This week’s blog post dives into a variety of intriguing subjects! We’re looking at Aaron Sorkin’s blame on Facebook for the Capitol riot as he crafts a ‘Social Network’ sequel, exploring how technology like VAR is impacting sports, and peeking into the future of publishing without third-party cookies. Plus, I’m excited to share tools and tips for improving productivity, the psychology behind our phone addictions, and the paradox of goal-setting. For those navigating the rough waters of tech job interviews or curious about creating a unique editorial style, there’s something for you too. And, for a lighter note, we’ve got the real Rick Steves uncovered, an opinion on AI’s threat to human writing, a fun flipbook experiment, and the basics of flow field pathfinding. Stay tuned for an eclectic mix of insights!

• Aaron Sorkin Is Writing Some Kind of ‘Social Network’ Sequel Because ‘I Blame Facebook For January 6’ Riot at the U.S. Capitol: “Look, yeah, I’ll be writing about this,” Sorkin said about the social media company’s recent years. “I blame Facebook for January 6.”
• VAR Is Ruining Football, And Tech Is Ruining Sport: Systems like the Video Assistant Referee were brought in to make sport fairer, with the aim that they would improve the product and leave fans and competitors better off. And yet, years later, with all this technology, we find ourselves up in arms more than ever.
• How publishers are optimizing their tech stacks to enhance addressability: John Martin, senior director, publisher growth solutions, PubMatic Audience addressability has gained renewed urgency as Google finally started deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome. Now, publishers must consider how signal loss will affect their businesses and ensure they are future-proofing their operations. The role of publishers’ first-party data has continued to grow in a post-cookie landscape. […]
• The Organizer for Those Who Do: Freeter – The smartest way to work on your computer.
• Getting things done (in small increments):
• The Psychology Behind Why You Can’t Put Down Your Phone: Here’s the one psychological quirk that explains why slot machines and social media algorithms are so addictive.
• The Paradox of Goals: Here lies the paradox of goals: Setting goals is a guarantee for disillusionment whether we reach the desired state or not, and yet working toward goals is an important part of evolving as a person. How can we resolve this paradox?
• Why Tech Job Interviews Became Such a Nightmare: Rising interest rates led tech companies to become more demanding of potential hires. From lowball offers to endless interviews, it’s tough out there for coders seeking jobs.
• The Rick Steves guide to life: Travel mogul. Philanthropist. Weed champion. The real Rick Steves is so much more interesting than who he plays on TV.
• 9 ways to create a unique editorial style for your articles or podcasts: Here are some thoughts to help you develop a unique style that will set you apart from the competition even in cases where you can’t rely on fonts and colors and such.
• Is AI About To Replace All Human Writing? Not So Fast | Opinion: Given how fast AI tools are improving and how much better they’re becoming at writing text that sounds human, many are beginning to wonder how far off we might be from a textual singularity.
• The Flipbook Experiment: The results of making a crowd-sourced flipbook animation.
• Flow field pathfinding: