo founder, Brandon Saltalamacchia:
Since September 2023, Google has hidden our site from millions of retro gamers, reducing our organic traffic and revenue by 85% and causing our business to be on the edge of going under.
Retro Dodo is not alone. HouseFresh, also based in Britain, is a publication assessing and writing about in-home air purifying products, has had the same experience. But that’s not all. HouseFresh has discovered that search results for the products they write about have been supplanted by lists compiled by other publishers, apparently based on recommendations supplied by people who have purchased the products in question.
There’s nothing wrong with user recommendations — many of us rely on them when considering a purchase — but the recommendations appearing in the search results suggest these products have been individually tested and reviewed by the publisher, when in fact they have not:
Savvy SEOs at big media publishers (or third-party vendors hired by them) realized that they could create pages for ‘best of’ product recommendations without the need to invest any time or effort in actually testing and reviewing the products first. So, they peppered their pages with references to a ‘rigorous testing process,’ their ‘lab team,’ subject matter experts ‘they collaborated with,’ and complicated methodologies that seem impressive at a cursory look.
This doesn’t look to me like low quality content has been removed from search results. And it’s only going to get worse. News broke recently of a deal between Google and news aggregation social network, Reddit, which will see Google granted access to Reddit’s content. This, we are told, will assist the search engine in the “training” of its AI models.
As if there’s not enough fluff in search results, it’s now going to be polluted with AI produced copy. Reddit is great when it comes to seeking out anecdotal information, or the opinions of others in regards to particular goods or services. Or to find out why the sirens of emergency service vehicles might be blaring in the neighbourhood. But as the basis of solid information for potential search query results? I’m not so sure.
There’s also the point that the Reddit members who wrote much of the content that’s being handed over to Google, will not see any recompense for their efforts. Unless perhaps they are, or will soon be, Reddit shareholders.
So what’s the way forward then for people simply seeking accurate information in response to a search engine query? There are of course alternatives, subscription search service Kagi being among them, but it seems to me many will stay with what they know.
And what’s the way forward for the small independent publishers, whose livelihoods have been impacted, by these recent changes? That’s not so clear at the moment. They might see some traffic from other search engines, and other channels, but hardly enough to keep their operations viable. One can only hope the big search players come to their senses, but that sadly seems like a big ask.
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artificial intelligence, publishing, technology, trends
Pre-production expenses: cost accounting for sex and drugs
6 April 2024
In this case, pre-production expenses would appear to relate to the costs associated with procuring illicit drugs, and the services of sex workers.
The term came to light during proceedings in the Australian Federal Court last week, in the course of a defamation case between a former federal parliamentary staffer, and an Australian TV broadcaster.
With “pre-production expenses”, have we witnessed the coining of a new euphemism? One that means to ask someone else to reimburse the costs another person incurred while obtaining sex and drugs? I’m not sure it’s entirely new, however. It could be accounting departments have been using the phrase to classify certain expenses for some time.
Still, as a possibly somewhat new euphemism, pre-production expenses can take its place in the vernacular along with the likes of assorted other terms, including “friends with benefits”, “pre-loved”, “wardrobe malfunction”, “between jobs”, and of course, “cook the books”.
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current affairs, language, trends
Workers using cafes as offices may reduce their profitability
3 April 2024
Malcolm Knox, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald:
Then there are rents, insurance, equipment and other fixed costs. In a Sydney suburb near me, a new cafe is paying $5000 a week in rent. At $1000 per 7am-to-1pm shift, they need to be selling 300 coffees a day to make it worth their while. That’s nearly one a minute. They don’t often make money on food, which requires more infrastructure such as cooking, storing, plates and so on. It’s all down to their coffee price.
Cafes are a great stand-by for the WFH crowd, an office away from the home office. They’re somewhere to work, be in the company of others, while enjoying a coffee. Or two. Or three. In fact, the more the merrier, so far as the cafe is concerned.
But as much as I love the idea of working in a cafe, I do so infrequently. And then in short bursts — an hour tops — and I will buy at least one coffee and a cake — valued at maybe a little more than ten dollars — to make my stay at least partially worthwhile for the cafe. But even then, I’m short-changing the owners, as they’re hoping to earn closer to forty dollars an hour on the table I occupy.
Running a cafe you see, is an expensive undertaking, and WFH workers who buy a single cup of coffee, and expect to have the same table to themselves all day, are doing the cafe a distinct disservice. I’m fortunate to have a couple of hot-desk options if I don’t want to work at home, virtually negating the need to use a cafe, something I’m sure owners are grateful for. Instead, I’ll come by for a take-out coffee, and be on my way.
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coffee, economics, technology, trends, work
Apple cans electric car project, steps up focus on AI
29 February 2024
Mark Gurman, writing for Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company.
Apple workers involved in the EV project will move to the artificial intelligence division (AI). I’m no expert in matters Apple, but the electric car project never seemed to feel quite right for the company.
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artificial intelligence, technology, trends
The conduct of live music fans is just as bad as cinema-goers
25 September 2023
The recent, post pandemic lockdown, sometimes poor behaviour of film-goers has been the subject of some discussion recently. Many of the problems frustrated cinema patrons have reported stem largely from the gratuitous use of smartphones during screenings. It’s enough to make you want to stay at home and stream movies instead.
But bad, inconsiderate, audience conduct is not restricted to cinemas. The attitudes of live music fans likewise leaves much to be desired. Not only are gig-goers refusing to keep their smartphones in their pockets, they’ve also taken to throwing objects at the performers on stage. Both Taylor Swift and Harry Styles have been the target of audience-hurled projectiles, at recent shows.
But being a music show jerk is “on-trend”, says music critic Simon Price, writing for The Guardian:
I’ve been a music journalist since the mid-1980s, and one thing I can say with confidence is that people’s behaviour at gigs has become objectively and observably worse over time. These things used to be self-policing and there was an unwritten code. So, for example, if there’s a moshpit and someone falls, you stop and help them back up. If someone’s shorter than you and you’re blocking their view, you get out of their way. If you absolutely must get nearer to the stage, go round the side instead of barging through the middle. Most of these conventions simply fall under the catch-all rubric of Don’t Be a Selfish Idiot.
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film, music, smartphones, trends
Antarctica based scientists have developed their own accent
20 September 2023
A study of the accents of eleven scientists, originally from different regions and countries, who spent a winter together at an Antarctic base, found they had developed a new accent of their own:
In 2019, a team from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich studied the phonetic change in accents among 11 “winterers” recruited from the British Antarctic Survey. This included eight people born and raised in England (five in the south and three in the north), one person from the northwest US, another from Germany, and lastly an Icelandic person.
They recorded their voice at the beginning of the study, then made four more re-recordings at approximately six weekly intervals. During this time, they were working closely together, socializing with one another, and having limited contact with the outside world. Over the course of the stay, the researchers noticed significant changes in their accents.
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Should we let micro-blogging fade away with Twitter?
19 September 2023
Threads. Mastodon. Bluesky. They’re among options for fans of micro-blogging who want to leave Twitter behind. But is seeking out alternatives to Twitter really the solution? American computer scientist and author Cal Newport, writing for The New Yorker, believes we should instead move on from what he sees as the flawed idea of a global conversation platform:
Fortunately, the original small community ethos of the early Internet seems to be mounting a comeback in forms like podcasting, e-mail newsletters, Discord groups, and TalkNats.com-style discussion sites—all of which can offer a more homegrown and personal variety of online interaction.
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